My Word!

So, I'm waiting in the doctor's office, flipping through dog-eared back issues of Vogue (a magazine most definitely not written for simple moi), when I stumble across what looks like a short quip about packing for a trip. This is a story about how Jemma Kidd packs for a trip. Who? A Google search turns up that she's some fancy-pants, and I mean FANCY PANTS, countess in England that spends her free time as a make-up artist. You know, when she's not lacing up her $1,550 platforms or downing a rice-milk vegan cocktail made by the German detox expert that's glued to her side. She also has a make-up line at Target that I've completely missed. One of the photos shows her holding her six-month-old while parading on a beach in a bikini with her rock-solid abs. I hate her already, obviously. 

As I skim a little more, I figure out that this is literally a story about how this woman packs for a jaunt to her family's plantation in Barbados. She changes clothes, sorry, outfits, 5 times a day! And not because her baby spit up on her, or she got a little too sweaty. But because, "she likes to wear white to breakfast" and "a fresh bikini and caftan to lunch" and on and on. The article wraps up with a laundry list of the exotic locales she'll travel to later in the year, and how she sends all her clothes out to be cleaned and pressed and repacked, yes, repacked. Every single ensemble that lady put on cost more than my mortgage payment. (She probably doesn't know what a mortgage payment is, let alone why someone in their right mind would even think about spreading out such paltry sums of money for so long...) 

I probably sound a little bitter right about now. But I'm actually not. Well, honestly, for a fleeting five seconds I did feel a little pang of envy over such an exotic lifestyle. I'm actually quite glad that I'm not Jemma Kidd though. I'm glad that I like to dig in the dirt, get sweaty and dirty at the gym, and wear clothes that I'm not afraid of ruining. I've always felt a little like a grown-up version of Ramona Quimby, which is as far from glamorous as you can get. But I'm ok with that.

For all I know, Jemma Kidd could be a total hack with a worthless British title and so far in debt she had to create a cosmetics line for Target to hopefully bail her ass out. Either way, it's still impressive that someone has that kind of energy and patience to put so much thought into appearances. People are so fascinating.