Well, it really depends what you are doing at that wedding, doesn't it? If you are the bride, you should probably look "bridal" but that can mean many things. It definitely means "look amazing", but for the most part a bride can wear a paper-sack and look amazing. Of course the unhappy bride who knows she is doing the wrong thing might look sickly in even the most lovely gown. Brides can be counted on to know what they want to wear and to wear it. But what of the rest of us? And particularly what of me, when I am the one performing the ceremony, and i am not ecclesiastical in the least, and so have no tell-tale garment as a must-wear sort of thing.
Generally, at a wedding, I tend toward the slutty. Maybe because I get hot-flashes, and need to cool off. Maybe because I have a husband, and husbands always vote for less rather than more clothing, and since I do not do "bare" on my lower half, the bareness is on the upper half. Then a girl gets used to the air on her skin and never being restricted by the cut and seam of a garment, and things get barer and barer until one day someone is going to tell me to put on some clothes. I know it. But Jeff will punch them, and I will cackle my crone cackle, and we will strip whatever is left on off and jump into a hottub with glasses of wine in our paws.
Obviously slutty wasn't going to work while officiating at a wedding where the bride is beautiful in a strapless dress and the attendants are each in a strappy silvery cocktail dress, one more beautiful than the other, a mash-up of old friends and lesbian lovers through the years. Did I want to allow them to be as beautiful and bare as they are and not draw away from them, or was I afraid to compete? Oh for heaven's sake! I am old, and tall, and scarred, and have a clipped head and a young husband. There is no competition. I have won and so has everyone else. No, I really did want to look wonderful, so I didn't ruin pictures, but didn't want to look distracting in any way, since I would be right there, visibly between the bride and the groom for however many minutes and however many hundreds of camera clicks a wedding takes these days. Just about 600 seconds, the way I did it.
So for the officiant, in this case, not so much skin. I thought to go with one of my belted coats, long as a robe maybe. The bride had liked the idea of an antique kimono I had mentioned, but then I couldn't find it. And a coat seemed severe. I can look very mannish when dressed like that. And it occurred to me that this particular bride, having had her share of female lovers and relationships, and being as woman-centric as she is, I should maybe give a nod in the direction of the feminine. But again, not through the showing of skin, since my sexuality was not interesting in this tableau, just my femininity and humanity. Hmmmm. I might have worn my usual close to the body sort of dress, but it seemed hot, and I am kind of fat and didn't want to think about my belly during the event. At all. Even though I think bellies are lovely on everyone but me. Oh man. This is going nowhere. I just want to be dressed, lovely and fairly inconspicuous, since it is odd that i have to be there at all. Or so I thought. I am having new thoughts about the role and importance of the officiant at weddings after having done a few.
At the fabric store, which I haunt aimlessly, I find a tulle with spirals applied. Black on black, but see-though enough. So I buy as much as i can afford, because it is mesmerizing. and I am thinking the slight transparence might be the solution to not showing skin, but not being severe, and the circular spirals are so feminine and remind me of primitive sculptures just a tiny bit. I love it so much, that I do not want to cut it. So I make a very plain tube of a dress, with rectangular arms and finish all the edges and put it on and now I look like something. I look like a cross between a mythical priestess and Mrs Thurston Howell the Third. Mrs. Howell! Lovey!!! I do. It is perfect. Silly and ceremonial at the same time. Just lovely. I am nothing, the dress is respectful of the occasion, and the set-piece that will be the wedding will not be ruined by my being too much of a black hole nor eye-catching in any sort of color or shape. I am a monk, or a pampered lady, or both. I am a priestess, and my acolyte is getting me a glass of wine and giving me kisses and walking around like a peacock in his beautiful new pale suit in Italian wool. One of the gorgeous lesbians puts some finishing touches on my make-up, which I really shouldn't wear at all, and several ladies (who are using the same rustic table where i have set my things to change the diaper of the flower girl) help me choose earrings. I wrap the reduced obi belt around my waist and I am done. My body is sheathed underneath in a silk-satin stretch gown that holds my breasts in a light embrace, and slinks imperceptibly along my body all the way to the ground, a murky undercolor for the tulle that the acolyte chose as most dull but not oppressive. The dress over that eliminates all thought of my own body as on display. It is not. I feel wonderful, and I look plain, but not at all. Glamorous, without exposing myself at all, which is so odd for a woman. Very bare and completely flat sandals, and I'm done.
Speaking of shoes, ladies, please stop wearing heels, if only so that little girls will stop thinking they need to wear heels in order to be an adult woman. Such a terrible message. One of the mini-bridesmaids, a nine year old girl, had sore feet from wearing the pretty heeled shoes she had begged for at the rehearsal dinner. She had on tights and her mom had bandaids and the shoes were on, adding nothing to her beautiful dress. We talked about it, and of course I was wearing flat sandals, and I told her to not to worry about it, to just take off her shoes as soon as she felt like it. Half-way through the evening, a barefoot child in a silver silk dress dashes across the room sparkling with lights, leaping in the air like a sprite. Just saying. It would be terrific if women would find some other way to feel sexy than high heels. It is a very bad example.
