If You Love It: Wear It (If You Don't Love It; Try It on Anyway)

Our dearest Alaskan Princess wrote:

COMPLETELY off topic, but may I make a little happy exclamation here?
Recently visited the Lower 48 (Contiguous US) & got to go to a real mall & real stores. While there a garment caught my eye, even though it was one of those things 'that bigger girls just shouldn't wear' (repeat that in your best nosy/bitchy biddy voice):

A brightly colored, horizontally striped pencil skirt.

Well, while swept up in the vacation high, I tried it on, liked it & bought it. I'm generally a black pant, black cardi & maybe a color nice tee underneath type woman.
Fast forward to today, two-ish weeks later, I decided to wear said coat of many colors-stripey skirt. Wore it & rocked it if I do say so myself! Besides the compliments from others, I felt good in it myself.

This is a HUGE step out of the box for me. Seems dumb, but I was proud of myself & felt pretty good. I think I'm going to be stretching out a little more on occasion. I looked good! Okay, all done. Just wanted to get that out there! Try something new sartorially!!

Can I hear a halleloo? Because this just made the eels in my heart shimmy with electric glee.

If you wear black because you love it; wear it.

If you wear black because:
a) you've always worn black
b) you don't know what else to wear
c) it's "slimming"

Do yourself a favor and branch out. It's entirely likely you'll find yourself in the same boat as our friend from Seward's Folly.

Real Talk: A black dress plus appropriately devastating accessories served as my unofficial uniform for almost ten years.

In fact, when the death of print media found me with a whole lot of extra time on my hands and a severance package that allowed me to rent a villa in Mexico for a month, I challenged myself to wear nothing but white natural fibers, just to ease myself out of the habit.

Granted, maintaining a wardrobe consisting exclusively of white linen and cotton batiste was made a heck of a lot easier by the excellent Mila and her not-as-good-at-windows-but-still-quite-wonderful twin soft butch lesbian daughters who would creep in on little cat feet twice a week to grab my laundry and then deliver it back to my closet, sans lipstick/carne asada/mango juice stains like the angels from God they so clearly were.

Still, the exercised proved highly worthwhile and hugely liberating and now most days I can be seen swanning (kindly take the broad view of "swanning", I'm still trying to work out this limp) around Casita Klapklap in a color or print I would never have considered even a few years ago. Who cares if pale coral isn't the absolute perfect color for your skin tone? Who cares if you leave the house in something that, God forbid, doesn't take advantage of every available trick to make you look the slimmest you can possibly be?

Wear the striped pencil skirt in all the colors of the rainbow and then crow about its success from here to eternity (speaking of, it was while wearing that white bathing suit shown at the bottom of my closet that an easily-chafed Rhiannon discovered making out in the surf was NOT as pleasant as Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster made it appear) just don't forget to tell us where you bought it.

Exciting News (plus gratitous 90's supermodels and a decent damn nightgown)

So I've been a little thin on the ground (if nowhere else) lately, and one might be forgiven for asking where the heck have I been, and why I haven't been providing you with the sub-par, generally phoned-in comic diversion you've all come to know and grudgingly tolerate.

Well, after several months of being on bed rest, I finally got injected with the honkin' big bag of delicious life-giving poison your hostess requires to be able to partake in such fun activities as walking, breathing or sitting up without pain.

Now I'm mostly pain-free and dealing with physical therapy to get back some of the muscle I lost, return to dancing form and generally recover my signature walk which is currently like something out of Young Frankenstein instead of my preferred cinematic inspiration: George Michael's Too Funky video.

Seriously, that video came out when I was thirteen and it changed my life --and my walk-- forever. I was walking through my little college town after being away for several years when a car slowed behind me. It was a dear friend I hadn't seen since 1999. She had no idea I was in town, but she recognized my walk after all those years. I guess there weren't that many fat girls serving scalding hot mid-90's Linda Evangelista realness to that particular sleepy Mennonite village.

Anyhoodle, the exciting news is after six months of promises and emails from readers who miss the shopping and fashion angles of the old blog, I'm getting ready to launch the long-awaited shopping guide, which will have heads up on sales I think might be of interest to my readers. Some will be affiliates, some won't, but it'll be a good place to put the fashiony stuff while keeping the main blog for...well, whatever shape this thing is eventually going to take.

The Shopping Guide won't be up for another week or so, but right now I'm particularly fond of the pretty, vintage-looking rayon nightgowns in straight and plus-sizes on flash sale at Zulily.

Go check them out. I've got the v-neck nightgown in a different color, and I wear it around the house with a giant necklace, pretending I'm Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, which is different because I usually pretend I'm Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8.

I ruin more lipsticks that way.

Wherein Rhiannon Offends her Elderly Neighbors

I don't want to appear vulgar or insensitive to the more aged gringos with whom I share a little wedge of non-potable paradise or indeed to those who are advanced in years regardless of location, but what the Hell, old people???

I know we're all inching ever-closer to death and that life's precious moments are for living, but what type of person thinks 9 a.m. on a Saturday is a perfectly reasonable time to have a business meeting?

Old dudes, that's who. And sadists. So basically old dudes, twice.

Doctor Johnson: Style Icon

I say dudes, because gentlemen know better and women of a certain age are infinitely more gracious and understanding about making social demands before noon.

While some ladies might rise with the larks, as a species older women also recognize a 9:00 a.m. appearance means having to wake up at 6:30 to get out of bed, crowbar your eyes onto the right side of your head and try to convince your hair that while an excellent lexicographer and all-around wit, late-model Samuel Johnson isn't exactly the look you're currently interested in pursuing.

No, it's the older men whose idea of prepping for a meeting means unfurling a new pair of white athletic socks to wear with their Tevas who have no qualms about early-morning meetings while all other sensible people are at home asleep or trying to have a lazy fumble without having to actually breathe on each other.

It's gotten to the point where I just don't take meetings before noon. 

Usually I can blame it on having deadlines on the East Coast, which is particularly convenient because it's very frequently true, but mostly I just don't wanna.

Stay classy, Secret Santa

Sure there are exceptions; but it's one of the perks of being self-employed, like never having to fake delight at yet another Secret Santa's dismal gift ("Oh a pair of novelty slippers made out of maxi pads? You shouldn't have. Really.") or getting to feel up the boss in the elevator.

It's also my little fight against the system, and it all hinges on the word don't. I used to say can't. "I'm sorry, but I can't take meetings before noon."

It never sat well with me. First of all, it was a lie; I'm perfectly capable of taking meeting any damn time I please. Mostly it just felt like I was apologizing for making a perfectly reasonable business decision just because it benefited me, and that my friends is the definition of bananas. Just don't tell Doc Johnson.