University of Jeans
Today, I present you with a combination Fashion Quiz and Expert (meaning me) Style Advice.
First, check out these two different styles of jeans:
Notice the Mom Jeans on the left. How they come up really high in the waist, and blossom out in a womanly way around the hips. They have a really long zipper, which can be a little unsightly when you sit. (You know what I mean.)
Now check out the Skinny Jeans. They are pretty straight up-and-down. No Bloom-Ass. They have a short zipper.They have a fairly low rise. (In Fashion-Talk, “Rise” means sort of the opposite.) They’re not like “Dancing-With-The-Stars-Low-Rise.” But your butt crack can be a little unsightly when you sit.
Now this is my body:
Not exactly to scale.
So here’s the quiz part:
Which style of jeans should I buy?
ANSWER:
Why the skinny ones, of course.
Yeah, my body is the shape of the Mom jeans.
BUT:
Mom jeans are not fashionable.
And here’s the Advice part.
Skinny jeans can fit unskinny ladies too.
When you put on skinny jeans that don’t come all the way up to your waist, you’re allowing room for your smooshy overflow to rise up a bit. This ‘Rise’ isn’t the fashion-definition kind. It’s the muffin top kind.
MuffinTop.
But you can hide muffin top.
All you need is a floaty top and (of course) a cardigan. And:
Ta – DA!
Right about now you might be asking: “But Nancy, if you are going to hide the top of your jeans anyway, then why not wear the comfortable Mom Jeans? They would probably look exactly the same.”
Well, that’s simple.
Because Mom Jeans are not fashionable.
The End.
No wait.
Here’s a little extra fashion advice I stumbled upon by accident, but I thought I would throw it in as a bonus for sticking with me thus far.
For the above story, I considered three different ways of illustrating my body:
1. Lie down on a big piece of paper, and have my husband draw around me.
2. Use my imagination. (Which is the choice I made, because my imagination is much kinder than an outline.)
3. Go to the airport and ask for a printout of my body scan.
And in checking out the possibility of the third option, I happened upon the latest in airport attire, which I know you will want to run right out and buy before your next security scan:
FLYING PASTIES!
No Kidding.
Please Don’t Come Back
Oh not you. I love all you little clickers.
No, it’s certain styles whose return I fear.
This weekend, I was rummaging through a drawer and found this:
I don’t remember the exact circumstances for this workplace photo, but I know it was taken about 1977 – when I was twenty-six.
I have infallible, exquisite taste. But I am thinking now that my impeccable sense of style must have developed sometime after 1977.
I loved this suit. It was a soft moss green. The intricately patterned (‘intricately’ being a synonym here for ‘insane’) polyester blouse with the big floppy bow was green, ivory, pink and…wait for it…purple.
Yes, the suit is short-sleeved. With a long-sleeved blouse. It was also belted safari-style.
I LOVED this suit.
Now the only thing I love about the suit is that it was a size six.
And in case the suit and weird shirt were not enough, check out those GLASSES!
I didn’t wear contacts in 1977. Now I only take them out when I sleep… (or for a colonoscopy).
These glasses are the OPPOSITE of contact lenses. It’s as if I needed focal correction for my eyebrows and forehead and cheeks too.
And because they were gigantic, and I’m very nearsighted, they were THICK. And HEAVY.
When I put them on my bedside stand at night, I needed ballast on the other side.
The bridge of my nose and the tops of my ears were always sore. Think ‘nose callous’.
And I am not even going to discuss the perm.
Fashion is cyclical.
This look may come back.
But it could be worse.
Seven years after my stupid suit…
I was into….
SHOULDER PADS!
Fashion is cyclical.
Be very afraid.
Where The Heck Do I Put It?
Now that I am on this fitness kick – (Bear with me; it’s a stage. Think of it as the Terrible Two’s of the Sexagenarian Set.) – I’ve added Walking to my Zumba/Yoga routine.
Walking is a great activity for several reasons. It’s easy. The weather’s getting nice. I can wear my new skinny jeans.