Anyway. I got many compliments and comments on the dress. I haven't seen it. No photos have come my way yet. But it was in any case a successful get-up for a wedding. The beautiful attendants were stunning, and some even managed to keep on their shoes well into the party. The bride changed into something more comfortable, but still bridal, towards the end. I changed out of the ceremonial over-dress into a barer paler over-dress, and became the sluttier wedding guest I love to be. But no reveal of the body. I am almost done with that. The waistline of the priestess is not, it turns out, interesting. What a relief.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Stop wearing skirts.
Seriously, ladies. Stop wearing skirts.
There is no reason to be showing people your legs, unless there is a reason to be showing people your legs, of which there are only two: You have a partner who loves to see your legs, or you are trolling for a partner and your charms and intellect are not enough to rope them in.
Stop revealing your legs frivolously. It is silly and keeps people from hearing what you actually have to say. Here is a link to a photo of a woman with lots to say, but how can we hear her when her legs are so prominently displayed?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3152/3022556849_6e696eea4c.jpg?v=0
There is a reason men don't reveal their legs all day long, even if they have really nice legs. It is distracting. And possibly chilly. In any case inappropriate. Too much information. Like halter tops, which you all know I love, but which have no place in professional environments, except perhaps as the first of many layers of upper garments. Rock the halter underneath a shirt, sure. But keep the shirt on when you are around anyone who is paid money to be in the same room with you. Not in a bad way. I'm just saying. Of course, if they are paying money to be in the room with you, and not in a good way, the halter by itself is probably just perfect.
Actually, I am at this moment wearing a skirt and headed to a community meeting. But the skirt is as long as pants, and as slender of a line, so no one will even notice probably that I am in a long skirt. I often prefer skirts, as they can be very comfortable, and are pretty much always more flattering. But long to the ground, or with boots to cover up the leg. My legs are no one's business but mine and my partner's.
Until you come to understand the idea of "skirt" without the idea of "leg being revealed and all that entails, including razors, lotions, pantihose, stairmasters, etc", you should just stop wearing skirts in the workplace.
At home, or out with your love, wear the shortest, skankiest little scrap of fabric you want. Have a ball.
There is no reason to be showing people your legs, unless there is a reason to be showing people your legs, of which there are only two: You have a partner who loves to see your legs, or you are trolling for a partner and your charms and intellect are not enough to rope them in.
Stop revealing your legs frivolously. It is silly and keeps people from hearing what you actually have to say. Here is a link to a photo of a woman with lots to say, but how can we hear her when her legs are so prominently displayed?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3152/3022556849_6e696eea4c.jpg?v=0
There is a reason men don't reveal their legs all day long, even if they have really nice legs. It is distracting. And possibly chilly. In any case inappropriate. Too much information. Like halter tops, which you all know I love, but which have no place in professional environments, except perhaps as the first of many layers of upper garments. Rock the halter underneath a shirt, sure. But keep the shirt on when you are around anyone who is paid money to be in the same room with you. Not in a bad way. I'm just saying. Of course, if they are paying money to be in the room with you, and not in a good way, the halter by itself is probably just perfect.
Actually, I am at this moment wearing a skirt and headed to a community meeting. But the skirt is as long as pants, and as slender of a line, so no one will even notice probably that I am in a long skirt. I often prefer skirts, as they can be very comfortable, and are pretty much always more flattering. But long to the ground, or with boots to cover up the leg. My legs are no one's business but mine and my partner's.
Until you come to understand the idea of "skirt" without the idea of "leg being revealed and all that entails, including razors, lotions, pantihose, stairmasters, etc", you should just stop wearing skirts in the workplace.
At home, or out with your love, wear the shortest, skankiest little scrap of fabric you want. Have a ball.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Natural fibers
Wow. I have been mesmerized by the election season.
So.
We were in Eureka Springs this weekend, and it was great. It is a hilly, down-market version of every faux-art town on the planet, including Carmel and Mendocino, which most leapt to mind.
Crap crap and more crap, and then some gear stores with practical clothing you might find in Boulder, Colorado, spas, hotels, and bars, mostly with patios. Very nice.
Two stores though, run by individuals who were creating their own reality in the most wonderful sorts of ways, shamed me slightly, and I am not sure what to do about it.
It involved natural fibers.
The first shop situation was like my twin, in terms of a person making and selling clothing out of a studio and shop. In fact, much of the clothing was very similar to mine, except that I couldn't imagine wearing any of it. I don't think his customer is very different than my customer, but there was something very different. He was in the process of opening, had opened, a fabric store on a street not far away, and was moving towards that. So. Take from that what you will. Making clothing is a pain in the ass, and he was making things that required much more labor and attention and skill than what I make, which requires very little to none.
What was great was that he had created two terrific storefronts and managed, with an assistant, to keep their doors open all the time. Good shopkeeper, and I am going to try harder.
But the thing that troubles me is the commitment to natural fibers. I appreciate it and wish that I could follow that path, and it all made me wonder why I can't. But I can't. Not now anyway. And then I wondered about the damage I might be inflicting on the world by working in toxic, synthetic fabrics. (In an unrelated conversation with someone else, I learned that synthetic fabrics are not subject to tariffs, because no one in the country makes them because it is tooooo toxic of a process. So that is why it is all done in Asia. Rats. I hate the way this world has developed.)
So, those familiar with me, know that I am not at all troubled by synthetic fibers, that I use them all the time.
