Happy Halloween!

Me and my friend Debbie dressed up as loofah's last weekend.

Happy Halloween! I hope you're all warm, safe, and dry. The weather hasn't been so great this week, has it? When I celebrated Halloween on Saturday, I got drenched, but at least I didn't have a hurricane to contend with (I'm looking at you, Sandy).

Anyhow, funny story: Shortly after I published this blog post about body image and Halloween costumes, I found myself waiting in line at Joann Fabric to purchase 25 yards of tulle. I had seen a couple of girls at the 5k dressed up as bath loofah's and I thought it was such an amazing idea that I had to be one, too. Apparently, I wasn't the only one. I got stuck in line behind another group of would-be bath-poufs who were having a really difficult time deciding which color fabric to buy. They seemed miffed that I had taken the last few yards of purple.

"Ugh, I can't be light pink! I'm not tan enough!" one of the girls said.

Of course, in my head, my first instinct was to think, wow, wasn't I just talking about this? My second thought was, what is this girl talking about, she's already eight shades darker than me.

As the bath loofah fiasco continued (they had the nice lady working behind the counter measure out 20 yards of light pink, only to tell her they wanted to do blue instead), I couldn't help but wonder why we sometimes have such skewed perceptions of ourselves. When I see olive skinned women berating themselves for being too pale, skinny women berating themselves for being too fat, etc. I wish I could smack some sense into them and let them see what they look like from where I'm sitting. I know I'm guilty of self-hate, too, but it just kills me when people beat themselves up for not being tan enough. I lived with that feeling for so long, and I wish there was something I could do to prevent other people from feeling the same way.

Side note: Totally reminds me of that scene from Mean Girls where The Plastics are huddled around the mirror, commiserating over all their physical "flaws." Enjoy!