Encountering Penelope Cruz

 Have you guys seen Penelope Cruz on the cover and inside the new edition of Vogue? While she's ridiculously beautiful and talented, I really wish she would stop effortlessly making the rest of us look so bad. She had a baby four months ago! I did NOT look like this four months after having Sabine.

When Kadin and I were dating, we drove up to Santa Barbara for a weekend at the Four Seasons Resort (I was doing a design story for a magazine). Penelope Cruz was checking in at the same time we were. She was wearing a knee length black trench coat and spike heels. I had recently gained a few pounds (fat and happy in my new relationship, which included eating and drinking whatever we wanted). My husband, who almost never looks at another woman, stared so long at Penelope that I thought his eyes would pop out of his pretty, bald head. She was speaking with the concierge and so her accent was lending a kind of bedroom exoticism to her presence, making me feel that much worse in my leggings, ballet flats, t-shirt and scarf. I was comfortable; she was hot. And still is. Sigh.

Images from Vogue.com