Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Tuesday, Oct. 07, 2003 - 9:43 p.m.

Warning: while this is not itself actually in bold face - it just looks like it is on account of the type size - today's entry employs gratuitous use of bold type and asterisks. Caveat Lector.

So, this is what I was thinking today:

When are Pat Benatar headbands going to make a comeback?
Seriously. Every other fashion trend to have shoved its way thru my heretofore not noticeably long life has made its way back into fashion except this one...and the accompanying leg warmers and aerobic outifts Benatar also helped popularize. And that Flashdance-off-the-shoulder ripped sweatshirt thing hasn't resurfaced yet, either, but that's not what I'm preoccupied with here. No, the subject is headbands. And not just *any* headbands; nay, my friends, Pat Benatar headbands. Skinny, twisted, oftentimes of contrasting colors, Pat Benatar headbands. Where are they? Where have they been? When will they be back? I looked for a picture on the web to show those of you who aren't familiar of the objects of whence I speak, but even those are in short supply.

What's up with *that*?

If you search the web, what turns up is a variety of pages having to do with traditional headbands. Those plain, boring headbands which girls thru history have used to hold their hair back. YAWN. I am talking daring, people. Cutting edge. A headband which has no function, it just looks cool, which is its function. I *did*, however, find this, which just scares me. The ad for it assures me "This elegant headpiece will give you warmth and a unique style that everyone will adore! Wear over ears, around head and as scarf. One size fits all."

One size fits all.

It's a 4" wide pastel mink headband 24" long. Good GOD, people, how ever-lovin' big does your head have to be to need a 24" long, 4" wide pastel mink headband??? And if it *were* that big, WHY would you accentuate it with a pastel mink headband? Of mink from the US? I mean, I don't wear fur, so admittedly, I am not the best judge of quality of the furs of the world, but it seems to me the best mink would come from Siberia, or some other place where the weather gets nice and cold and nasty little mammals like mink need lots of lovely fur so they don't freeze to death or something. But like I said, I'm not a big wearer of the fur, so it's not like I care. My favorite quote about fur came from Valerie Perrine, who said something to the effect of mink being nasty, hateful little animals who lead nasty, hateful little lives, and the least they can do is give up their miserable skins to make the world a prettier place. Only, she said it better. But I know I got that nasty hateful little animals who lead nasty hateful little lives part right. It's the end part I can't remember.

And once again, I have digressed.

The point is that Pat Benatar contributed mightily to the vast wasteland that was 80's fashion - of which Kylie Minogue** and Day Glo colors are a particularly horrifying part - and since we're seeing a return of those fashions Madonna made popular, I think it only fair Pat Benatar get her fair share of the action. She is, afterall, the far better and much cooler singer.

I'm just sayin'.

**Kylie Minogue does not, strictly speaking, actually qualify as 80's fashion, but she is particularly horrifying, so I figured it was fair game to toss her in there. Bygones.

The other thing I was thinking today is

Damn, that Billy Joel rocks.
I was listening to the Glass Houses album at the time, on tape, because my stupid cd player in my car crapped out on me and reverts constantly to static, unless I hold the remote in my hand every second of the drive, with my thumb lightly resting on the pause button. If I do that, the damn thing never skips or nothin'. But the very millisecond I set the damn remote down to scratch my nose or turn the radio down or anything like that, the whole sound system goes to hell. It sucks, and rather than suffer the irritation, I have taken to listening to tapes, which means, since the last tape I made was sometime in, oh, 1991, all my tapes are of 80's music or albums from said decade. Which is cool in that I have a whole library of retro music and don't have to suffer thru the crap that passes for flashback "music" in the LA area, but it also means I've heard every single song on every single tape at least a million and 3 times. Which is not as cool as it sounds. So I am hard-pressed at times to find music I can tolerate for longer than 5 minutes on the 45 minute drive to work and then again on the return. Today's winner was a 90 minute tape with Glass Houses on one side and Pat Benatar's Crimes of Passion on the other. I would like to point out at this juncture that the Pat Benatar headband thing has been bothering me for a few weeks now and was not triggered very unoriginally by the listening of her album, albeit briefly, this morning. And actually, I think the Billy Joel thing hit me yesterday when I was listening to a compilation tape I made in like 1989 that I titled "Basically Basics" and made when I was really, *really* sick of technopop. In fact, I had already made a tape called Sick of Technopop, but I don't know where that one is. Sadly, a lot of my music - all the really cool stuff - is missing. I am still mourning it and walking around wearing black, so please do not bring up Rush, Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell lp, or any album released in the early to mid-eighties by solid rock and roll bands or even such alternative bands as English Beat or The Church. ::sigh:: I miss English Beat Service. I even miss REM. But only the early stuff. Take a break, Driver 8; you can't get there from here. Loyal Jeff, he knows the lowdown: when the world is a monster, bad to swallow you whole, stand in the place where you live--HELP ME, I CAN'T STOP.

