Project Prude

Did anyone else watch Project Runway tonight and was equally appalled about how the judges kept talking about how Kenley’s pop outfit was revealing without being trashy?

Since when is a fishnet top with a spangly bra underneath it and a miniskirt so short that if Kenley sat down we’d all be getting a hooha shot, the same ones we’ve been seeing of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears for, I don’t know, WHAT FEELS LIKE EONS NOW, NOT TRASHY???

It’s like how when gas is $3.89 a gallon and you’re like, BARGAIN! And you forget how a few years ago you could fill your tank up for $25. And how there were many thousands of people LESS DEAD.

Not to compare the state of the world with the state of fashion, but man, I refuse to become immune to ick.

I try to maintain a non-judgmental, empathetic position generally in life. And if you showed up to my party in a hooha dress, I’d mix you up a long island ice tea and wish (a) you the best, and (b) that I could pull off a dress that short. But if I am totally honest, I’d also probably think you were missing something, that you needed something that you weren’t getting and that you just didn’t know how else to get it. And I’d understand that, we’re all missing something, so I’d do my best not to judge.

Still. I don’t ever want to get to the point where I don’t judge because I don’t notice anything wrong with your hooha showing up at my party as your unexpected plus-one.

I don’t know, maybe I am wrong, maybe (OK, SURELY) my feelings are all based on some Judeo-Christian social construct of morality that’s only been around a couple centuries and I should get off my high horse.

But for some reason watching Nina Garcia, supposed arbiter of taste, endorse a fishnet dress as demure just got my goat.

In increasingly weird world, there’s got to be a line somewhere you can draw.

And my line, apparently, is about 5 inches lower than where Jerell drew it.

A Prim and Proper Fall, But I Hope More Like a Jane Austen Novel (Her Earlier Days, No Pompous Sermonizing), with an Undercurrent of Romance and Messiness

One time I read about how, when you’re like, “what was I saying?”, by and large it turns out the thing you were saying was about yourself.

I told Laurie about this, and on on the breaks we’d take together at the bank (holy crap, 4 years ago now), we’d say, forgoing all pretense, “OK, well, bringing it back to me…” We don’t do that any more, a sign perhaps that we don’t even need anything to signal that we’ve foregone all pretense. Sycophants.

Not quite sure how this ties in except for as further evidence of self-absorption, I’d like to say I find it totally fascinating when people reveal their first/current/overall impressions of me.

Mainly I take pleasure in the different ways that people have of hitting the nail on the head, but a totally different nail than someone else has hit. My coworkers think I’m a tree-hugging Oregonian at heart. My friend Jon thinks I stand for traditional values. My sister thinks I’m crazy.

Sometimes, though, people hit a nail a little too close to home. Last night, my friend S. described me to me as “prim and proper.” (Urs, you Miss Manners fanatic, I hope you’re proud). And the boy I’m seeing (don’t get excited, friends and family, we’ve mutually agreed it’s enjoyable but temporary), said, when I told him (nicely) that I made plans following his failure to solidify ours, “That’s OK, I know you need everything just so.”

Eek.

It’s hard (maybe just for me, I dunno), the older you get, the more responsibility you have, to live life messy. To not schedule things, to not keep a clean home, to sleep late, to tolerate delay and vacillation. I work really hard to keep my life in order, to make things pretty and nice.

But I guess to others that’s a seriously uptight way to live life. And also unpleasant.

And while there are certain dignities I won’t give up on (weekly fresh flowers, like the pumpkin tree above) there are probably some stringent standards of being I could relax: going home early because of pilates every morning, needing to have plans for the week solidified by Monday, resentment toward unplanned company because I haven’t vacuumed the apartment in the last 24 hours and maybe there’s some unstowed mail on the counter, etc., etc.

I need to let my fall freak flag — the muddy-skirted, woods-tramping side of Elizabeth Bennett — fly. There’s got be be some kind of balance available to the OCD-tending among us.

