Last night, Joel had his yearly holiday party, which is for all intents and purposes THE social event of the season for our circle of friends. I wore a black velvet dress that showed too much cleavage, the Boots, my princess cut diamond earrings and a smokey crystal necklace that had belonged to my great great grandmother. Penny and I had a pact that we would overdress in an attempt to make certain people feel inappropriate for their appliqu’d sweaters circa 1994 and Reeboks. KimVee mocked Lori for her sleeveless sweater (it’s about 15 degrees here right now), commenting that only menopausal women go sleeveless during a Wisconsin winter. I later independently commented to Lori that my grandmother had that exact same sweater, just because it’s so much fun to parry with her.
Lori was actually dressed very nicely and didn’t deserve to be harassed. Really, the comment should have been aimed at some of the women who are in their mid-thirties but dress like fifty-year-old craft show enthusiasts complete with 80’s hot roller hairdos. Why would you dress like your own mother? I do not understand it. But I fear that it is a senseless crusade, however, one that I must continue to fight. Fucking amateurs. They bug me. They really do. I mean, here’s a hint’ if the majority of your wardrobe comes from a mass merchandiser who needs to slap the name of a has-been minor celebrity in order to move their cheap excuses for garments, that is fine. I have no problem with Ms. Ireland or Ms. Smith or Ms. Gifford (or even Mr. Mizrahi) nor the people who apparently want to dress like them. But certainly, your party outfit should not consist of a sweatshirt with a plastic picture of kitties on it, which are playing with an actual bell that is sitting there ringing from your nipple every time you reach for another barbecue meatball.
I think the thing that annoys the hell out of me is that I am a plus size woman and considering that I am, in fact, at the top end of the sizes carried at the Lane Bryant stores (not to be confused with the catalog which is a totally different animal) and can count on one hand, the stores in this entire STATE that carry decent plus size clothing, and I make it work. Or so I’ve been told. I find ways. And I don’t necessarily spend a lot of money on it either. I regularly wear shirts that cost under $10. I buy things at the end of the season. I scour clearance racks. I buy on Ebay and from catalogs. And I somehow manage to clothe my body in natural fibers, in this season’s colors and cuts. I make it work. I don’t ever, not ever, find myself resorting to cardigans with things appliqu’d on them, or camp shirts with novelty buttons shaped like apples or roses. Or crazy polyester pullover shirts. And for the record, I have purchased items from both of the catalogs I just linked. You just have to be smart, selective, and stay away from the Retirement Wear if you were born after 1960. Also, look around. Is anyone else your age wearing that crap? (If they are institutionalized, then it doesn’t count.) You should ask yourself, which side of the hairstyle spectrum does your latest coif (or, shall we say, the same coif you’ve had since high school) emulate? Is it more Jennifer Aniston or Vicki Lawrence? Or, dare I say, Bert Convy?
So, anyway, if I can go out and look awesome, there’s no reason other than sheer laziness for these perfectly standard-sized people to go through life looking like they are searching for a buffet with an early bird special. Because damn. Some of us have to look at you people.
Interestingly enough, the kitty nipple-bell wearer leaned over and said ‘You know, after hearing (read: eavesdropping) you talking about Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I watch it now and have to admit, it’s pretty funny.’
Lady, I hope for our sake that you never actually meet the Queer Eye boys. I fear for Carson’s fragile little heart. Also, I suspect the shrieks would shatter glass for miles around.
I am much less stressed now than I was last week. This is partially due to the fact that I took off Friday and have tomorrow off as well. The stress reduction I’m sure is also due in no small part that on Friday morning, I took five of my ten grad school applications to the post office. I still haven’t heard from my advisor and tomorrow will leave another frantic message with her office, but I have decided that it is all out of my hands. I have done the best that I can and if one missing letter of recommendation is going to keep me out of a program, then really, I must not have been that strong of a candidate in the first place. Also, my class is done so I must just wait for my grade to appear on the school’s electronic system.
I suspect that my professor had a crush on me by the end (but then, who doesn’t?), which is fine because there is just something about brilliant artistic men that always makes me tingle, absolutely tingle. Especially when they write words like “dazzling” on my work He walked into class last week, which was already mostly full of students, singled me out and said ‘Well, hello!’ and then said ‘You changed your hair.’ I nodded and said rather matter-of-factly ‘Yes, every two months I get sick of it and change it. It’s not hair, it’s performance art.’ Which made him laugh and laugh, except that I wasn’t kidding.
In case you’re curious, the old hair was a rich brown with toffee and firecracker red streaks. The new hair is a deep espresso with deep reddish burgundy and champagne (read: bleached) streaks. It’s much more out there than the last one, sort of like a goth in the process of molting but it has the added bonus of being darker than my eyebrows, making my already pale winter skin seem absolutely alabaster. I usually go pretty Republican during the Christmas months, since we see so many older relatives. It’s the good little girl side of me that prevents me from piercing my nose or eyebrow. So this holiday should be interesting.
As a testament to my release of tension, I also did the full nail treatment with a holiday red satin frost on my nails and a coordinating OPI’s Oh My God red on my toenails. (Since I’m all about the style school today, as all fashionistas know, you do not wear the same polish on fingers and toes, but rather a complimentary polish in the tonal family. And my god, you’re not still wearing red underwear with a blue outfit, are you? Have I taught you nothing?) Normally I don’t do my toes during the winter, unless we’re going on vacation somewhere, but since I was wearing a dress and nylons and there was a chance that I’d want to take off my boots and tool around barefoot at Joel’s, naked toenails simply would not do. Thus, my feet are extraordinarily cute right now. In fact, I was looking at them last night and I do believe I have lost weight in my feet. And then I want to club myself for being one of those women who wonders if her feet are fat. I just knew there had to be side effects to reading Lucky magazine.
