The Lipstick Conundrum

Sometimes I wish I read chick lit. I wish I were that sort of person. The sort that buys trashy paperback novels from the checkstand at the grocery store or seeks out the aisle of pink covers nestled among the other genre fiction. I wish I could suspend my disbelief long enough to fall for the strong, intelligent heroine too blind to see love in the form of a chisel-chinned stranger with a mysterious past and a biting wit. I wish I could rely on the happy ending, the ultimate embrace, the deus ex machina of the heart... but I'm not that kind of girl.

I wish I knew how to find lipstick that didn't gather in the cracks of my lips. I wish lip liner solved that problem. I wish I knew the secrets other girls know, the things we absorb but no one takes the time to teach. I wish I knew how to accessorize, how to keep my hair from going flat, how to roll nylons up my legs without putting my fingers through the material. I wish I could find a bra I like, and that places like Victoria's Secret didn't creep me out. I wish I could walk in heels. I wish, sometimes, that I'd go shopping with my girlfriends, and we'd coo about the salesmen and we'd try on crazy things and laugh and gossip vicious gossip and I'd buy clothes from the Gap and they'd always have my size.

There's so much I don't know about being a girl. And sometimes, I say only sometimes, I wonder about that other world where it comes au naturale for the double X chromosome. I wonder, where do I fit? Where's my role-model? And why does wine stain my lips a darker shade of red longer than any lipstick I've ever tried?

I guess those other girls can have their polish and their powder. I've got video games, alcohol, and books. Most days I'd say that's a fair trade.