By now, if you've been reading any several of my posts here, you have probably concluded that I am quite the mean and heartless bitch. I mean, I not only lose my patience with my dying parents, I criticize them for their positions on Medicare and national healthcare. I criticize my sisters for having too much money. In fact, as my kids are always criticizing me, I criticize nearly everyone, including myself. And this all despite the fact that one of my sloppier New Year's resolutions was to become a nicer, better person, urged on by my co-worker Bethany who does, after all, spend more waking hours with me than anyone else on the planet right now.
Today, I confess that not only is all the above true and not only am I largely unrepentant about the above (except for the making of sloppy, unkeepable, hopelessly imprecise resolutions), I am actually considering becoming even more heartless and for the most shallow of reasons: Fashion. You see, I made the mistake of watching TV last night, genuine network TV. I'd worked hard all day, then come home and worked hard for several more hours on domestic duties. After throwing in a load of laundry in the utility room adjoining the so-called Bonus Room where my largely defunct television set lives, I idly clicked on the remote as I waited to see if the water lines to the washer were frozen, as happens here in Wisconsin. Amazingly, the erratic TV worked and so did the water, and I ended up plunking myself down in front of random network TV shows for the first time in many years, and now I'm a changed woman, it seems. Suddenly, I have a deep, almost primordial craving for a really expensive, probably custom-fit suit, a woman's suit, one that both Katie Couric and Sarah Palin might notice with some amount of envy. I would even buy nylons to wear with it, I've been thinking. Some new high heels.
Perhaps it was yesterday's blog that made me vulnerable, thinking about Sarah and Katie facing off on network TV, but it was a mean woman executive with extremely interesting eyebrows on some show that had "Ted" in the title who really made me crave sartorial splendor. Her suit was gorgeous. Absolutely perfect. And it would have looked stunning on me. Or maybe it's just that I'm sort of involved with a man who abhors skirts. I don't mean "skirts" as a euphemism of sorts for "women"--I mean he genuinely dislikes, really can't abide, skirts. Who says there is nothing new under the sun? The first time he confessed this, I really thought he was kidding. I mean, if I had strangely shaped legs I would undoubtedly have believed him and blanched and gone running home, but I am a runner, and my legs are GOOD! My next thought was that he was psychotic. I'm still debating this possibility.
Maybe I've been living here too long, in this Midwestern city where fashion is the disrespected consort of comfort and comfort is the abject slave to climate. Don't have a belt that goes with those shoes? Here: Wear a fanny pack! Don't have enough pockets in those elasticized pants? Again, the fanny pack! In any other city in the country, I would be considered a slob without the least sense of clothing based on what I wear. Here, I could be strutting down runways...if they were only clear of ice and snow and the damned infernal salt that is now ruining all my footwear.
The suit this mean executive wore on the unknown TV show last night was so absolutely lovely I think I might leave academia and go into private business if lured by a closet full of such perfectly tailored skirts and jackets. I might even start driving a car to work so my shoes wouldn't get caked with salt. I might get my hair done professionally instead of snipping at the ends in front of my bathroom mirror, or at least start blow-drying it, since I wouldn't have to cram it into a hat or, worse, a bike helmet. Maybe I might experiment with lipstick, maybe inject a little botox...
Or maybe I'll just turn off the TV again, slip into the polyester-perverse Snuggie my Dad just gave me "because it seemed just perfect for you," and go back to reading Destiny Disrupted, an engrossing history of Islam. I am a Wisconsin woman, I'm afraid. Hand me that fanny pack, please; my Burt's Bees lip balm is in it.
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