A Good Hair Day Can Make Or Break Your Life

“I don't think we should base so much on weight, muscles, and a good hair day, but when it happens, it's nice. It really is.” 

                                                                             --Stephen Chbosky

A Good Hair Day for me is like a mystical and rare magic.  At this point in my life, I view a Good Hair Day like I do a good Twilight movie:  highly unlikely and totally unbelievable but completely sexy enough to make me stand in line to see it. 

I know Put Together women who always look like they've stepped out of the pages of a magazine.  Their polish is always perfect (on fingers AND toes; good golly, I'm lucky if one nail out of TWENTY looks presentable) and their hair immaculately coiffed.  They match their jewelry with the tones of their belt buckle and even their eye shadow reflects perfectly their elegantly pieced wardrobe.  Their shoes aren't speckled with mud and they wear the color white with perfect poise.

Put Together Women are fascinating creatures to me and I'm sure they catch me staring.  I am startled by their beauty and their...well...perfection.  I can't help but make up stories about their lives that reflect the magnificence of their toiletry habits.  Bernadette glided effortlessly over to her friends, unburdened by a single life's care...

I, on the other hand, am what is commonly referred to in the south as a "hot mess."  Even fresh out of the shower I am equally likely to look as if I were recently caught in a wind tunnel or like I've been on a ten-day African safari.  My hair is a frizzy bird's nest much of the time and, more likely than not, I have managed to lose an earring somewhere between the car and the chair in my office. And one thing is for certain:  if I am wearing a white shirt, you can guaran-damn-tee I will have a coffee stain on the portable shelf I carry around on my chest. 

So, the question for the day is this:  how do you become one of those perfectly coiffed Put Together Women?  I've done my research.

1. Purchase and read beauty magazines.  Personally, I either go for the New Yorker or for People (only when I'm at the dentist because I am SO NOT PAYING for that trash).  The New Yorker has zero beauty tips and tends to highlight characters as opposed to women who can shed 10 pounds in 15 minutes.  So, I really need to toss aside my New Yorkers for, say, Vogue.  Usually, I cannot stomach the Vogue because a) it usually has people on the cover who are so beautifully made up and airbrushed that I actually don't recognize them and b) it's, like, 500 pages of advertisements for clothing and makeup that not only I can't afford but I probably couldn't even figure out how to put it on.  But I think that elegant women must actually purchase (and, perhaps more important, READ) these magazines.
2. Stop drinking coffee.  I actually almost lost my breath entirely when I wrote that sentence.  Coffee is actually a part of my life's blood but, here's the thing:  THESE WOMEN DON'T NEED COFFEE.  I don't actually believe they ever drink anything but Evian and they certainly never eat.  I never see them with coffee stains on THEIR shirts.  I wonder if they have IV poles hidden all over their houses?  Next time I'm in the house of a Perfect Woman, I am so going to look in the closets for IV poles and/or Magic Pills that offer a full day's nutrition in one convenient pill form.  BE WARNED!
3. Care about your appearance.  I would prefer not to go around looking like a possum but I really just don't care enough to move from possum to gazelle.  Possum is more suitable for my personality and for my wardrobe.  I am someone who shops via the internet from ONE store chain only.  I do not venture into prints and I would laugh out loud if someone recommended I purchase slacks in a color other than brown or black.  I am comfortable in my solids and in my cardigans...and I just can't bring myself to care enough about style or fashion or shopping to move away from them.  
4. Have more women friends.  I am a guy's girl.  I often just don't UNDERSTAND women (even though I am one) and I am irritated by (and certainly irritate) women and their various neuroses and generally whiny behaviors.  I even irritate MYSELF.  And I do have a few women friends...but it takes a lot to get into my inner sanctum (and you know you're in it if I make fun of you....see what a DUDE I am?).  But when women DO get in, they tell me what I'm doing wrong fashion-wise.  I have a Put Together friend who is aghast that I cannot tell when she's wearing mascara vs. when she is not.  Seriously?  Am I SUPPOSED to pay attention to that stuff?  The same friend is also horrified that I have not strayed from brown eye-liner in about 20 years.  She works on me..and I am humbly grateful for her (fruitless) efforts.
5. Learn to be uncomfortable in your clothing.  Yes, that's right.  I said UNcomfortable.  To me, there is absolutely nothing I like better than to throw on a pair of yoga pants and a hoodie I've had for over 20 years.  I feel so good and so cozy.  But women who have good hair days and who are always put together only wear yoga pants when they're ACTUALLY DOING YOGA.  
6. Do more yoga.  I think this is just a hard-and-fast rule.   This is so you can converse with other Put Together Women about where you "do yoga" and how often.  You can then size up your opponent's/friend's taut yoga muscles and feel significantly superior when yours are obviously leaner.
7. Learn to feel superior.  Are Put Together women superior BECAUSE they are put together or are they Put Together because they feel superior?  I think this is a chicken-and-egg theory so I'm just going to go with feeling superior because it is SO NOT going to work the other way around for me.   There is a smooth, gliding walk that goes along with the superiority thing that will be difficult for me to master because I trip over specks of dust in the carpet and bang my face into doorways on a regular basis. 
8. Believe you CAN be Put Together.  I get to this last one and I freeze.  I cannot be That Woman.  I don't think anyone would recognize me with matching clothing, shiny shoes and hair that lays smoothly in only ONE direction.  It's just...not me.  I honestly don't think it's physically POSSIBLE for me to be one of these women.  You, my Put Together friends, are genetic mutants put here to taunt the rest of us with your beauty and your utter perfection.

I suppose I'll have to settle for just being me...a plain old hot mess with ketchup stains (even though I really don't even EAT ketchup...how does THAT happen?) and frizzy hair and smudged-up eye makeup.  I'll try to clean up for fancy dress parties and I'll do my best to glide and keep my tongue planted firmly in the roof of my mouth (my On-Again Boyfriend swears by this rule...he thinks it makes me fall down less). And I'll continue to stare at my Put Together friends and marvel at their seemingly effortless (albeit certainly uncomfortable) style.

But, boy, a good hair day sure could take me a long way to happiness...