The second shop we stumbled across at the vey end of our visit. A woman who makes, has made, things out of silk in the hills of Thailand. Very sustainable (if you are not a silk worm), and local. It is a beautiful story from a beautiful woman. She and her helpers were all wearing silk jackets, very comfortable, very flattering. More complicated, based on a kimono jacket sort of thing. And I understand that they are washable, although I will guess that most people do dry clean them. So that ruins the environmental plus.
It is all so complicated, and I have not sorted it out in my own head, hence the confusion here. As I think about this more, I will write more, and correct this post. But meanwhile, if anyone reads this and has thoughts, please please please send them along. I am wondering.
So.
We were in Eureka Springs this weekend, and it was great. It is a hilly, down-market version of every faux-art town on the planet, including Carmel and Mendocino, which most leapt to mind.
Crap crap and more crap, and then some gear stores with practical clothing you might find in Boulder, Colorado, spas, hotels, and bars, mostly with patios. Very nice.
Two stores though, run by individuals who were creating their own reality in the most wonderful sorts of ways, shamed me slightly, and I am not sure what to do about it.
It involved natural fibers.
The first shop situation was like my twin, in terms of a person making and selling clothing out of a studio and shop. In fact, much of the clothing was very similar to mine, except that I couldn't imagine wearing any of it. I don't think his customer is very different than my customer, but there was something very different. He was in the process of opening, had opened, a fabric store on a street not far away, and was moving towards that. So. Take from that what you will. Making clothing is a pain in the ass, and he was making things that required much more labor and attention and skill than what I make, which requires very little to none.
What was great was that he had created two terrific storefronts and managed, with an assistant, to keep their doors open all the time. Good shopkeeper, and I am going to try harder.
But the thing that troubles me is the commitment to natural fibers. I appreciate it and wish that I could follow that path, and it all made me wonder why I can't. But I can't. Not now anyway. And then I wondered about the damage I might be inflicting on the world by working in toxic, synthetic fabrics. (In an unrelated conversation with someone else, I learned that synthetic fabrics are not subject to tariffs, because no one in the country makes them because it is tooooo toxic of a process. So that is why it is all done in Asia. Rats. I hate the way this world has developed.)
So, those familiar with me, know that I am not at all troubled by synthetic fibers, that I use them all the time.
The second shop we stumbled across at the vey end of our visit. A woman who makes, has made, things out of silk in the hills of Thailand. Very sustainable (if you are not a silk worm), and local. It is a beautiful story from a beautiful woman. She and her helpers were all wearing silk jackets, very comfortable, very flattering. More complicated, based on a kimono jacket sort of thing. And I understand that they are washable, although I will guess that most people do dry clean them. So that ruins the environmental plus.
It is all so complicated, and I have not sorted it out in my own head, hence the confusion here. As I think about this more, I will write more, and correct this post. But meanwhile, if anyone reads this and has thoughts, please please please send them along. I am wondering.
Monday, September 8, 2008
The clothing of people who work
Much mockery was made of Hillary Clinton's pantsuits. Which was so odd since men in her field exclusively wear pantsuits. Never worn one other thing. Just pantsuits. But somehow Mrs. Clinton was skewered for doing so.
Well. Pantsuits are comfortable, practical, and allow a person to do what they need to do without having to give further thought to their clothing. Which is the right thing to wear when you are fighting very important and complicated fights in your effort to improve the world, which is the role of politicians, last I heard. I would have been even happier if she had gone all the way and worn suits in colors that do not show dirt, as men do, and if she had worn sensible shoes and socks rather than pumps and panty hose. Women's pantsuits still suck, but they don't know it. The only way to know how much women's clothing, and even pantsuits which are supposed to be so great, suck, is to actually put on and wear for a few hours or a day the clothing of men.
Here's what you do, and don't act like I am telling you something you know. I know you don't. I talk to everyone, and I have never, in 16 years since I did this, found even one other woman who has actually dressed like a man. EXACTLY as a man would dress for professional life.
It helps that I am the size of an average man, and my feet are a small man's size, so I can wear men's shoes without being clownish and tripping on them.
Anyway. Assemble your pieces. You will need a cotton t-shirt and boxer shorts that fit you. Buh-bye bra. Buh-bye panty lines and constricting girdly things like spanx. You will need socks and shoes. Men's socks and a good pair of men's tie up shoes. Men do not wear pantihose under their pants, and neither will you when you dress like one. Then you will need a shirt that fits you pretty well. There is alot of leeway, but it must be an ironed shirt with which you can wear a tie. You need a tie. Then you need a well made suit in a wool suiting fabric. Jacket and pants. A pant suit.
Put all that stuff on, and nothing else. If your breasts absolutely require a little something for you to feel comfortable, put on your most favorite and most comfortable bra. I am not sure that there aren't men who wear some kind of bra, what with all the man-boobs going around these days, so don't feel bad about that little variance.
Leave your hair clean and plain, pulled back from your face if it is long, but do not do any kind of "hair-do". Whatever style you would wear to the gym or to do house work, but again, clean. Do not put on any make up at all, or jewelry.
It is vitally important that you not girl-up the outfit with pantihose and pumps, with a sexy "feminine" shirt, with make-up and a hairdo. It is vitally important that you not put on "sexy" underwear, or underwear that in anyway tries to re-shape you in its image. You must have on men's underwear, men's shirt, suit socks and shoes, and nothing else.
