Michelle Williams

As part of my ongoing campaign of sassiness, I am trying to inject a bit more "oomph" in my appearance. Overall, this isn't that hard. Although I've never worn much makeup or had very elaborate hairstyles, I've always had strong ideas about my hair and clothes, to the point of often having stated theories and philosophies about them. I like to think about clothes in terms of "outfits", which you would wear out to school/work/dinner/the grocery store, as opposed to "just clothes" that you'd wear around the house - though I see no reason why those shouldn't be cute and colour-coordinated, too.

However, for the last year or so, I've been working in architecture practices, and it may be a cliche and by no means universal, but architects do generally wear a lot of black and have very serious black-framed glasses. I wear black-framed glasses but they aren't heavy enough to be very serious. Anyway, being around architects has meant that I've somehow ended up with a very dark wardrobe. I say somehow; last autumn I went out shopping with a list that read: trousers, blouses, jumpers - black, navy, grey only. I think that had something to do with it.

So I'm currently re-injecting colour into my routine. The first big success has been red. Boy, do I like red. In fact, last week I had to acknowledge that it is my official favourite colour, edging out pink/green, a combo that has been number one for probably 8 years now. This acknowledgement came after we'd gone out for our friend Sean's birthday and I wore a red skirt, a red t-shirt and a red flower in my hair. It was kind of hard to miss - like a red flag, if you will.

So that's the wardrobe component sorted. I've not made any real changes to my make-up routine, since I don't like to wear too much, though I am now wearing mascara every day. Well, on days when I leave the house. But today, I'm focusing on getting a new haircut. This is such a fraught subject. In March, I went to a very fancy salon and got what turned out to be the most expensive haircut of my life. The cut itself was pretty pricey, but it was the colour (which I didn't love) and tipping the stylist, the colourist, the guy who washed my hair and the girl who gave me the aromatherapy mini-massage that put the expense over the top. But I loved my hair! It was sort of messy on purpose, so it never looked like it was messed up. Does that make sense? Matthew said he thought it was the best haircut I've ever had (though he might have been trying to help me feel better about spending £187 at the salon). And, yes, it really did cost that much. Check the exchange rate - are you choking on whatever you were eating/drinking? After a while, I went back, but the second time around, it just wasn't as good. It was a good haircut, but not magical and maybe not worth £85 (no colour that time). Since then, I've had a trim at a cheapy little place in Covent Garden, but it's getting to the point where I have to do something. I don't want a drab, yucky haircut. I want something cute. Something sassy. Something a little bit like Michelle Williams is sporting these days.

I consulted Matthew for his thoughts, but he had never heard of Michelle Williams, so I had to give him the following primer:

Michelle Williams is the tragic ex of Heath Ledger and tragic mother of his tragic little girl Matilda. (Does that seem like a funny name for a half-Austrialian child to anyone else? Isn't it like Matthew and me naming our kid Britannia or Yankee Doodle Dandy?) They met when she played his tragic wife in the tragic Broke Back Mountain. She has recently been spotted having dinner with Spike Jonze - I don't know if it was tragic or not. I also read that she is rumoured to keep a diary. Undoubtedly contains lots of tragedy. Oh, and she used to be on Dawson's Creek. Is that tragic? Her ex-boyfriend died, Katie Holmes became a zombie (or not - not looking for a lawsuit here!) and James van der Beek and Joshua Jackson turned out to be much less attractive as grown men than as teenage boys. Could the show be cursed?!? More evidence: the WB network no longer exists and Paula Cole's career hasn't exactly been red-hot lately. Ooh - spooky!

But curses aside, Michelle's hair is pretty cute. I'm going print out the picture, draw on a side part because I can't wear a fringe/bangs, and see if I can get a stylist to make something pretty happen. Exciting, huh? And once he'd seen her picture, Matthew did say that it looked like a haircut that might well suit me, so that's a ringing endorsement from him.

On the subject of eyewear, I feel like if I'm going to wear glasses, I don't want to try to hide the fact by wearing invisible wire framed ones. I'm not ashamed! Just very near-sighted. My friend Krystal and I had a conversation in Scotland that illustrates my feelings on the subject:

Drunk man (thinking he's flirting): Can I see you without your glasses?

Us: Er, whatever. (raising glasses but not actually taking them off)
Drunk man: Wow, you're really pretty. Why do you wear glasses?
Us: So we can see better.
Drunk man: Yeah, but why don't you wear contacts?
Us: To prevent us being attractive to people like you.

This happened some years ago and I can't remember which of us he was trying to flirt with, as we are both really pretty, with or without glasses. But the same thing happened again, almost verbatim, in Austin once when I was out '80s-retro-dancing with my friend Julie. But, for all my fist-in-air, "we're near-sighted, we're here, get used to it!" rhetoric, I am starting to entertain the idea of getting my eyes lasered. I've always been against it, out of a combination of fear of new medical procedures, squeamishness at the thought of someone messing with my eyes, and glasses-wearing pride. But I would really like to be able to wear non-prescription sunglasses.