My friends…today I went clothes shopping.
I think I have a defective female gene somewhere. I’m not into clothes (much), shoes, purses, jewellery or makeup. Which, apart from the fact my hoo-ha has thrice been a tunnel-o-baby, pretty much makes me a man, right? I am uber-casual. All the time. I’m more happy kickin’ back with a cup of tea and a good book, or perhaps going out to a movie and some takeout, than I am dressed to the nines, sitting in a fancy-schmancey restaurant obsessing over the expense of the evening. I want to toss my shoes in a corner (smells and all), and just be. The only ‘heels’ I own are massive and chunky and attached to boots I never wear. I have never owned a pair of stilettos, never felt in control of all my limbs in them. Never learned to walk in them properly and now I’m doomed to a life of flat-footedness. I wear a ‘Mum uniform’ and you know what? I don’t even care most of the time. I am not my accessories! Except when the horror-of-horrors rolls around:
The Spousal Unit’s Work Christmas Party.
Let’s just say my husband works in a very community-minded field of expertise. And lets just say that ‘wives are invited’ social situations come up rarely during the year - once for a team’s Christmas mostly informal get-together, once for a larger organizational family day (where I can mercifully busy myself with the affairs of the Piglets rather than butcher my way through multitudes of small talk) and perhaps one barbecue at another time during the year. During these occasions (and for a hefty period of time leading up to them), my relaxed happy-go-lucky-no-airs-here personality kind of goes KAPOOF and I turn into the Crazy Insecure Wife Lady.
I seriously LOVE what Talented Hubby does for a living. LOVE. IT. It makes me feel warm and cozy and proud like 364 days of the year (I take one day off to let the air out of his already-too-inflated head…routine maintenence, you see). And the people he works with are (according to my limited face-to-face time and many, many cool stories via TH himself) seriously cool people. The work they do is HARD. These last few weeks I have never seen TH as stressed as he is now. It’s a bit of a worry actually. But I know TH appreciates the challenge and I hope he knows I appreciate him for doing it.
However.
My heart always clenches up when I’m in social situations with his workmates. Which is weird, because I’m totally awesome and I know if the contact was more regular, the nervousness would totally go. There’s just not all that many opportunities to foster that extra involvement. So then you throw in a rare social interaction and all its associated rabid butterflies, a few too many pounds, a serious case of foot-in-mouth disease AND the fact that everyone else knows what all the inside jokes are, and I’m pretty much lost. I literally have to excuse myself to go to the ladies room and physically pull my cheeks down because the smile has been plastered on so long my facial muscles have completely frozen in place. It’s not that I don’t like the people. It’s more that I really do like them but the nature of TH’s work situation is that teams rotate members fairly frequently and by the time the next social event comes around, you might only know or remember one face. Makes it pretty hard to throw down common friendship roots.
Anyhoo, so I’d decided I needed to be the best example of wifely devotion and representation I could be, and apparently that needed to occur wearing new clothes.
Another thing I can put down to genetics - I have a butt. And thighs. Enough for three or four people I reckon. Except for there’s just one of me, and I’m not sharin’. Clothes shopping is right up there on a list of things I avoid until the Last Possible Second - along with shopping specifically for jeans (and yes, that deserves special mention because, um, its JEANS people!), doing my dishes, sorting laundry and leaving for the school run in the morning. It’s brutal, painful, disheartening, expensive and, ultimately, disappointing. Mostly because I love pretty things like the next girl but I won’t torment myself like I see so many other girls doing by pouring myself into unflattering and too-small garments just for fashion trends. Just won’t do it. I guess this is what bore my Jeans Philosophy. I wear jeans year-round, even in summer, because with the eleventy-billion different types out there, I figure there has to be ONE PAIR with my name on it. The nirvana of denim. The Holy Bootcut. Buying jeans for me is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Did you know they paint that thing continuously? Takes ‘em something like seven years to get from one end of the other and by that time, its due for another spruce-up so they begin again. Same deal with jeans. I finally find a decent pair - you know, the one that doesn’t expose either muffin top or coin-slottage, a rare find indeed! - and then immediately begin the search for the next. I live in my jeans.
So there I was today, trying on skirt after skirt, dress after dress, trying to find something that is the perfect cross between Dutiful Wife and We’re Having Hot Married S*x, Neener Neener Neener! - and do you think I could find anything? Skirts don’t hide my butt, they massively enlarge my hips. No kidding. And I’m SHORT. When did women’s legs get so darn long! I try on a pair of regular length, regular bootcut, non-stretch jeans and the end of the pant leg has formed a wierd malformed flipper over one foot. Well, today the moon wasn’t aligned with the sun or Target or something because no luck on the jeans front either. Finally bought several plain-ish tees and then, under the insistence from a pal who I’d conned into coming with me, tried on some shoes (ran out of time to buy any…sigh) and bought a $25 piece of costume jewellery that might go with one of the tees I bought. Like I said - depressing.
Well, I did try.
0 comments:
Post a Comment