If you do this, and if you walk around, you might feel odd, different than usual, dpending on how completely stupid and useless your usual clothing is, but what you will mostly feel is powerful. Like you can do anything. Walk anywhere. Tell anyone what you think without thought to what that person might think about your butt. You can address issues, think clearly, do what needs to be done, safely, attractively, comfortably. You can go outside if it is cold, and you will be fine, at least for a few blocks. You can walk over cobblestones and run for the bus. You can offer your jacket to an innanely dressed woman who is shivering cold, which is what I did that Halloween night, but the woman was actually a man who had dressed as a woman, and looked just like Ellen Barkin in "Buckaroo Bonzai and the eighth dimension" in a fat-sequined, strappy little dress. He was wearing combat boots, because straight men are just not so stupid as to wear high heels if they can get away without doing so, and he surely did. Couldn't have been cuter, but even with boots on his feet he was cold and I offered my jacket, which he took.
Catch this. For my whole entire life I have been told, and believed, that I have "poor circulation" and that that is why my hands and feet are always cold. Guess what. With shoes and socks, and without pantihose that bind, with a couple of layers of cotton and a pair of light wool pants, I was just fine on that very chilly October night. Not cold at all. My feet weren't cold, even though I was standing on damp grass all night. My hands weren't cold, even though I 'm sure I was holding a drink all night.
But even before I was done dressing, when I still just had on shirt and shoes, socks and underwear and was getting the suit out of its garment bag, I was already screaming through the halls of the house, "NO WONDER THEY FUCKING RULE THE WORLD! I WOULD RULE THE WORLD IF I DRESSED LIKE THIS!!!"
So imagine my dismay, on top of all the other dismay, to see the Republican VP candidate getting off a plane in my fine state of Missouri yesterday, walking down the steep stairs practically hand in hand with John McCain, in a dress with a short, useless little cardigan, hose and heels.
Shit.
Here's the thing. If a woman is wearing heels, some of her mental energy is going into whether or not the ground is safe to navigate, and making sure that she doesn't trip and twist an ankle. Any heel almost will do this to the brain of a woman. Oh, they are fun to wear, and you almost can't help getting laid if you wear certain versions of high heels (which this chick should also lay off of), but they do, necessarily, take up a bit of your brain in a way that regular men's shoes do not. Triple that effect if the woman is wearing pantihose. Making sure that one doesn't brush up against anything that will snag them is part of the cycle of her brain pattern. Every, say, fifth second devoted to taking note of dangerous surroundings. Every fourth second devoted to staying safe in the high heels. Then you have a dress and a short sweater that reveals the butt of the woman in a way that is, necessarily, sexual. There will be a section of her thought cycle devoted to whether her ass looks good in the outfit. Only strippers, who realize that men don't care at all how the ass looks as long as they can see it clearly, are the only women who walk around with highly presented butts and don't give it a thought. Besides, for strippers any clothes at all, even very exposing, clingy clothing that would send a normal woman into fits of soul-searching as to whether she can get away with it or not, are more modest and less-exposing than their usual work attire. The equivalent of your very big brother's sweats to them. But all other women, especially the ones who do take good care of themselves and who are very aware of what kind of an ass they are showing off by wearing a dress, or skirt or pants, that closely drapes, and a jacket that stops well-above, their butt, have a part of their mind staying on top of the management of all that. Gorgeous doesn't just happen. Women spend time energy and most importantly mental energy, making sure you look at their butt, and that you are pleased with it.
So we have the heels, the pantihose and the revealed ass to keep the candidate occupied. This on top of the fact that she has a little baby with Down's Syndrome, which is a terrible thing and babies end up spending alot of time in the hospital and often dying. You know she is thinking about that at least once in a while. At least I hope she is, since she decided to carry the baby to term when she had other choices. And she has a pregnant teen ager who is planning to marry her teen age boyfriend, neither of whom have their high school diplomas, and I don't care how cheap it is to live in Alaska, that is not going to be an easy row for that girl and boy, and a mom has just got to be spending a little bit of mental energy worrying about those two children. And then also the mental energy cursing herself for not having more effectively communicated the idea of abstinence to that daughter. Rats. I would be compulsively wondering what I could have done better, furious at having so utterly failed at a thing I am so loudly proud of in the public realm. Ouch.
A woman with so much on her mental plate, and who is being crammed as though for preliminary exams to be able to answer the party line to pundits when, and if, she ever consents to an interview, you would think would be quick to don a pantsuit. But this chick is not the pantsuit kind. She is the kind of woman who still thinks she gets more respect by showing some leg. She, like many women, think that attention is good attention, not realizing that absolutely no one is listening to a word they say if their legs are nice and suitably exposed in hose and heels. Not one word. Which in the case of this woman will be to her benefit now, since everything she says is sooooooo terrible to the thinking person with regard for personal liberties and democracy. But still! Busy times call for clothing that supports a person rather than clothing which demands constant low grade and sometimes emergency attention.
