My Past Revisited

I must confess that I regularly fantasized about being a model in my teens. Chalk it up to being ridiculously innocent and naive...and stupid; any of those will do. I was so sure back then that it was unmistakeably my destiny. My dad was at least six foot something--all legs. I had it all figured out that time would grant me my own slender pair of LONG, and shapely thighs and I would grow gracefully into a perfect babish sex symbol splattered on the front cover of Vogue. It didn't matter that my mother was sorely lacking in the height category, or that my facial features suffered from the absence of fine chiseling, or even that I was a rather "plain Jane." Answer: What Is Plastic Surgery?

I suppose I counted heavily on the fact that my father's genetic code for tall would have copied itself into my DNA long before that triumphant first race. After all, I was the fastest swimmer in a million. Why not tall swimmer as well? Yes, just a matter of time before everyone would want me, need me, beg me to strut around in all of their fancy clothing. They would fly me to Paris, London, Madrid, and the Bahamas where I would wine and dine with the rich and famous in between steamy photo sessions on stunning, private, white sandy beaches flaunting my sun baked, baby oiled, Coppertone skin in every single, skimpy, seductive, tantalizing, string bikini with the following washing instructions: "Do not immerse in water." STOP!

Even after coming to terms with the fact that the legs I'd been counting on all my life had been carelessly omitted from my genetic package (shame on you Dad for deceiving me all those years)...that tall had been programmed for some other lucky swimmer...I continued to lurk in the dark hallways of denial. Let's face it, even If I'd had the legs I needed, I was hopelessly incompetent when it came to thinking nasty in front of the camera.

See? And having refused to face the raw facts and the sound advice given to me, I fell prey to the amateur, slick talking, "wanne be" photographers who were ready and willing to suck up more than a few of my hard earned dollars to make me a star (and them rich), at a mere, five foot four inches. And so it was to be my destiny to join the ranks of the "wanna be" fashion queens in my very early 20's, and I bought it all...hook, line and sinker.

Trying desperately to look like a movie star.

"In fifteen more years, you'll be the proud mother of FOUR darling children." Not this chick.

My little girls love this one.

"Mommy, is that really you?"

"Yeah, that's when Mommy was younger."

"What happened to you?"