When Bad Fashion Attacks

I so wish you could see what I see when I am out for my run.  A few days ago I talked about the lady running in high heeled sneakers and lest you think I’m lying, I will take my camera with me on one of my “off” days when I’m walking.  I did not realize that this new hobby of mine would expose me to a world of fashion faux pas formerly unknown to me.  As if I needed something new to obsess about. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am no fashion plate.  My summer wardrobe consists of khakis and t-shirts.  If it’s really hot, I’ll wear khaki shorts.  But my simple wardrobe means that very little can go wrong and, therefore, I can preside over Fashion Court, judging couture wannabes in their Hootchi and Offendi threads.  The motto in my court:  Just because you can does not mean you should!  Let’s discuss.

Super low riders with exposed butt crack. Maybe that’s a runway La Perla thong that you’re wearing.  If so and you really, really insist that I see it, wear it on the outside of your low riders so that at least you are acknowledging your tastelessness.  And you know what else?  You may have paid a plastic surgeon thousands of dollars for butt cheek implants, but (no pun intended) I still don’t want to see it. 

Uggs in summer. Whether with summer dresses or a micro-mini, you don’t look stylish.  You look silly.  If you read my Hamster Grrl interview, you will know that this is one of my biggest summertime fashion pet peeves.  If you didn’t read the interview, please write a 500-word essay entitled, “Why I Do Not Find Dingo So Fascinating That I Want To Read Every Gem That Springs From Her Fingertips.” I can’t say that I will get the essay back to you anytime soon.  I still have 25 papers to grade and Spring Break is almost over.

Exposed bra straps. For the love of Tim Gunn, please do not show me your underwear!  This isn’t just about the spaghetti strap wearing crowd who wears a bra in a vibrant contrasting hue such as purple or orange.  This is also for the halter and tube-top wearing hellhounds who think that the rest of us won’t notice that not only are their straps showing but so is the top portion of their bras!!  I don’t care if it’s from Victoria’s Secret.  I don’t care if your ta-tas are so surgically enhanced that they require not just underwire but the entire San Francisco trolley cable system.  Bounce back into Victoria’s Secret where you bought the bra you are so intent on revealing and buy something a) strapless or b) that has one of those weird bra-strap configurations that makes your bra look strapless.  See, easy.  Fashion problem solved.  Spread the word.

White hose with black shoes. When were you voted Ms. Quaker Oats?  Unless you are wearing this horrid combination to a Halloween party in which you are a Pilgrim or a French Maid, cease and desist immediately.  Like how I got all lawyer-like on you there?  Yes, I have a completely irrational loathing for this particular ensemble and I will slap a restraining order on your Mayflower Madame legs if I see you walking down the street in such legwear.

Open-toed shoes with your toes hanging over the edge. Call a toe truck, I see a wreck!  What happened here?  Did you just finish the dance marathon with Mr. Two-Left-Feet or did your toes spontaneously grow an inch last night?  Did you buy size-8 shoes for your size-10 feet or are those hand-me-downs?  I ask these questions rhetorically, of course.  Whatever your reasoning, dangling your piggies over the edge like that is animal cruelty, and someone should call the ASPCA.  This also applies to your heels hanging off the back of your shoe.  My rollerblades have a rubber bulge on the back that enables me to brake as I’m careening precariously along NYC streets.  I assume your heel hanging over the back of your shoe serves the same purpose.  Are you afraid that you might be walking too fast to stop at the Ugg outlet and need to screech to a stop?  Here’s a suggestion:  fall backwards onto your super low riders to make that quick stop, but please, please wear shoes big enough to fit your gnarly toes and calloused heels.

These are just a few of my summer pet peeves.  I will add more to the list as the hot weather sets in and people go mad from the heat and start wearing things like socks with sandals.  I really need a fashion police badge.  And where’s that chic taser Mr. Dingo got me last Valentine’s Day? 

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Ow! Ow! Ow!

You would think that, knowing about this yoga class for the past week, I would have made sure I had my yoga clothes ready.  Was I wrong to assume that since I haven’t been to a yoga class since Paris Hilton was a virgin, I would have some clean, folded, and well-fitting yoga clothes just waiting for me?  Yes, I was.  With only twenty minutes to get to class, I grabbed what I thought were my gray yoga pants only to discover that it was actually my gray long sleeved T-shirt.  I eventually found a pair of amorphous black pants in Mr. Dingo’s drawer.  These were not the trendy sleek pants I envisioned for my first yoga class in almost a century, but if an opportunity for ninja-like stealth or martial arts combat arose on the way to the studio, I would be appropriately dressed. 