In short, this dress and hose and heels and a short cardigan, while fetching for a date or a charity luncheon, is inappropriate for a person who is supposed to be thinking hard about and caring deeply about the answers to our very profound, national problems. Why is she choosing to think about hose and heels and how her butt looks? Is she stealing that mental energy from that due to her children? Oh, I hope not. All I can figure is that she doesn't think it is necessary to free up her mind to focus on the big issues, which Hillary Clinton clearly understood. Pantsuits are what men wear because they do not disturb a person, do not take energy or mental energy to wear. The make no demands. It is for the person to make demands on the suit, that it be supportive and comforting and protective, and allow the person inside to do all the things they might be called upon to do. Like be present, rather than running off to the restroom to change into a new pair of nylons when the first pair run.
Just more poor judgement. Wasn't sure you would notice, blinded as people tend to be by a pretty girl in a dress, hose and heels.
Well. Pantsuits are comfortable, practical, and allow a person to do what they need to do without having to give further thought to their clothing. Which is the right thing to wear when you are fighting very important and complicated fights in your effort to improve the world, which is the role of politicians, last I heard. I would have been even happier if she had gone all the way and worn suits in colors that do not show dirt, as men do, and if she had worn sensible shoes and socks rather than pumps and panty hose. Women's pantsuits still suck, but they don't know it. The only way to know how much women's clothing, and even pantsuits which are supposed to be so great, suck, is to actually put on and wear for a few hours or a day the clothing of men.
Here's what you do, and don't act like I am telling you something you know. I know you don't. I talk to everyone, and I have never, in 16 years since I did this, found even one other woman who has actually dressed like a man. EXACTLY as a man would dress for professional life.
It helps that I am the size of an average man, and my feet are a small man's size, so I can wear men's shoes without being clownish and tripping on them.
Anyway. Assemble your pieces. You will need a cotton t-shirt and boxer shorts that fit you. Buh-bye bra. Buh-bye panty lines and constricting girdly things like spanx. You will need socks and shoes. Men's socks and a good pair of men's tie up shoes. Men do not wear pantihose under their pants, and neither will you when you dress like one. Then you will need a shirt that fits you pretty well. There is alot of leeway, but it must be an ironed shirt with which you can wear a tie. You need a tie. Then you need a well made suit in a wool suiting fabric. Jacket and pants. A pant suit.
Put all that stuff on, and nothing else. If your breasts absolutely require a little something for you to feel comfortable, put on your most favorite and most comfortable bra. I am not sure that there aren't men who wear some kind of bra, what with all the man-boobs going around these days, so don't feel bad about that little variance.
Leave your hair clean and plain, pulled back from your face if it is long, but do not do any kind of "hair-do". Whatever style you would wear to the gym or to do house work, but again, clean. Do not put on any make up at all, or jewelry.
It is vitally important that you not girl-up the outfit with pantihose and pumps, with a sexy "feminine" shirt, with make-up and a hairdo. It is vitally important that you not put on "sexy" underwear, or underwear that in anyway tries to re-shape you in its image. You must have on men's underwear, men's shirt, suit socks and shoes, and nothing else.
If you do this, and if you walk around, you might feel odd, different than usual, dpending on how completely stupid and useless your usual clothing is, but what you will mostly feel is powerful. Like you can do anything. Walk anywhere. Tell anyone what you think without thought to what that person might think about your butt. You can address issues, think clearly, do what needs to be done, safely, attractively, comfortably. You can go outside if it is cold, and you will be fine, at least for a few blocks. You can walk over cobblestones and run for the bus. You can offer your jacket to an innanely dressed woman who is shivering cold, which is what I did that Halloween night, but the woman was actually a man who had dressed as a woman, and looked just like Ellen Barkin in "Buckaroo Bonzai and the eighth dimension" in a fat-sequined, strappy little dress. He was wearing combat boots, because straight men are just not so stupid as to wear high heels if they can get away without doing so, and he surely did. Couldn't have been cuter, but even with boots on his feet he was cold and I offered my jacket, which he took.
Catch this. For my whole entire life I have been told, and believed, that I have "poor circulation" and that that is why my hands and feet are always cold. Guess what. With shoes and socks, and without pantihose that bind, with a couple of layers of cotton and a pair of light wool pants, I was just fine on that very chilly October night. Not cold at all. My feet weren't cold, even though I was standing on damp grass all night. My hands weren't cold, even though I 'm sure I was holding a drink all night.
But even before I was done dressing, when I still just had on shirt and shoes, socks and underwear and was getting the suit out of its garment bag, I was already screaming through the halls of the house, "NO WONDER THEY FUCKING RULE THE WORLD! I WOULD RULE THE WORLD IF I DRESSED LIKE THIS!!!"
So imagine my dismay, on top of all the other dismay, to see the Republican VP candidate getting off a plane in my fine state of Missouri yesterday, walking down the steep stairs practically hand in hand with John McCain, in a dress with a short, useless little cardigan, hose and heels.
Shit.