Since I’m walking (okay, not like power-walking or anything…more like a stroll), I found a great app (meaning FREE) for my iPhone.
It’s a pedometer. It shows me steps and distance. It has a GPS, in case I get lost walking around my yard.
And it shows calories expended. After I walk 1.27 miles, I can have one Lindt truffle. One.
But there’s a downside to my phone pedometer.
Where do I put it?
I usually carry my cell phone in my purse. But it’s stupid to bring my purse on my walk. (Although it would add about seventeen pounds. Sort of like free weights. I might be able to have two truffles.)
None of my cute little cardigans have pockets. Well, one has a phony pocket. My phone won’t fit in ‘pretend’.
Skinny jeans are skinny – I can put my phone in a pocket, but then I can’t move my hip more than 3 inches. That’s pretty tiny steps.
I know women who stick their phones in their bra. I’ll admit that I have some extra room in there. But I can’t exactly tuck it in discreetly. I will have one tiny round bosom and one tiny rectangular one.
(Sorry…I know you were expecting an illustration right here…)
I could find a case on a chain so I could wear my phone like a necklace. I might look like a lost kid at the airport though.
But then I had an idea.
My husband is always looking to invent something. He comes up with some crazy notions.
But this idea is mine, and it’s brilliant. (Which probably means someone has already thought of it.)
Why can’t they (my husband) make a phone like a watch?
Okay, I already know that someone has thought of it a while ago. Like in 1946.
But a wrist iPhone is a FABULOUS idea.
I love watches, especially big funky watches. Here are a few of mine:
A wristphone wouldn’t be that much bulkier. And the watch business is struggling, given that everyone has the time on their phone. So the wristphone could give the wristwatch industry a shot in the arm, so to speak.
And being right on your wrist, the pedometer app could take your pulse.
And measure your oxygen level.
Maybe it could even be programmed to give you a little shock if you don’t pick up your pace.
Oh, there’s all kinds of apps.
Think how easy it would be to take pictures. Talk about ‘point and shoot’.
Just be careful in the ladies’ room. You wouldn’t want to accidentally take any wipe photos.
I’m not distraught. Just taking my temperature with my wristphone temp-app.
A Tale Of Terror
I’ve written before (“Fraidy Cat”) about a few of my rational but mostly irrational fears. Icy Roads: Rational. Ventriloquists’ Dummies: Not so much.
But there are events in everyone’s life that are so terrifying it may take years before you can even talk about it.
It’s been four years now, and so I think I’m ready. If you are faint of heart, you are hereby forewarned. I hope you can sleep tonight.
Years ago, I would drive half-way across the state for a haircut. (Yeah, okay, it’s the state of Connecticut – but still). A good haircut was worth the time and gas. And since I often traveled to New York on business, I’d stay late for an appointment with a Madison Avenue stylist. Oh so worth the money.
But as I got older, I started to experiment with local hair. I wanted great hair, but I was sometimes ready to settle for pretty good hair right down the street. Of course, I considered it right down the street if the salon was in a radius of thirty miles.
And then, quite by accident, I found a pretty good stylist literally right down the street.
A five-minute commute, an accommodating schedule, and a decent enough haircut. I was in hair heaven.
I went to her for two years. Sometimes it wasn’t perfect. But you know, hair grows.
(I can’t believe I just wrote that.)
Then one day I’m sitting in her chair.
I ask her how she’s been.
She says, “I’ve had a bad month. I had a fight with my neighbor, and things got really ugly.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I say.
“It’s okay though,” she says. “It’s actually helped me to face an issue I’ve had a hard time dealing with.”
“A happy ending, I guess,” I smile.
“Yeah,” she says, picking up the SCISSORS. “Thanks to the judge’s orders, I’m going to ANGER MANAGEMENT classes. I start NEXT WEEK.”‘
Do These Yoga Pants Make My Asana Look Fat?
I’ve added another Zumba class to my Yoga/Zumba workout.
Which means I’ve also added an additional sweaty day.
