Way to Glow

Thank you, lovely women, for sharing your bad hair days with me last week. You cheered me right up, and I intend to reread your comments every time I start to feel a little awkward and frumpy and middle-school—that is to say, every day for the foreseeable future.

Because I was giving a public reading that night, I had a vested interest in being not terrible to look at AND not having the self-confidence of a hamster. I nervously took myself shopping—not for maternity clothes, which were sure to make me feel frumpy but for regular clothes, which is still a dicey proposition for someone (this someone) with a fifteen week belly. I searched for the perfect drapey top, to no avail. The perfect stretchy skirt? No dice. The perfect uterus-obscuring dress? No.

I did manage to find some concealer (hello, pregnancy acne) as pale as I am and a cute little bottle of “all over shimmer liquid luminizer” with tiny sparkles in it. I’m a makeup novice, unable to apply anything other than lip gloss properly, but I was determined to buy something other than spackle for my acne on this cheer-myself-up shopping expedition. Being fond of sparkles, I asked the young, black-clad, heavily made-up Sephora woman what “liquid luminizer” is for.

“It’s a luminizing cream,” she clarified. "A luminizer."

(Which for some reason I kept misreading/hearing/thinking as “volumizer” and picturing my face getting bigger and bigger the more I applied.)

“Is ‘luminzing’ a word?” I didn’t ask. “So….”

“It, you know, luminizes you.”

???

“Makes you glowy.”

Sold! I might not feel glowy, but for $28 (!!???!?!) I’m going to look it, dammit.