My Girly Girl

I could charitably be described as a tomboy. I wear jeans and sneakers whenever possible, shave my legs semi-annually, and last bought makeup in 1996. I totter on my sole pair of heels, which measure in at a whopping 3/4 of an inch high. It’s not that I have an ideological problem with the trappings of femininity--I simply avoid them, because they scare me. Whenever I find myself cornered in a perfumed temple of womanhood such as a hair salon, my palms sweat, my pulse races and my thoughts are reduced to elemental, animalistic fight-or-flight reactions.

So of course I have given birth to the girliest of girls.

She kicks off her jeans and begs for dresses and tights. She lobbied for ballet slippers for two weeks, and had a tantrum when I wouldn’t buy her a white dress for her pretend wedding. Her favorite cartoon characters are Disney’s Princesses, who as far as I can tell have the free will and initiative of gnats. When I broke down and bought her pink lip gloss, she covered her entire face with the stuff and spent the next hour analyzing herself in the bathroom mirror.

The problem came to a head for me today when I had to call a friend to ask her if I was allowed to wear a blue shirt with a black skirt. (Let me remind you that I am THIRTY YEARS OLD.) It looked ok to me, but I was vaguely aware of some sort of blue and black rule. Aren’t I not supposed to wear blue with black? I had a friend in Seattle who thought I was clueless because I didn’t match my socks to my shirt. Where did she learn that? Did they teach us in school and I just missed it, the way I never learned fractions because I was reading “Ramona” books under my desk in Mrs. Geary’s class?

I don’t think so. I think that I, being female, am supposed to have some deep, genetically based understanding of the rules of clothing, facepainting and general self-decoration. The problem is, I DON’T. So what am I going to do when she asks me how to pluck her eyebrows, or what the difference is between “matching” and “going with”? I have spent some serious insomniatic musing time on this subject. I am prepared to take a course, or bring in outside consultants.