Category: retail therapy

I’m a bit…nervous

There is a big change coming.

Huge.

It’s a good change.

But…it’s just…difficult for someone like me.

Okay, men, here’s the part where you can go ahead and tune out.

May I suggest a click here (how ’bout that NFL draft?) or here (how about that swine flu?)?

Okay ladies….now that it’s just us girls………

See, this weekend, I bought a new purse.

Sure, for you ladies who swap around purse-to-purse depending on mood or outfit, this isn’t a big deal.

For a steady, stubborn Taurus like me…I like to buy a *nice* all occasion purse. And then I Wear. It. The Heck. Out.

Seriously. I am carrying a Kenneth Cole black leather hobo bag right now (smoking sale at Macy’s) and have been for a while. That thing is scuffed to death!

It is time to let it rest.

But it’s *so* hard for me to switch purses. The pockets won’t be in the same spots. The cute little side zippy place for my keys will go away!

Will I know intuitively how to go in there to get my phone when it rings? No! Not for a while.

And my old wallet doesn’t match…so I need a new one. UGH! More change!

Then there is the inevitable clean out of the old purse as the switch is made. I have to let go of the used chewing gum crammed into the mangled business card from my doctor’s office with an old appointment on there.

I’ll have to trash the tired mints rattling around in the bottom.

And I’ll have to actually go through all the stuff I’m carrying around and determine if it is worthy of the new purse!

This is just so difficult for a girl like me!

I have anxiety!

Thanks for listening.

When reality reaches up and grabs you by the throat

I have a milestone birthday coming up in May. It is an age I’m not sure I’m happy about being.

Ok, fine, I have to get old. Everyone does it (barring the alternative, of course). I’m ok with it.

Until I’m reminded clearly and plainly how old and out of it I am.

It began, this past weekend, with the shopping excursion to procure new jeans (see previous post for my thoughts on that). While out and about, I wandered into a store called Anchor Blue.

I’d seen an article in a trashy gossip magazine last week while at the dentist’s office about “the best jeans.” There was a pair of Anchor Blue jeans featured that looked like I’d be happy with them.

So. Anchor Blue. I’d seen the store but had never actually been inside before.

Well. If you go to the webpage (linked above) you’ll see several fresh, dewey-faced CHILDREN on the splash page, showing you just how cool and beautiful YOU can be if you wear their clothing.

Walking into the store, I practically coughed dust and picked cryptkeeper tendrils from my person as I looked around and the clerks looked at me.

I did, actually, pick out a few pairs of jeans to try on, none of them the fabulous pair I’d seen in the magazine, of course.

So, yes, happily, the jeans I’d picked fit me. Well. Sort of. I mean, I could get them on and button them.

But to look in the mirror, you could see clearly where the jeans ended (below my hipbones) and my (evidently) granny panties continued on.

Now, I don’t wear old lady briefs (yet)…what I wear are respectable cotton bikini chones. But in the spotlight of Logan’s Run (In case you missed that film, everyone is executed at age 30), my respectable bikini yonderwear appear to be practically up to my ribcage (just below what they must believe to be my sagging boobs).

I may as well give over to the white belt and Velcro shoes ferchrissakes!

So I gave up on those jeans, but continued to look around the store. I checked out accessories.

They had quite the assortment of Che Guevara-style caps for the ladies. I want to look like an Argentinean communist revolutionary why again?

I looked at skirts. I have this little cloth that I use to clean my glasses. That cloth is larger than these “skirts.” Even if I could get a lens cloth skirt to fit me…no, it’s too terrible, I can’t even go there.

Fine. Thus ended my shopping trip.

Sunday rolled around and The Good Man and I traveled up to Muir Beach to meet with some friends. “Take a walk,” they said. Oh, sure, yes! A walk on a sunny day would be nice. Maybe even help me work off some calories in hopes of wearing that lens cloth to dinner!

These folks are all about my same age…well, TGM and his best friend are a year younger. And the best friend’s wife is a couple years younger still. Ok, so I’m the matron of the bunch, what of it?

