She's got the look.

Gwyneth Paltrow has a new look:

Yuck. I don't like it.

It really makes you realize how much of our appearance is maleable. You can really look different with a change of makeup, hair or weight. I wonder sometimes what I'd look like if some Hollywood stylist got a hold of me.

I've looked pretty much the same since high school. I'm a couple of sizes larger, but my proportions are about the same, so the overall effect is about the same. Just don't ask me to compare bathing suit photos from now and then.

After having long hair pretty much all my life, I cut my hair short about 10 years ago. I kept it short for about 8 years, which I suppose gave me a different look. Then, looking for a change, I started growing it out again about two years ago. I wasn't sure it would work. My hair is very fine and straight, and when I was younger, I always had to have perms to keep it from looking stringy and sad. But Austin is less humid than Houston (where I lived growing up), and straight hair is in, so it's been working out. The point I meandered to, though, was that the longer hair returned me to my traditional look.

I also don't wear a lot of makeup, and what I do wear is probably the same basic stuff I've always worn, applied the same basic way. As we see with Gwyneth above, makeup can make a huge difference in your appearance, so since I haven't changed mine up much, I guess that's another reason I look pretty much the same year-to-year.

So, what would a stylist do? Would they keep anything the same? Would I still look like myself? I'm fine with the way I look, but I wonder if I'd like some professionally engineered look better. Probably not. And besides, how would all my millions of fans know to greet me on the streets as I pass by if they couldn't recognize me? Probably best to just keep my look as it is.