Growing up is an odd thing

I've never been much of a reader of junk books. Garbage like Babysitters' Club, Twilight, and Gossip Girl have never held my attention nor been of much interest to me. Rather, my zone-out-over-Christmas-or-summer-break books have always fallen in the Amy Tan/Secret Life of Bees category. They're easy reads yet they have more than one layer to sift through and I don't feel my brain rotting away while I flip through the pages.

One such book, which I'd argue is of a slightly lower caliber than Ms. Tan's books, is Love Walked in by Marisa De Los Santos (a Delawart). This book is the prequel to the book Belong to Me, which I read after my mom. She bought the book because the cover featured several sets of rainboots lined up in a row and we're total suckers for that kind of advertising!

Anyway, in that book the protagonist makes a comment about how French women always look put together. She specificially says that they can quickly tie a silk scarf around their neck and it falls in that perfect-you-could-never-achieve-this-flawlessly-careless-look-in-a-million-years kind of way. Well, this afternoon, while walking back from the Stanford center, I bought a silk(ish) scarf and I am going to try to achieve that look.

For those of you who don't know, this is a big step for me. Let me give you a bit of history:
For the majority of high school, I sported jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt, which apparently aren't couture or high fashion. When I went to Tahoe over Christmas break junior year of high school, my sister and best friend Jaclyn raided my closet, removed everything they dubbed "unacceptable," and then made a chart of everything I could and could not wear together a la Granimals. While I did not appreciate this blatant display of paternalism and disrespect for private property, I did appreciate the helpful/interventionist sentiment behind it. It's funny because come junior year of high school, my little sister Emma confessed that she now understood why I wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and T-shirt everyday--junior year is crazy busy and sometimes there's just not time to focus on fashion details.

Now, beginning senior year of high school and freshman year of college, I tried to start wearing scarves. No, not tiny silk scarves around my neck. I simply tried to wear normal scarves. However, while trying to wear these fashion accessories, I faced a problem. This adjustment process felt exactly like when I first started to wear a bra. That is, when I first started wearing a bra, all I could think was "oh my god, oh my god, I'm wearing a bra." And I felt that way until my older friend Lauren told me to try sleeping in it to grow accusotmed, which actually worked. So, my initial attempts at wearing a scarf were highly distracting because all I could think was "oh my god, oh my god, I'm wearing a scarf! I wonder if it's falling properly? I wonder if everybody thinks it's weird that I'm putting extra effort in today? Should I try to make the scarf perfectly symmetric or should I go for casual asymmetry?" Basically, wearing a scarf was too stressful, so I abandoned it.

Then, something miraculous happened! I went to London/Paris over spring break last year and it was cold. I brought a scarf and needed to wear it. With the help of Jaclyn and Laurel, I learned how to wrap/tie it so it looked nice but not too planned and, with a bit of practice, I became accustomed to scarving it up. All junior year, I have sported scarves left and right with hardly a second thought. Now, the scarves I've worn have primarily been for utilitiarian purposes of warmth. However, I am now feeling confident enough to try the purely-for-show scarf. We'll see how it goes--wish me luck!