I was a number of things in high school: thin, athletic, creative, imaginative, and fashion forward(this was easy to be in a small town). But living north-east of central Minnesota, amongst a sea of Lutheran Scandinavians, I could never quite capture cool.
One self-conscious 8th grade day, as I made my way into the cafeteria girl's lavatory, I passed a crowd of star-struck female adolescents under the tutelage of the 9th grade hopelessly 'cool' girl. Her name was Ann. She was blond(with frosted tips), she wore city slicker pink lipstick, her jeans were shredded beyond repair, she was 'developed', and she was ratting her hair. I surveyed the scene and realized very quickly, that I was very unlike Ann. I was skinny and underdeveloped. My hair was devastatingly dark, extremely unfrostable. My lips were too red to hide under the hip paleness of City Slicker Pink lipstick,my dad would have kicked my trash had I worn jeans with holes in them that close to my derriere, and my hair was too heavy to rat.
Ann moved to Alaska that summer leaving a vacancy for a new cool girl. This vacancy was soon filled by someone named Carrie, or Amy, or even Delray; never by a Mormon named Martha.
Somehow I navigated my way through high school without being able to catch coolness. Ironically, my so-called glory days came after I had returned from a mission.I had more dates and admirers than I wanted and it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Luckily though, I had one last shot at achieving 80's stardom.
Last night as I frayed my paint splattered t-shirt, turned my collar up, placed my feet in lace pumps(jealous?), and teased the heck out of my hair, I thought(as Wendy would say), "I look freakin' awesome".
After the hair 'fell' and with my extremely tall(seriously 6'2"?!)counselors.
I partied like a 16 year old and sang and danced my heart out. And at the end of the night, with my baby on my 36 year old hip, I made my way up the stairs and heard the 'cool' young woman say to me, "You're a really good dancer Sister Griffiths and I really like your hair".
Maybe I'm closing in on cool after all.
16 comments:
You look rad!
Is that an 80's banana?
Maybe you are closing in on cool, but seriously, once you are "Sister Griffiths" I just don't know that cool is attainable. Now, if you could get them to call you Sister Martha - then you might be cool.
Love the outfit - you will probably be remembered as one of the coolest Young Women leaders.
I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!
can i sit at your table?
you looked like SO TOTALLY AWESOME!!!
Oh my, you look so fantastic. Like totally rad. And I'd choose thin over cool any day. ;)
xoxo, m
I've always thought you were "cool":)
What a classic post. You are the most entertaining person. When can we do lunch? And you have to promise that you'll rat your hair for lunch. ;)
i think you look so AWESOME.
i wish i could be in YW...
you are looking pretty hot martha! i love the look...
hey, when you get a sec, call me! hopefully you still have my home number and leave me your new numbers so we can chat. mindy said you saw you at smith's!
The Cool YW was right, I love your hair!
Nothing like serving with the youth to make you feel ultracool and popular. They are all Martha-wannabe's, I'm sure!
So you call that hair "ratted" because that's what my hair looks like everyday-especially if I try and straighten it. I guess "cool" just comes to me naturally- and BTW growing up and even now I've always thought you were "one of the cool ones" and someone you could only try and be like. I wish I had a younger sister.
Love it!! Makes me want to dress up in some fancy 80's wear to remember the high quality fashion I had....ahh permed hair, two tone jeans and a t-shirt clip, what more could a girl want?
You have big beautiful hair Martha. It doesn't need ratting. It doesn't need anything!
Well, it isn't Lola, but...
;-)
You look GREAT! How fun. I honestly couldn't tell in that first picture if that was you now or then. You rock!
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