Here's the thing. If a woman is wearing heels, some of her mental energy is going into whether or not the ground is safe to navigate, and making sure that she doesn't trip and twist an ankle. Any heel almost will do this to the brain of a woman. Oh, they are fun to wear, and you almost can't help getting laid if you wear certain versions of high heels (which this chick should also lay off of), but they do, necessarily, take up a bit of your brain in a way that regular men's shoes do not. Triple that effect if the woman is wearing pantihose. Making sure that one doesn't brush up against anything that will snag them is part of the cycle of her brain pattern. Every, say, fifth second devoted to taking note of dangerous surroundings. Every fourth second devoted to staying safe in the high heels. Then you have a dress and a short sweater that reveals the butt of the woman in a way that is, necessarily, sexual. There will be a section of her thought cycle devoted to whether her ass looks good in the outfit. Only strippers, who realize that men don't care at all how the ass looks as long as they can see it clearly, are the only women who walk around with highly presented butts and don't give it a thought. Besides, for strippers any clothes at all, even very exposing, clingy clothing that would send a normal woman into fits of soul-searching as to whether she can get away with it or not, are more modest and less-exposing than their usual work attire. The equivalent of your very big brother's sweats to them. But all other women, especially the ones who do take good care of themselves and who are very aware of what kind of an ass they are showing off by wearing a dress, or skirt or pants, that closely drapes, and a jacket that stops well-above, their butt, have a part of their mind staying on top of the management of all that. Gorgeous doesn't just happen. Women spend time energy and most importantly mental energy, making sure you look at their butt, and that you are pleased with it.
So we have the heels, the pantihose and the revealed ass to keep the candidate occupied. This on top of the fact that she has a little baby with Down's Syndrome, which is a terrible thing and babies end up spending alot of time in the hospital and often dying. You know she is thinking about that at least once in a while. At least I hope she is, since she decided to carry the baby to term when she had other choices. And she has a pregnant teen ager who is planning to marry her teen age boyfriend, neither of whom have their high school diplomas, and I don't care how cheap it is to live in Alaska, that is not going to be an easy row for that girl and boy, and a mom has just got to be spending a little bit of mental energy worrying about those two children. And then also the mental energy cursing herself for not having more effectively communicated the idea of abstinence to that daughter. Rats. I would be compulsively wondering what I could have done better, furious at having so utterly failed at a thing I am so loudly proud of in the public realm. Ouch.
A woman with so much on her mental plate, and who is being crammed as though for preliminary exams to be able to answer the party line to pundits when, and if, she ever consents to an interview, you would think would be quick to don a pantsuit. But this chick is not the pantsuit kind. She is the kind of woman who still thinks she gets more respect by showing some leg. She, like many women, think that attention is good attention, not realizing that absolutely no one is listening to a word they say if their legs are nice and suitably exposed in hose and heels. Not one word. Which in the case of this woman will be to her benefit now, since everything she says is sooooooo terrible to the thinking person with regard for personal liberties and democracy. But still! Busy times call for clothing that supports a person rather than clothing which demands constant low grade and sometimes emergency attention.
In short, this dress and hose and heels and a short cardigan, while fetching for a date or a charity luncheon, is inappropriate for a person who is supposed to be thinking hard about and caring deeply about the answers to our very profound, national problems. Why is she choosing to think about hose and heels and how her butt looks? Is she stealing that mental energy from that due to her children? Oh, I hope not. All I can figure is that she doesn't think it is necessary to free up her mind to focus on the big issues, which Hillary Clinton clearly understood. Pantsuits are what men wear because they do not disturb a person, do not take energy or mental energy to wear. The make no demands. It is for the person to make demands on the suit, that it be supportive and comforting and protective, and allow the person inside to do all the things they might be called upon to do. Like be present, rather than running off to the restroom to change into a new pair of nylons when the first pair run.
Just more poor judgement. Wasn't sure you would notice, blinded as people tend to be by a pretty girl in a dress, hose and heels.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The Black Skirt Initiative
Oh, hi there. Long time no see.
I have been consumed with The Black Skirt Initiative, the black skirt being the most perfect and reproducible in quantities, each one custom-sized, of course.
It is coming together, but it is where all my writing is right now. I hope you have missed me.
You are welcome to check out the in-progress site:
theblackskirtinitiative.com
See you on the flip side.
I have been consumed with The Black Skirt Initiative, the black skirt being the most perfect and reproducible in quantities, each one custom-sized, of course.
It is coming together, but it is where all my writing is right now. I hope you have missed me.
You are welcome to check out the in-progress site:
theblackskirtinitiative.com
See you on the flip side.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
I miss the Speedo.
I don't think it has much to do with blight, although in my life Speedos on men have been mocked and disdained so thoroughly, if they were a neighborhood they would be forsaken.
But my point, and I do have one, is that I was nine years old when the 72 Olympics took place, Mark Spitz to be exact, and I am beginning to think my entire sexuality was molded by very very beautiful men in tiny little things. Their shoulders, oh my, and those muscles right near the hip bones. And let's not get started on the men's gymnastics. I watched a bunch of that last night. Wow. Shoulders. Guess what I noticed first about my husband the first time he walked toward me, conveniently wearing a tank top? You guessed it. Shoulders. He is so beautiful.
But back to Speedos. They were so simple. So nothing. So very terrible on a body that did not need to be on display, so undignified when it was not enough. But when anything at all is a little too much clothing, and you know the bodies of which I speak, the Speedo was divine. Phelps schmelps. He is not going to be a pin-up at my house in that wetsuit thing they all wear now. And it's not going to help if he does a beefcake photo shoot in some sliver of lycra. It won't be the same. They have to win the race, be their excellent selves, while wearing the Speedo. It doesn't count if they just put it on for show.
(None of this counts behind closed doors, when people might want to see their beloved clothed many which ways, and all that is very grand, but not my point.)
