Diana...Oprah...and me (m)

There are two people I admire: Princess Diana and Oprah Winfrey.  It's no coincidence that I've gravitated towards these two individuals.  I loved Diana's syle and spunk and I felt we were kindred spirits linked by our generous-sized noses and the fact we each have two sons.  With Oprah, I love her intelligence, toughness and emotional vulnerability.  I relate to her struggle with her weight.

If you were to come to my house, you would see many books on these women.  They are in my bookshelves and on my coffee tables.  I buy them at T.J. Maxx, Marshall's, and the dollar bin at Barnes & Nobles.  My nieces and friends give them to me as gifts (when my nieces went to London they sent a huge postcard with Diana's face on it and addressed it to "Lady M".  It started with: "Hello from beyond...").

When Diana died, I was distraught.  I lay on my sofa for three days, crying.  My sons -who were 8 yrs and 4yrs old at the time-asked if I loved Diana more than I loved them.  That's the only thing that made me get off the couch.

For the past few months, I've been staring at the Oprah and Diana books on my coffee table.  Interestingly, they each are wearing sequin tops.  It made me want to get one.  As the holidays approached, I noticed sequins were "hot" this season.  I looked everywhere for one, but there were none to be had in my size.

Enter HSN.

Flipping through the channels two weeks ago, I saw these nice sequin tops on HSN.  I never ordered anything from HSN, but these were exactly what I had been looking for.  They came in black, silver, brown and purple.  They even had my size.    They were sold either as sleeveless knit shells or sweater sets. I figured I'd look like a drag queen in the sweater set, so I ordered the sleeveless black (what other color is there?) top.  It arrived the day before my mother's birthday party.  It looks just like Oprah's.

I took it out of the package and it looked small.  I tried it on.  It fit.  I put my nice black cashmere buttonless sweater over it.  Perfect.  I put make up on.  More perfect.  I put my drop pearl earrings on.  Pluperfect.

I have a picture of me in the sweater and I'll show it to you someday.  Meanwhile, I printed out a copy and put it in one of the books.  Maybe someday, someone will make the connection between my idols and me.