Sports bra?  By the time I contorted my upper body to get into the vise-like spandex and polyester torture device I found in the back of my drawer, I probably did not need to go to the yoga class after all.

Cute yoga top?  I found it behind the dresser covered in multiple layers of Dingo Girl and Not a Dingo hair.  I wore it anyway.  After a few swipes of the lint brush, it was a good as new it was going to get. 

I consoled myself with the thought that I wasn’t going to yoga dressed like a poser (although I wanted to).  Instead, I would sport the casual, relaxed attire I often admire in the tabloid photos of Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Love Hewitt as they zip off to the gym in nothing more than track pants and a white T-shirt.  That hope was quickly dashed once I left the magical force field that surrounds my apartment.  Leaving that magical force field transforms items that appeared acceptable in my bedroom mirror into outfits that look as if I allowed circus clowns to dress me prior to dousing myself in honey and rolling around in dust bunnies and pet hair.  There were people snapping pictures of me as I walked down the street. I am sure those photos will find their way to some Yeti website.  I almost called it a day then and there and then I realized that yoga people are all New Age-y and non-judgmental, right?  So off to class I went.

The class was in a beautiful studio on Madison Avenue.  For those of you who know New York, Madison Avenue will conjure images of Upper East Side matrons with too much time and money on their hands.  I fit none of those categories.  When I stepped into the studio, I encountered other categories outside my usual realm of experience.  Botox, for one.  Hey, I said yoga people are non-judgmental.  I never said that I wasn’t judgmental. 

My class consisted of the instructor, a lithe charming brunette with pink toenails at the end of slender toes that she could clearly use to put her earrings on; a woman who fit all the categories previously mentioned; and me, in my pet-hair ninja costume.  Class was a blur of pleasure and pain.  I was more out of shape than I had thought.  My “straight” back rivaled Quasimodo and my hamstrings were constantly at war with my quads resulting in spasmodic twitching and grotesque muscular contractions.  At one point, surely mistaking my flailing for an epileptic seizure, my instructor asked if everything was okay.  I wanted to respond in the negative but my mouth was too full of pet hair dislodged by my desperate gasps for breath.  Sensing my distress, the instructor would gently correct my posture and positioning.  By “gently,” I mean that she would wrench my body into contortions formerly reserved for roller coasters and Gumby.  Meanwhile, my classmate moved with fluidity and grace.  I couldn’t tell if she was experiencing any discomfort because her Botox left her expressionless.  I also had a feeling that the wide-eyed surprised look on her face was less a result of the physical exertion than eyelid surgery and a rather vigorous brow lift.

By the end of the hour-long class I was getting into the groove of things.  My body was starting to relax and I was able to enjoy a level of looseness in my limbs that I hadn’t felt for some time. My muscles are slightly sore — but it’s a good soreness.  I signed up for another session for next Tuesday.  Sometime between now and then, I have to find workout clothes that do not make me look like an extra from Planet of the Apes.

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Making It Work

I’ve used Mr. Dingo’s absence this week to catch up on my reality TV and fashion make-over shows.  They are not my usual fair.  No, really.  They are more like guilty pleasures that I watch when I need some mind candy.  Mr. Dingo tries to steer me away from these shows because I am living proof that entertainment as advertising works.  I can resist subliminal advertising but blatantly yell, “Buy this!” while holding up a pair of black suede pumps and I’ll respond, “Okay!” After these fashion shows I am convinced that everything I wear is not appropriate for my body type, personality, age, or color palette.  And the plastic surgery shows?  I think Mr. Dingo is looking into installing a V-chip on our cable box.  I can’t watch one of these shows without thinking that a little diet and exercise…and liposuction…and an eye lift…and butt booster…are completely acceptable ways to continue to eat Peeps and lose a few pounds.  Here are a few of my favorites:

How do I look? Finola Hughes, the Barbara Walters of the fashion make-over realm, likes to dig deep to the psyche to find the real reasons their target for the week wears paisley culottes with a plaid satin blouse.  The target always ends up in tears.  I don’t have a deep dark secret. I’m just convinced that I’ll fit back into my size sixes in a few months and I hate shopping.  My friend Sunny is my only shopping buddy. She has a way of making me enjoy shopping.  It’s not a leisurely waste of the day expedition but a “wham, bam, buy that m’am” extreme sport.  She has an eye for fashion, taste, and simplicity.  And speed.  We can hit Old Navy, Anthropology, Ann Taylor, and Urban Outfitters in the time it takes for a governor to be brought down by a sex scandal.  Maybe even faster.

