It’s really hard to determine how it is that Audrey and I got so egotistical. And, no… we’re not that self-obsessed [speak for yourself, Lillian]. Not in the slightest. We just realize that we are attractive people. But, for me at least, it wasn’t always that way. I was a really cute little kid. Seriously adorable: soft, curly blonde hair, blue eyes, the cutest little smile you’ve ever seen… I would melt your fucking heart. I had this amazing thing where I would tilt my head to the side in every picture. My god, even thinking about it makes my heart melt, and it’s pretty damn icy. Just ask my boyfriend.

I don’t know exactly when it was, but sometime within the period of my ninth and tenth year, I just felt apart. My cuteness was still there, but it was overshadowed with braces, frizzy curls, and super skinniness. It probably didn’t help that I swore a lot, hated people, and just read a lot of books. (Yes, at nine. Twelve years later, the swearing, hating, and reading remain.) I had a couple of the middle school “boyfriends”, partially because there was something cute about me, and I wasn’t an idiot, but most of them got over me when they realized that I wasn’t going to make up for my dorkiness by having sex with them.

Then, high school rolled around. Still skinny, still had a large mass of curls on the top of my head (lost the braces… at least for the first three and a half years). Hung out with theatre kids and stoners, which means I spent my time with catty girls/gay guys and slackers respectively. ‘Nuff said. Still awkward, only now I smoked a lot of pot. Met a couple of pretty awesome guys, including my first love, and I think that had a lot to do with my physical “blossoming”.

Oh my god, I just said blossoming.

I wish I could say that I had this miraculous realization that I’m attractive now. I got my braces off (for the second time) right before my 21st birthday, stayed thin, but got one hell of a chest, and stopped smoking pot. Okay, I didn’t stop, but I did cut down significantly. I think the big thing is really just that I’m sort of happy. Maybe I am not always happy, but I think that had a huge part in it. That, and the sex addiction. I think copious amounts of sex does wonders for one’s physical appearance. And love. That’s done a lot too.

There’s a funny catch to my attractiveness that Audrey doesn’t have: I still see myself as the chronically ugly duckling. It’s sort of funny for me to think that people look at me now. Sometimes, I think they’re looking at me because I have food on my face (which, in some instances, is probably the case) until I realize they’re starting to cat call. No one cat calls a girl with chili on her face! Oh shit. Well, that’s just life, I guess.

In the long run, I both love and hate my looks. It gets things done for me, and allows me to slack off when I feel like it, but nobody ever thinks I can amount to anything. I’m seen as a beautiful idiot. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. But, I have learned that even though people don’t take me seriously, they do fear me. And I really like that. Almost as much as I loved the looks on the faces of the assholes I went to high school with when they saw me. I gained weight in the best possible places; they just gained weight. Sucks to be them. For me, it was fucking priceless.

When did I realize that I was really really really ridiculously good-looking? Gosh. I don’t think it was until freshmen year of high school. You see, like Lily, I too had an awkward stage, but mine lasted the majority of my life. Like most babies, I was cute. I had a head full of curly black hair and I was cute chubby. However, chubby can only be cute for so long.

I was fat all through grade school. In the fourth grade, I found out that I was pretty much blind (and as the years went by I became gradually blinder); so I had to get really thick awkward nerdy glasses. Then when I was 11 I had to get braces (but those weren’t bad since it was cool to have braces). As a kid, I looked like a cross between Lilo (from Lilo and Stitch) and Ugly Betty. And to top it all off, I was awkwardly tall for my age. I was just a goofy looking kid. I wasn’t out casted by my peers, but it was understood that I wasn’t pretty. I was the girl with the personality and brains. Real cool, right? No, not so much. Those girls suck. But I did have boyfriends (granted, they weren’t the boys I had crushes on, but I had to take what I could get) and stuff because I had a “good personality”. I was so weird looking that to this day, there are virtually no pictures of me from ages 3 to 13 at my parent’s house. I hid all the photo albums. I was just a mess.