Maybe I’ll start with a soy chai latte tomorrow morning instead of the usual small in a medium cup — baby steps, people, baby steps. But also, lattes! The perfect drink of fall.

Voodoo Love

I know that love is, like, beyond color and creed and whatnot, but I have to say I just DO NOT GET James Carville and Mary Matalin. The fact of their relationship is cool, in a theoretical way, but I just don’t get it.

If you hadn’t guessed (and maybe I’ve said so before), I’m pretty liberal. My coworkers keep telling me I’m really from Oregon, and I just keep it to myself that Oregon is actually a swing state because I know they’re just trying to tell me they wouldn’t be surprised if I drove a Subaru, wore natural deodorant and like, cared about the environment and crap.

Hm.

(Also, my favorite new thing is to show up to our mud run trainings in as hippie-ish gear as I can find. This week I showed up in a Marin Headlands t-shirt I got at camp in 5th grade, and next week, CANNOT WAIT, I am totally showing up in a Pink Martini t-shirt that shouts in bold letters, WELCOME TO OREGON (PM’s homefront)! I am so awesome.)

Anyway.

James and Mary.

I get it IN THEORY that people can be basically good even though they live on the other side of the blue-red divide. I in fact know many awesome people who do, usually because they’re religious and/or wealthy (or plan to be) (they should read this) and/or Ayn Rand fans (j/k).

And assuredly, they make the same allowances for me, the nutty tree-hugger.

But I just don’t think I could really date someone who was on the other side, even if they were just fiscally conservative. There are so civil/human rights issues and sorely neglected (in my liberal mind) social programs out there that I think I would get too upset knowing that they were one of the people standing in the way of what (in my liberal mind) needs to be done. I just couldn’t do it. I think I would just always secretly think they were obtuse. Or mean (I choke up every time I watch this).

Which I know is HORRIBLE, and says a lot more about me and my intolerance than it does about any conservative.

Which is why I think that, despite all your awesome “Chick Lit that Doesn’t Suck Like Chick Lit” recommendations, I think my next book is going to be All’s Fair: Love, War and Running for President.

I’ve dealt with some pretty big dealbreakers in my day: prolonged unemployment, perpetual B.O., utter selfishness. If I could stomach those, surely I can deal with some voodoo economics?

First Day Jitters

The last taste of summer, Radiohead at the Bowl. Which was AWESOME, except for these bro-ey types Arsenio-Hall-style whooh-whooh-ing to Karma Police. Frat boys heart Thom Yorke? Fascinating. My only theory is that they once got laid to Fake Plastic Trees and have been fans ever since.

I’m way too ready for fall already: some plaid, maybe a fire in my fireplace, no more A/C, tights instead of leggings, red instead of white, some nip back in the air. And maybe cookies. Yes, cookies. Why isn’t it cold yet?

January may hold the actual New Year, but I’ve never lost that sense of fall as the real beginning of the year. Fall is a new wardrobe, a possible new me (never actually happened, always returned as the same nerd as before, just even shorter than everyone else) — it’s a time to remake yourself and make the nervous reveal to the world.

Growing up in Redding and Sacramento it was always still hot when school started. So you’d have bought all these awesome new sweaters and pants (stirrup, probably, eek!) and couldn’t really wear them yet but, not wanting to wear that same double-tank top with matching double-sock combo you worked all that summer, you would anyway.

The first few weeks of school were a sweaty, sweaty affair for everyone.

Especially for me. I am a nervous sweater. Fortunately (?) my nervous sweat is usually confined to one armpit, so I don’t end up wiping my brow or upper lip or anything. Just making several trips to the bathroom to take care of my one, kind of soaking underarm.

Anyway. Once out of school, there is no longer a definite annual unveiling date. There is no First Day, no post-makeover reveal. There’s just today and the next day and the day after that. Less sweaty, certainly, but also less exciting, right?

Enh, I’m still excited for fall, the possibilities, something NEW. It may still be 85 degrees in LA, but I’m wearing tights to work today, darn it! Hope no one thinks I’m crazy!