All this is why I am so thrilled to discover that I have found, again, an ideal outfit. I have been secretly going to the gym, so I have to wear something to accomodate that. And it turns out that the very outfit I put on to go to church last Sunday (oh, yes I did, and it was crap), minus the coat and hat, is just perfect for my visit to the gym. All I do is walk on the treadmill for about an hour, lift some weights and do some stretching and abdominals. Abomidables, if you ask me. Anyway, the ideal drawstring pants, scientific panties, silver lame scientific breast embracer, and the sleeveless top that goes with a long skirt and which has taken me to funerals and fancy dinners, that is the perfect outfit. Going to the gym has revealed the limit, finally, to the ideal usefulness of the long slender skirt. Not that I wouldn't wear one to the gym anyway, since it is easy to transform it to a mini skirt, which some girls are wearing to the gym, I noticed. Cute. And modest enough with a fine pair of Scientific Panties, I suppose.
So, what are you wearing that allows you to be your most marvelous, powerful self, and also look divine? You can't wear crap while you do excellent things, and then just put something on for show when you think it is a good idea to look nice. No. Your clothing needs to support you in every way.
OK then. Those 23 year old olympians should wear Speedos, and I hope they do in their normal training and swimming, if only because I think swimmers probably really like the feel of water against their skin, but also to improve the visual quality of the universe. Meanwhile, I am kind to my fellow gym travelers by not wearing stretch capri-legging like the lady in front of me on the elliptical thingy yesterday. She was a beautiful woman, older than I am and in better shape, but I don't need to know that much about anyone's ass. If you wouldn't wear it to the opera, you shouldn't wear it at all. See, I wanted to say, "If you wouldn't wear it to the store", or "If you wouldn't wear it to lunch", but people do wear stretch leggings with nothing covering their butts to the store and to lunch. Oh, they sure do. And I do not like it, not one little bit. Now, there's some blight for you. I'm on topic.
But my point, and I do have one, is that I was nine years old when the 72 Olympics took place, Mark Spitz to be exact, and I am beginning to think my entire sexuality was molded by very very beautiful men in tiny little things. Their shoulders, oh my, and those muscles right near the hip bones. And let's not get started on the men's gymnastics. I watched a bunch of that last night. Wow. Shoulders. Guess what I noticed first about my husband the first time he walked toward me, conveniently wearing a tank top? You guessed it. Shoulders. He is so beautiful.
But back to Speedos. They were so simple. So nothing. So very terrible on a body that did not need to be on display, so undignified when it was not enough. But when anything at all is a little too much clothing, and you know the bodies of which I speak, the Speedo was divine. Phelps schmelps. He is not going to be a pin-up at my house in that wetsuit thing they all wear now. And it's not going to help if he does a beefcake photo shoot in some sliver of lycra. It won't be the same. They have to win the race, be their excellent selves, while wearing the Speedo. It doesn't count if they just put it on for show.
(None of this counts behind closed doors, when people might want to see their beloved clothed many which ways, and all that is very grand, but not my point.)
All this is why I am so thrilled to discover that I have found, again, an ideal outfit. I have been secretly going to the gym, so I have to wear something to accomodate that. And it turns out that the very outfit I put on to go to church last Sunday (oh, yes I did, and it was crap), minus the coat and hat, is just perfect for my visit to the gym. All I do is walk on the treadmill for about an hour, lift some weights and do some stretching and abdominals. Abomidables, if you ask me. Anyway, the ideal drawstring pants, scientific panties, silver lame scientific breast embracer, and the sleeveless top that goes with a long skirt and which has taken me to funerals and fancy dinners, that is the perfect outfit. Going to the gym has revealed the limit, finally, to the ideal usefulness of the long slender skirt. Not that I wouldn't wear one to the gym anyway, since it is easy to transform it to a mini skirt, which some girls are wearing to the gym, I noticed. Cute. And modest enough with a fine pair of Scientific Panties, I suppose.
So, what are you wearing that allows you to be your most marvelous, powerful self, and also look divine? You can't wear crap while you do excellent things, and then just put something on for show when you think it is a good idea to look nice. No. Your clothing needs to support you in every way.
OK then. Those 23 year old olympians should wear Speedos, and I hope they do in their normal training and swimming, if only because I think swimmers probably really like the feel of water against their skin, but also to improve the visual quality of the universe. Meanwhile, I am kind to my fellow gym travelers by not wearing stretch capri-legging like the lady in front of me on the elliptical thingy yesterday. She was a beautiful woman, older than I am and in better shape, but I don't need to know that much about anyone's ass. If you wouldn't wear it to the opera, you shouldn't wear it at all. See, I wanted to say, "If you wouldn't wear it to the store", or "If you wouldn't wear it to lunch", but people do wear stretch leggings with nothing covering their butts to the store and to lunch. Oh, they sure do. And I do not like it, not one little bit. Now, there's some blight for you. I'm on topic.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Return of the Shift
Back in the very early 1990's, in Los Angeles and elsewhere, anyone getting dressed by me was getting dressed in little tubular, tank-style shifts. Oh, I would go a little a-line for a pregnant woman, and there were other, longer dresses, too; but mostly drifty cylinders in rich-printed rayon challis, or cotton, or linen, simplicity itself, just enough to stay on, and pretty much fell to the floor with the slightest wriggle if the straps were pulled off the shoulders. A perfect dress. Sultry and forgiving. Generally a few inches above the knee, but in some cases quite short. We wore them alot. Around the house, and with heels to pretty much any event. They worked as night dresses, beach cover-ups, went in the wash and came out of the dryer bouncy and perfect, as though suggesting you go off and do something fun. Maybe have a cup of coffee with a friend on Venice Beach. Maybe throw a little grill-out on the patio for a few friends.