What Not To Wear. I know what not to wear.  Anything in my closet.

Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. This show is terrible.  I’m disappointed in Mr. Gunn but I’ve taken his words to heart. His words from Project Runway. 

“Make it Work” has become my motto as I try to find something to wear in the morning.  I fumble and grumble through my closet and pick out what’s clean, non-wrinkled, and can fit without camel-toe and gaping buttons. 

Make it Work to make it to work.  That issue may soon be moot.  My boss has decided, in spite of the agreement we had when I accepted the job nine months ago, that she wants me to work longer hours and take on more responsibility with no increase in pay.  It’s not in the budget.  What?  I already work for peanuts…wait, let me rephrase, I went grocery shopping earlier this week and I saw the price of peanuts.  Those things are expensive!  It’s more like I work for…dryer lint…yes, that’s right, dryer lint.  Actually, even if they would increase my pay from dryer lint to, let’s say, belly button fuzz, I still wouldn’t be able to stay.  Extending my hours beyond the 35-hour week I already have would conflict with my teaching schedule.  I love teaching.  With teaching assignments so hard to come by, I’m not about to jeopardize my placement.

Believe me, I like my job and I do it well, often going above and beyond the call of duty.  She needed her suit picked up from Bloomingdale’s during the only snow storm we’ve had this year.  I did it.  She wanted a venti-white mocha-skim-no whip-wet-cappuccino and the cappuccino machine at the closest Starbucks was broken.  I walked eight blocks to the next Starbucks.  In the rain.  Without an umbrella.  Other NYC neighborhoods have a Starbucks on every corner and sometimes even just across the street from each other. Our next closest Starbucks is in another zip code.  Another time zone.  Another dimension.  I can’t even tell you how many times she has had me traipse all over the city trying to locate a particular type of tulip, orchid, Japanese coin plant, or shrub of the moment to thank a colleague.  In the rain.  She seems to like assigning field trips when it’s raining.  I’m rather fortunate that I haven’t electrocuted myself as I typed her thank you notes and meeting minutes with my hair dripping onto the keyboard.  Did I tell you that I was an office assistant and not a personal assistant?  Yeah, sometimes I think she forgets that too.

She’s actually not that bad to work for.  She’s certainly no Devil Wears Prada.  She’s more like Mrs. Garrett Wears St. Johns.  In addition to Mrs. Garrett, my office has an interesting cast of characters.  There’s Juicy, our self-titled fashionista who thinks that Juicy Couture is actually that and can’t stop talking about her Juicy perfume, her Juicy purse, her Juicy jewelry and anything else she can append the Juicy name to.  Sorry, hon.  I don’t care who made your velour track suit.  Inappropriate for the office.  Oh, and Juicy, consistently coming in at 11am and then asking your already overworked office mates to help you with your work is not going over well.  How you get away with it I’ll never know.  I suppose it’s because your Juicy perfume is so strong that no one can get close enough to actually talk to you about your lack of punctuality.  Mrs. Garrett could send an email to you but I don’t think you are off Facebook or Match.com long enough to check your office email.  Then there’s Passive-Aggressive Pat.  I call her Pap for short.  She’s as intrusive as a gyno exam and as warm as a speculum.  Weezy, Sassy, and The Disappearing Man round out the crew.  There are at least ten other people in my office but they’re all normal.

There was so much to tell you.  Academia is not the civil environment you would think.  There’s enough backstabbing and political maneuvering to keep Wonkette blogging for days.  I will have to save my workplace musings for my tell-all memoir. Teaching and working on my thesis will keep me plenty busy, but now that I’ll never move from dryer lint to peanuts, I will have to put off wardrobe updates and plastic surgery for another day.  No matter, I can make it work.

