Call me Inappropriate

I hate to shop for clothes. I think I always have, even when I was younger and was wearing all the styles of the day. I even worked in an upscale clothing store while I was in high school and college, and bought lots of fashionable clothes (can we say "mini-skirts" and "bellbottoms"?), but I didn't really like the whole trying on, looking in the mirrors thing. In fact, the more mirrors the worse because I just don't need to be taking that close a look at myself.

The only time it wasn't too terribly bad was during the second marriage to Shithead when I was really thin. When I was on the cigarettes, vodka and verbal abuse diet. At least the majority of stuff I tried on then fit and looked good. But his taste in clothing was on the trashy side and in my efforts to please him that's what I tended to buy: short skirts (damn, mini-skirts were back again), tight and low cut tops, y'know, hoochy clothes. I'd slip in more classic, conservative styles for work but everything else was a few steps short of floozy. This was a very short period of time in my life (thankfully) and I went right back to hating shopping.

My friend Sandy is getting married in a couple of weeks and is having an afternoon church wedding. That means I can't wear any of my normal clothing which as I mentioned yesterday consists of jeans and jeans. And running clothes, also not quite right for the occasion. I've been putting off the shopping until the last minute, hoping that by some miracle the right article of clothing would magically appear in my closet. Or that overnight I'd lose about 20 pounds. No surprise, neither of those happened. So at lunch yesterday I dragged myself across the street to Macy's.

I'm never sure what size I am, I just know I'm larger than most clothes will fit. Especially with current styles since I can't stand tight or formfitting clothes. I won't buy from the "women's" department because of the spangled, embossed, shiny, embroidered, bright, chiffoned, polyestered stuff they think big women like. Uh, no. The regular clothes tend to top out at size 14 and I'm on the border of 14/16 depending on styles and fabric. I started looking through the racks, concentrating on the darker colors since that's all I'll wear. Every single time I buy something with a print or pattern, or in a light or bright color, I hate it when I'm wearing it. I know it isn't right to wear black to a wedding but that's about all I ever wear and I'm just way too uncomfortable in anything else. I pulled nine dresses from the rack, including the only two black size 16 dresses in the store, a couple of strapless thingies, a couple of blue dresses, a few things that would require specialized undergarments, in short anything I thought had a vague possibility of fitting.

For the next 45 minutes I dressed and undressed and sighed and chuckled and swore and giggled and frowned and actually managed to find two that might work. I switched back and forth between them and decided that although one was cuter it would involve having to get a different bra (more shopping, oh no!) and had some deodorant stains from someone else that I wasn't sure would come out. So I bought the other one. A black, sleeveless number, pretty conservative, more of a night dress than a day dress but whatcha gonna do? A very typical little black dress. I don't think it's quite right for an afternoon wedding, let alone an evening wedding, but I'm hoping that when I throw my blue silk clapotis on my shoulders it will both dress it down and dress it up. Know what I mean? Hey, at least it's not jeans.

I had a good run at the buddy run last night, alone as usual. I ran just under 3 miles. I probably should have gone longer than that but boring. I had my music without the Nike+ thingie since I don't think it's accurate enough to bother with. As usual when I run with music I went too fast. I didn't' wait around for anyone else to finish because there was a wicked cold wind blowing and I just wanted to get home.

Knitting on Monica's SnP hat continues. I got a few inches done in a 2x2 rib and realized that it's too big. As in pumpkin-head too big. I decided that maybe that will work for a turned up brim and reduced down many stitches, continuing in plain knit in the round. I have no idea if that will work, but it's interesting trying. This part will go fast so I should be able to see within a few more inches whether it's going in the frog pond or whether I can actually give it to someone to wear. It has the possibility to turn out cute. Or horrifying.

Today's Gratuitous Bear of the Day is the third Safeway charm bear, Ms. Courage. "Courage" always makes me think of the Cowardly Lion and with a very large stretch of the imagination you can see that reflected in this bear. Can't you??