The fabrics available at the time are not in the stores now. There were prints of strange complexity, even a little ugly sometimes, but enticing, intoxicating. Not ditsy. Not what anyone would expect. There must have been a crowd of designers in some factory having a great time, and no one was saying "no" to them. No more. Now the rayon challis all looks like it came straight out of your mother's imagination of what would make a nice, oh, I don't even know what. They are uninspiring.
But I do not throw things out, especially not fabric, and this weekend in the chaos of my studio I found a small amount of one of the very very best fabrics: an insane, abstracted Frenchified filigree in shades of gold and brown against a mottled red-orange background. I'm telling you. You just don't find stuff like this anymore. There was a large stain on this short length of old fabric, like a faint pool of ink or something, the placement of which precluded making a dress. I washed it, and the stain stayed. Rats. I thought about making a small shirt, because who doesn't need a little something to get through the summertime, the way we go through tops in this midwestern heat. Or maybe one of my short little pocketed skirts that we all wear ad nauseum with our t-shirts and tank tops.
But when I put the fabric on the table, I could not stop myself from using the whole piece for one plain shift, old school. I had to think about where I wanted the stain to be, and decided on the back, to the side, and sort of just below my arm. It's there, but you really have to be watching me walk away, which I almost never do, to see it. No. I like to stay till the bitter end, have people walk away from me.
I am being optimistic. I figured the stain would make this dress just for at home wear. I have one other shift, and my husband loves it, cheers up terribly when I put it on, which I only do to go to bed, because I didn't do a great job on it, and though he likes the fabric, picked it out himself, even, it is a little too thematic for me. Something sea-related, watery. Whatever. Blue. Anyway, I kind of messed up the armholes in several, irreparable ways, so it is not a dress I'm likely to wear off the property. And the blue makes it sort of a nightdress, in my mind.
So. Last night, after showering before bed, I put on the new shift. We were so beat from the hot weekend and projects, I am still wearing it this morning, but it was well received, don't you worry. His eyes light up, for him the new dress is a new treat. For me like a visit from an old friend I haven't seen in ages, one I used to live with and wish I still did live with. May once again live with, if truth be told. I am happy in this shift. Check this. I just went to the studio, just down the hall, and put on the unwearably high-heeled pumps I keep for testing skirts and dresses, to see how the dress handled them. Just fine, thanks very much. I am naked underneath now, of course, but I am thinking I'll just put on some undergarments to finish out the day. It promises to be a scorcher, as they say.
Welcome back, little dress. I missed you more than I knew.
The fabrics available at the time are not in the stores now. There were prints of strange complexity, even a little ugly sometimes, but enticing, intoxicating. Not ditsy. Not what anyone would expect. There must have been a crowd of designers in some factory having a great time, and no one was saying "no" to them. No more. Now the rayon challis all looks like it came straight out of your mother's imagination of what would make a nice, oh, I don't even know what. They are uninspiring.
But I do not throw things out, especially not fabric, and this weekend in the chaos of my studio I found a small amount of one of the very very best fabrics: an insane, abstracted Frenchified filigree in shades of gold and brown against a mottled red-orange background. I'm telling you. You just don't find stuff like this anymore. There was a large stain on this short length of old fabric, like a faint pool of ink or something, the placement of which precluded making a dress. I washed it, and the stain stayed. Rats. I thought about making a small shirt, because who doesn't need a little something to get through the summertime, the way we go through tops in this midwestern heat. Or maybe one of my short little pocketed skirts that we all wear ad nauseum with our t-shirts and tank tops.
But when I put the fabric on the table, I could not stop myself from using the whole piece for one plain shift, old school. I had to think about where I wanted the stain to be, and decided on the back, to the side, and sort of just below my arm. It's there, but you really have to be watching me walk away, which I almost never do, to see it. No. I like to stay till the bitter end, have people walk away from me.
I am being optimistic. I figured the stain would make this dress just for at home wear. I have one other shift, and my husband loves it, cheers up terribly when I put it on, which I only do to go to bed, because I didn't do a great job on it, and though he likes the fabric, picked it out himself, even, it is a little too thematic for me. Something sea-related, watery. Whatever. Blue. Anyway, I kind of messed up the armholes in several, irreparable ways, so it is not a dress I'm likely to wear off the property. And the blue makes it sort of a nightdress, in my mind.
So. Last night, after showering before bed, I put on the new shift. We were so beat from the hot weekend and projects, I am still wearing it this morning, but it was well received, don't you worry. His eyes light up, for him the new dress is a new treat. For me like a visit from an old friend I haven't seen in ages, one I used to live with and wish I still did live with. May once again live with, if truth be told. I am happy in this shift. Check this. I just went to the studio, just down the hall, and put on the unwearably high-heeled pumps I keep for testing skirts and dresses, to see how the dress handled them. Just fine, thanks very much. I am naked underneath now, of course, but I am thinking I'll just put on some undergarments to finish out the day. It promises to be a scorcher, as they say.
Welcome back, little dress. I missed you more than I knew.
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