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You have no idea how cool I am.

I am so cool that teenagers at my ballet studio emulate me.

That's right. Teenagers. Human spawn at their most haughty, most image-conscious. Emulating me. Me!

About a year ago, right around my 25th, uh... 17th, birthday, I decided I wanted a headband. I've never been a headband wearer. I've had several before, but I've never worn them. So a year ago, when I decided I wanted one, there were naturally none around. And I didn't really want to buy one either. What's the point of spending money on something I've historically spurned? I felt that if I did purchase a headband, I wouldn't wear it. Why waste the money? Why waste the headband? So I decided I should make one. It could be a training headband of sorts, easing me in to headbands until I felt ready to be an out-of-the-closet headband wearer.

I dug out a decrepit pair of tights that I would definitely never wear again (giant crotch-hole, not pleasant) and cut off the waistband. Voila! Insta-headband!

It's awesome. I love my tights waistband headband. So do other people. I always get comments on it. Most people marvel that my waist is the same circumference as my head. Uhhhh, right. Because it's not stretchy or anything... Not everyone likes it, of course, but that's part and parcel with haute couture. The middle-aged, with their bourgeois sensibilities, openly oppose my tights waistband headband. I could tell that my dad's wife didn't like it the day I wore it while visiting Georgia last October. She didn't say anything about it to me, but I could interpret the look. Apparently she wasn't so silent about it to my dad. He later asked me if I had underwear on my head. "Nooo, it's tights! Sheesh." But apparently tights and underwear are the same in my dad's book. He offered to buy me a real headband. You could argue that by October I was probably ready to allow commercial headbands to circle my brow, but I'm not so sure. I think that part of why I'm so taken with the tights waistband headband is the quirkiness of it. I love that it's European pink, a color that matches nothing in my wardrobe (besides my pointe shoes). I love that "Capezio" is embroidered around it. I love the fraying of the cut edge. I love that it's a conversation piece. I seriously doubt that I could now wear a boring, normal, not-recycled-from-anything headband.

And now there are 4 high schoolers at my dance studio who have made their own tights waistband headbands, just like mine. Do you have any idea how much coolness that requires? How awesome I must be in order for four teenagers to mimic me by putting something that people associate with underwear on their head and leaving the house like that?!

I must be swimming in cool points!