But does Manolo Blahnik make glass slippers?

Last night was the inagaural meeting of the “Winter Ball Committee" for MeetIn Chicago. My 30th year is proving to be a real wacko trans-warp "Freaky Friday" exchange with my teenage self.

Exhibit A: I will be attending or have seen 2 concerts I desparately wanted to see in my more formative years (Siouxsie Sue/Budgie over Labor Day and The Pixies in November.)

Exhibit B: I’m on the “Ball” committee…sheesh, I was never on a committee dance or otherwise in high school; attended Homecoming freshman year to watch the boy I had a crush on dance with someone else and that was it, not another dance in the remaining 4-years. Now, I’m a sub-committee group lead, soon to attend my first formal, sooner still to go shopping for my first formal dress (yes, I’ve had cocktail dresses and those appropriate for more reverant occasions…but never a “ball gown”)…it’s a tad unnerving!!!

It brings to mind a conversation with my friend H, which came up after viewing a section of her film Numinmata. She similarly has fairly tomboyish tendencies, and is a fabulous feminist in the pleasant, non-militant sense. The part she wanted me to see was about feeling weird about being gussied up for her impending wedding. Being extremely low-maintenance, she had pondered some nice comfortable “wedding khaki shorts” and clean sneakers instead of the requisite meringuey dress of white poofiness. Her family was not nearly as amused, to say the least. Over a weekend she went to see the movie Elizabeth, and it provided her with a new take on “The Feminine Ideal." Here was a Queen, one of the most powerful women at the time, not only letting herself be fussed over, but INSISTING on it. By taking the primping to the nth degree, she turned herself into an icon of worship even more powerful than the woman beneath the mask.

Overkill yes, but it put to rest some of my feelings of uneasiness. I CAN be girly and glittery and maintain my principles, even if they’re sitting underneath a sparking tiara. And ooh, do I crave one...Sandra Dee and Gloria Steinem are having a slugfest inside my cranium, it’s gonna be one hell of a fight!