Learning to be pretty..

I took today off work. Woke up feeling like hell.. had some TMI issues that I'll leave at that, but suffice to say I drove to work, thinking I'd be okay, and I wasn't. So I told the boss, and came home.

I used the opportunity to do something I've been doing more often; namely, femming up. I'm trying to learn/figure out how I can be femme without going to the nines. That is, how can I be femme / look femme as if I were just a normal woman on a day off, or at work, or whatever? I want to learn how to feel/be feminine without having to dress up to the hilt in full dress/goth, wig, forms, etc. In essence, being as feminine as I can be in "real life" situations, as if I were doing a Real Life Test. For example, would today's outfit have passed the "Could I go to work looking like this? Would this outfit have been dress code appropriate?"

I've been practicing with makeup more, trying to get better with eyeshadow, trying to figure out colors I look good in, etc. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my hair, and use what I've got to the best ability - trying to find feminine hairstyles that might work with what hair I do have. I'm torn though, because I came very close to going to Wal-Mart en femme today, but at the last minute I put on my "guy" glasses and brushed my hair back. I'm worried that my perennial five o'clock shadow will give me away no matter what I try to do short of full concealing makeup.
Plus I have to admit to jealousy over those I see with really nice hair, or attractive faces, or, as in the case with onceupon all of the above -and- really kickass makeup skills! ::envy:: What I wouldn't do to have curves and the skills to do makeup and look as fabulous as she or any of my other fabulous grrlfriends do ( ::poke:: moiracoon)

I picked up a new DiVX DVD player at Wal-mart today, it handles XVID and reads discs better than my existing DVD player; I also picked up a newer, higher-resolution webcam. My old webcam is ages old, and is really low-res. It also was designed to sit on a flat surface and doesn't mount easily where I can use it for self-pictures / video conferencing. (Mostly I wanted it for self-pictures.) I also picked up a new wallet, because trying to figure out what to do with the massive leather chain wallet while en femme or trying to hide it in my purse just doesn't work. I also found a sale on Disney-themed necklaces and picked up a really cute Tinkerbell necklace along with a decorative Tinkerbell tin for $5.00.

So.. new webcam combined with a day en femme, and I had to take new pictures. Plus, folks haven't seen my new glasses yet. I picked up 2 new pairs of glasses when I broke my last pair of Sabrina glasses; unfortunately, they didn't arrive in time for MFF -- they showed up the Tuesday after. But I picked up a copper colored wire-rim oval cat-eye-esque pair that I think look rather SteamPunk-ish, (and that I'll be using for Steampunk costuming) although they're androgynous enough that I believe I can get away with wearing them while in guy mode too. I also picked up a plastic purple rimmed pair of squarish cat-eyes as well, and at first, I didn't like them; For some reason I didn't like how they looked or fit. However, today, wearing them with my "normal woman" look, I realized that they look rather nice, actually, and that my original attraction to them was not a mistake as I had begun to think. (they were replacing my original tortoise-shell pair of cat eyes, and both pairs were exceedingly cheap.)

I of course had to take pictures without glasses as well, so you could see my makeup and tell me how pretty it looks (or how awful it looks, or how bad I am at application..)
(see all of them on my FLickr acct here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabrinageek/)

Anyways, I'll save you with an lj-cut, so..

( Pictures under here! )

In other news, I leave for NJ in about 4 days! Gonna be the longest 4 days ever! ::grinning::