Then I got into (and really good at) sports (volleyball, basketball, karate, etcetera) and ate less (considerably less). I got really into working out for some reason. Also, I had my growth spurt and hit puberty. I started to thin out a little bit and lose my baby fat. I started reading girly magazines and taught myself how to put on my make up correctly and how to dress as fabulous as I do. I learned that a straightener can do wonderful things to your hair (with caution). I traded in my glasses for some contacts. I got the braces off the weekend before I started high school. I kept my winning personality, wit and charm (obviously). And apparently, I became one hot tamale.

Like I said, I did not realize that I was a regulation hottie until high school. I just thought of myself as the same awkward kid I was growing up. I was the DUFF (designated ugly fat friend) all my life. I was a super late bloomer. I didn’t know how to talk to people in general, let alone boys. So it was a little weird getting attention from the opposite sex, at first. But I got used to it real quick–especially, when the attention was coming from the older boys. You see, older boys had cars. I wasn’t a fan of taking the bus home. Do the math. My first boyfriend was 5 years older than me and to honest, I started dating him because I just needed a ride home. It wasn’t until much later that I decided that I kind of dug him. I actually think that this realization is where my love of older guys stemmed from (I only date older guys and it’s rare that I have a thing for a youngster).

Needless to say, I was running with an older crowd and I thought I was the bomb diggity. They did nothing but feed my ego. They would always tell me how cute and pretty I was and how so and so wanted to “hollar” at me (because that’s what the kids used to say). This is when I learned how to juggle boys. As a young teen, I already knew that one boy is never enough. And if I was dating someone, I always had someone waiting in the wing when we broke up. That’s just how cool I was.

When I went back to my grade school, no one recognized me. You better believe that the boys that I had crushes on were kicking themselves in the ass. I dated their new high school buddies just so I could prance around and show them what they missed out on (I love doing things out of spite). Half of my extended family didn’t even recognize me. My poor brother was all of a sudden the kid with the hot sister. I loved every second of it.

And I think that the bigger my ego became, the bitchier I became. I was so mean to ugly people. They were just so scary looking and I didn’t understand why they existed. I was a smart kid, but I stopped trying in school and just wing classes (and still ace them). I became more interested in boys and when I was going to see my boyfriend so I could sneak him into my room in the middle of the night to fool around. That’s all I cared about. For some reason, if I didn’t get laid it was the end of the world. I mean, technically, it still is, but back then I thought that I would die if I wasn’t getting it like every waking moment. Also, I thought I was the balls because I was the first one in my group of friends to lose the v-card. I scored some points there because all of a sudden I became this wise all-knowing person. As Lily stated earlier, for some reason, sex does wonders for people and attractive people need more sex than average looking people because they can.

Then there was the point where I just got ridiculously full of myself and just became a total bitch–think Cady Heron when she became the Queen Bee in Mean Girls. And I know that you think I am exaggerating, but I’m not. I was so conceited that I literally carried pictures of myself in my wallet. After a while, I just kind of got sick of seeing my face everywhere I looked, so I toned it down a notch. I’m still relatively bitchy and still take a lot of pictures of myself, but I don’t carry them around in my wallet. I have a my space for that. DUH!

Nowadays, I know that I’m not ugly. I actually think that I am pretty ridiculously good-looking. I’m definitely one of the most vain people that I know. I know that I get away with a lot of the things that I do because of the way I look. I know I get a lot of the things I get because I’m flippin’ adorable. I just don’t rub it in people’s faces as much as I did when I first realized it, I guess. Sure, I can leave my place without make up on and still turn a few heads. I have really good skin and could pull off the no make up thing. But if that’s what I have to do to help people feel good about themselves, so be it. I’m all for helping people build up their confi… and… uh…

…what was I talking about? I totally lost my train of thought. I totally just caught my reflection in the mirror.

But yeah, yay for being cute!

Awww. We are ridiculous.