Anyway, I was listening yesterday to my compilation tape and how Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies and the king and the queen of the prom, and damn it, that song is a damn good song, not to mention that totally rippin' piano thingie (I am not so musical I know the actual term...riff?) leading into the saga of Brenda and Eddie, and I really just think Billy Joel has been underappreciated in his time and is just the friggin' Bomb. And that's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie, I can't tell you more coz I told you already, and here we are, wavin' Brender and Eddie goodbye.

Which lastly brings me to the subject of shoes.

What is it about women and shoes?
Why are we so drawn to them? Even I, who mock without mercy my friends' propensity for shoe accrual, want more shoes than I have, or even wear. Shoes are like lipstick. I feel if I could just find the right pair of shoes, my life would be complete and all would fall into place. Understand, I don't want tons of shoes, nor do I think the shoes themselves will do the fixing, it's just that if I could find that one pair of shoes that is not only comfortable but looks totally cool and hip and goes with *everything*, I will have found all that is right and good with the world. I will always look pulled together and hip, like I *have* all the answers. Like no matter what, I am cool, because damn it, I have cool shoes. And it's not really that I want other people to think I have cool shoes, *I* just want to think I have cool shoes. I used to have cool shoes, but I wore them until the soles were shot, and indeed, were in such bad condition that I couldn't even have them resoled, they had come so undone from themselves. ::sigh:: I really miss those shoes. I bought them for work, and they had to be black leather lace up boots that came over my ankles, and it was July in friggin' Dallas, for cryin' out loud, when there was nary a pair of black lace up boots to be had, over the ankles or otherwise. I found the last pair in a shoe store in North Dallas, in size 7, and I am an 8 and a half. Take rubbing alcohol, the shoe guy said, and rub it inside before you put them on; it makes the leather stretch easier. Little did we know there was plastic reinforcing the toe. But I wore them unbelievably painful night after painful night, and in a few weeks, they fit like a glove. Like the most beautiful, tailormade, perfect Katie glove. They were the most comfortable, wonderful shoes in the entire world. Yep; I miss those shoes. I held onto them for the longest time, moving them from place to place, where they would sit in my closet and only trot out for special occasions, their soles held together with duct tape. A friend finally had to take them from me and promise to find them a caring home, and they were still unbearably hard to get rid of, because, like, I'm not stupid; I know they went to that big shoe heaven in the sky. They deserve to; they were really awesome shoes. Ever since, my life has been one long fruitless search to - I can't say replace them, because they can never be replaced, but well, to try to fill in the gap. Like putty in that doorknob hole in a formerly perfect wall. The more female of my readers will understand what I mean there. The rest of you may roll your eyes now. I have to go. I'm all verklempt.

Peace out,
Katie

1 comments so far

They ruled the high school. Decided what was in, who was popular; it was like the
Soviet Secret Police if they cared a lot about shoes.

*HUGS* TOTAL! give katiedoyle more *HUGS*
Get hugs of your own

Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008