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Craptacular

I haven’t posted much this craptacular week.  Certain family situations had my hackles raised and claws drawn.  I might let you get away with a minor slight against Texas, but don’t mess with my Mama.  The helplessness of not being able to do anything for her but offer words of support angered me almost as much as the jackass that’s making her life difficult right now.  That the jackass happens to be another family member doesn’t help matters.  Maybe one of you out there is wondering whether I’m referring to you.  Well, if you have to wonder… So, I spewed enough acid in my potential posts to peel multiple layers of polyurethane off my hardwood floors (at one point when I was writing, Mr. Dingo mentioned, quite spontaneously, that he had never liked the monsters in Aliens).  And then I deleted my words in case there was a possibility that I would have to eat them later.  A few days before posting my first blog entry last month I read Julie Pippert’s post about How To Talk About Other People On Your Blog.  It was a thought-provoking post about how we blog about our personal histories and the people in our lives.  I’ve since printed out her Seven Guidelines and have it taped by my desk until I can make it to the tattoo parlor to have them etched into my forearm.  Even if I’d never read Julie’s post , I hope that I would’ve deleted my angry rants before posting them, but it’s nice to have a reminder for those times when the angel on my shoulder is taking a day off and the devil is dancing up and down on the SUBMIT key.

In other crapitudinous news, Dingo Girl decided that the dog food and copius table scraps we usually feed her just weren’t good enough.  She decided to go for “the other white meat” and took a chunk out of a friend of ours.  Just because I cracked a lame but somewhat racially charged joke about it, believe me, it’s nothing to laugh about.  Having your dog bite someone is intolerable.  The fact that we live in NYC and a simple walk around the block puts us in contact with mouth-watering hordes at roughly every mealtime makes the situation all the more dire.  Beyond the scrumptiousness of this particular friend — whom Mr. Dingo and I have often commented would go well with a nice Chianti, lightly dusted with rice flour and quickly sautéed with cherry tomatoes and a light cream sauce — we don’t know what triggered her bite.  She hasn’t been feeling well lately and has been unusually skittish during our walks.  She constantly looks over her shoulder as if she’s being tailed and will dart away at the slightest sound and unexpected movement.  When this first began to happen, I thought, “She has those keen dog senses!  She knows something I don’t!  We had better run!” And the two of us would bolt down the street together screaming, running from nothing in particular.  Today, a guy wearing a hockey mask carrying a machete dripping blood could suddenly appear behind us causing her to freak out.  I would ignore her warning with a yawn and sigh.  She has set me up to be one of those stupid, oblivious people in horror movies!  Well, anyway, her skittishness has made me wonder what she gets into during the day when I’m at work.  Maybe The Vampire has recruited her into his secret agent network or something.  Or maybe she watches Nancy Grace on CNN all morning and has come to realize that evil lurks around every corner, but all we can do about it is cry and cry.

Up until now I’ve taken Dingo Girl on shopping expeditions.  That’s one of the great things about NYC.  Most stores allow canine companions and many have water bowls at the door and delicious treats behind the counter.  Among Dingo Girl’s favorite shopping haunts are Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond.  Dingo Girl is all into the DIY thing.  And if shopping for my DIY efforts isn’t enough to satisfy Dingo Girl’s appetite for treats, my execution of the actual DIY labor may distract me long enough so that she can sneak into Not a Dingo’s litter box for a feline fudge brownie.  Yum.  Often, though, we work as a team.  I create while she destroys.  If I get new curtains, that means she can lay on the old curtains and chew on the hardware.  If I buy new pillows, that means she can rip up the old pillows.  This may not sound appropriate to you, but that could only mean that you have never experienced it.  You see, together, we are the godlike creator/destroyer.  We are the Phoenix, rising from the ashes we fashion.  We are Shiva.  We are Bob Villa!

I spent two days calling trainers/behaviorists who work with aggressive dogs.  That was one of the hardest things to overcome — the label of “aggressive dog.” One trainer understood my qualms about labeling Dingo Girl and rephrased it, “so you have a dog that has exhibited aggressive behavior.” Yes, that’s more like it, though I prefer to think that she was inappropriately confrontational or unnecessarily argumentative.  Maybe the ultimate irony is that she now gets a trainer because she had a fit of rebellion, lashing out at authority in the form of a pulpy little human hand?  Well, after a lot of research and calling around I found someone I trust to help us.  This particular behaviorist doesn’t come cheap, but the cheap ones all asked if Dingo Girl bruised easily.  Really, for what we’re paying this behaviorist, I think Mr. Dingo and I should get to bite her.  We’ve just finished paying Dingo Girl’s surgical bills and thought that this month would be the month we get a little cushion.  Instead, this month is the month that Mr. Dingo and I have to decide who is going to sell their kidney.  I sold my soul last month, I think it’s Mr. Dingo’s turn to put up. 