So we walk on the beach a bit and then decide to hike a trail. Fun!

An uphill trail.

What?

So evidently that one-year age difference between TGM’s and me is a huge gap, because all of my friends scampered up the hill while I was in the back gasping for air and feeling my thighs wobbling.

Now, the other lady in our group is in knockout shape, I forgive her. But TGM and his buddy have no excuse. They billy-goated they way up the hill with ease, leaving me with hands on knees feeling like I was going to puke.

I was further insulted when a tiny fourteen year-old dog named Chester paced me, turned and ran halfway back down the hill to greet his people, then turned around and paced me again.

His legs are three inches long!

Damn you Chester!

Now it is Monday and my legs hurt. My lungs still burn a little and I’m faced with my group of fifteen employees, not a ONE of them over the age of 30.

I remember 30. That was a good year. My thirties…yes, a fine decade. *sigh*

Mandate

From the “When I am Queen of the World” Files.

The following two phrases will be eliminated from the vocabulary of denim jeans manufacturers:

“Low rise”

and

“skinny fit”

That is all.

Perspectives

I’m going to do something that I pretty much figured I’d never do. I’m going to post a photo of myself, unretouched, without any makeup or clean up whatsoever. I’m doing so because it helps make the point of my story.

I find myself the unwitting victim of a sociological experiment.

As mentioned here, I had some heavy dental work done on Monday. The tooth is healing fine, still a little cold sensitive, but all in, healing well.

However, in the process of giving numbing injections so the dentist could work on my tooth, he accidentally hit a blood vessel in my cheek.

So, as expected, the vessel bled out leaving me a bruise below the skin, which, due to gravity, has traveled to my jawline.

As this week has progressed, the swelling has gone down and the tooth has improved but the bruise has gotten blacker and meaner looking.

I’m feeling fine but my face is a mess.

Today, I ventured out into the world to try to find some new spring clothes for work. Because I am a cheap ass b*stard, I went to the “discount fashions for less!” type of stores to shop. Make my dollars go farther.

Fascinating sort of clientele you get in the low, low price kind of stores.

The kind that yell at the fitting room lady because she miscounted their stack of clothes. The kind that shout angrily to all in the store, “C’mon honey, let’s leave, the line is too long, this is ridiculous!!” (both of these stories are true).

Yeah, so I’m out in the world looking at work pants and minding my business. Me being me, inside my own body, I don’t see the bruise on my face unless I look in a mirror. What I do see are people’s reactions to me. I am continually reminded I have a beat up looking face.

I am reasonably certain that a fair percentage of the society I have encountered thinks that some guy has hurt me. At least I suppose that is what they think…I can’t read minds…much.

It really freaks me out that someone, even one person, would think my husband might hurt me like that. It makes me feel defensive and, yes, angry.

I guess I can’t blame them in their assumption, but what a sad commentary on how we live our lives. The whole Rhianna/Chris Brown thing is top headline news right now, so everybody has an opinion.

From a sociological standpoint, here’s what is interesting. Today I went to six different stores and encountered fellow customers, fitting room attendants, store clerks and cashiers, all of them women.

Older ladies, say 50 and above, looked at me with sympathy. I got a kind of “I’ve been there, honey” look, and they would treat me with kid gloves. Called me “dear” and patted my hand.

Younger women, 30 or less, treated me with disgust. Most wouldn’t meet my eyes or would narrow their eyes at me when I approached. I even had a young lady, another customer, look at me, stare at my bruise, then turn her head and say “ugh!”, shrug her shoulders and walk away.

I don’t know what this means. I do know that it is kind of freaking me out. It’s also playing hell with my self-esteem.

As a woman, I have a profound bit of fear and healthy respect for women who have lived through the torment of an abuser in the form of a boyfriend or a husband. I am not that woman. I want to yell to all who will hear “It was my dentist, for chrissakes!,” but really, at the end of the day, no one cares. We all just want to cast a judgment and go on about our bargain shopping day.