So, those two things are what drove me into writing reclusiveness last week.  I didn’t know how to write about them and I was throwing myself a pity party.  Be glad I didn’t invite you to the party.  It was a last minute thing and all I had on hand were feline fudge brownies.

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Almost New Year’s Resolutions

How are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions?  I read an article last month that said January 21st was the most depressing day of the year for many people because that’s when they assess how well they’ve stuck to their resolutions.  For me and Mr. Dingo, January 21st was not the assessment point.  We have to reassess at the end of every single month.  Medical bills, vet bills, and the fact that I was unemployed for a few months early last year really kicked our butts.  Our resolution for this year is to get out of debt; so we came up with a plan that does not involved robbing banks or printing money to help us reach our goal.  Basically, we are in the cash only lane from this moment on.  We pay for everything with cash.  Credit cards are only for emergencies.  Emergencies are Dingo Girl going into another seizure and not a sale at DSW Shoe Warehouse.  I don’t keep cash on me either.  Loose cash is waaay too easy to spend.  I use my ATM card.  There’s something about the act of pulling the ATM card out of my wallet that really makes me think about whether my purchase is necessary.

Anyway, this morning as I was pulling on my boots getting ready to take Dingo Girl to Central Park and I was thinking about the resolution.  But first, I must digress.  Getting my boots on is a real bitch.  They don’t have that handy little loop at the back to help you pull them on.  They used to have that handy loop.  However, two days after I got them, Dingo Girl decided to chew them off.  I guess she figured the only way her mama was going to build the muscles in her T-Rex arms was to make her struggle to pull on these damn boots.  I love these boots though, even without the bootstraps.  They’re Coast Guard boots that I ordered from U.S. Calvary and they rock.  You know that nasty six inch puddle of water or slush that’s at the corner of every intersection in New York City?  The puddle bottomless pit that leaves you with the option to make like a long-jumper in the Olympics or to walk up and down the edge of the street looking for a place to cross like a cow during a cattle drive?  Well, a puddle like that is nothing to these boots.  Nothing!  These boots laugh at deep puddles, one of those long, condescending sneers like you get from the chick at Victoria’s Secret when you ask her if this comes in your size.  I just wade right on in!  I am Moses!  My feet stay dry and warm.  Out of my way, you people herding along the edge of the curb looking for a shallow spot!  Anyway, these boots are a winter staple.  I have been so impressed with them that I actually wore them to work once hoping that they would be just as effective against the piles of bullshit that I slog through every day.  No dice.  The repelling properties of my Coast Guard boots are limited to water, slush, and snow.

So as Dingo Girl and I were headed to the park I began to think about our cash crunch, luxuries, necessities, and all kinds of things associated with altering our lifestyle for the foreseeable future.  And you know what I came up with?  I have everything I need to be happy.  I couldn’t always say that.  A few years ago, I was a mess.  Rock bottom.  That’s a lifetime ago and definitely a post for another day.  But today, this other life, the things that make me happy aren’t money or anything to do with money.  Don’t get me wrong, if I suddenly found five million dollars in my checking account like this guy did, I would seriously think about a Swiss bank account and a well-appointed hut in the Caymans.  But it’s sitting up until 2am talking with Mr. Dingo about politics, movies, the latest book we’ve read, or cooking a new recipe he found that give me happiness.  It’s cold, damp, snowy days like today with Dingo Girl ecstatic about playing in the snow and her doggie friends that make me smile.  I think you would agree with me that it’s the things that you can’t stick a price tag on that make us happiest, but why is it that we always think we need so much? 

Watching Dingo Girl play in the park knowing that Mr. Dingo would probably have a fire in the fireplace by the time we got home cold and shivering, anticipating a day of reading on the couch and perhaps writing the next chapter of my novel make me feel like the richest woman in the world.  And you can take that to the bank.

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