So I figure it’s time for buy another fitness outfit. I won’t have to do laundry during the week.
And besides, it’s very motivating. Sometimes the only reason I go to the gym is because I get to put on my tight lycra pants.
So I started perusing various web sites to find a cool ensemble.
Most Yoga sites offer clothes that look like this:
This is pretty much what I wear to both Zumba and Yoga. This woman is doing Trikonasana (Triangle), one of my favorite poses.
But I already have black capri leggings and a blue top.
I need something more creative.
Maybe even a little sexy. Zumba has a lot of hip action, after all.
Sexy is a precarious place when you’re sixty-one. Spaghetti straps maybe. Or a racer-back. Lycra shorts instead of crops.
And sure enough, I found something just slightly more provocative.
This is how Victoria’s Secret presents Yoga clothes:
Hip-Peekie Asana
Tube-Top Asana
Six-Pack Asana
Oh, yeah.
I’m so ready for Hoochie Yoga.
How I Won The Dance Contest
I’ve been an ungrateful little blogger.
Bloggers love other bloggers, and they like to give each other prizes. The first time someone presented me with a blogging award, I was happy – but skeptical.
When you accept on a blogging prize, you have to pass it on to five, seven, or maybe even fifty-seven other bloggers. It doesn’t take many iterations before everyone in the blogging world has a passel of prizes.
But of course I love it too. I want folks to like what I write. It’s why I write.
And over the last several months, I’ve been secretly pleased to get the recognition I outwardly scorn: The Versatile Blogger Award, The 7 X 7 Award, The Leibster Award, The Loving Blog, The Kreativ Blogger, and the Sunshine Award.
When you receive these awards, a nice blogger should thank the person who nominated them, and provide a link to their site. And so there is a whole list of excellent blogs below (and I’ve probably missed some people – since I’ve been ignoring this for so long.) Anyway, thank you.
Usually, with these blogging awards, you are supposed to answer (cleverly) some questions about yourself. You’re required to tell your readers some little known facts about you. But, I am already telling everyone about every thought that’s ever come into my head. (I even shared my colonoscopy.)
But I love to tell a story.
So I’ll tell you a story about winning a prize.
If you see an allegory in there, well…
*****
HOW I WON THE DANCE CONTEST
In 1965, the local radio station threw a block party.
The AM station, WBIS, was insignificant and unpopular. Their claim to fame was that the actor Bob Crane had started his career there.
The Hartford stations WPOP and WDRC were the stations everyone listened to.
But my best friend Doris and I had discovered something cool about the local station. They gave away little prizes all the time. We’d listen on Saturday afternoon. It was “name that tune” or “be the fourth caller” and you’d win a key chain or a pen that wrote in two colors. We loved those trivial prizes. We’d walk downtown to the radio’s shabby studio over the five-and-ten and collect our frequent winnings.
So we were excited about the block dance.
We spent hours fringing our cutoff jeans to the exact three-quarters-of-an-inch that was the optimal fringiness.
The party was held on a Friday night in June. The venue was the parking lot at Mafale’s Plaza, which was not so much a plaza as an appliance store with a laundromat.
But it was a warm beautiful night, and the turnout was pretty good.
Doris and I had rehearsed a few dances. At fourteen, I would have rather been dancing with a boy, but I figured that if I got out there on the dancefloor/asphalt, the boys would see what a good dancer I was. It didn’t quite work out that way. (But it did turn out to be a pretty good strategy during my nightclubbing thirties.)
So Doris and I danced together all evening.
And just like we expected, the DeeJay gave out prizes. He’d call out, “Hey, Blond Ponytail Girl with the pink blouse and the tall boy – come on up to the turntable. You’re the winner of this dance!”
There were tee-shirts and Pepsis and records.
Doris and I danced every dance. Except the slow dances – and it killed us to sit those out, but we had some tiny bit of pride.
Round after round, the DeeJay would call out. “Curly-Hair Girl in Blue” and “Purple-Dress Lady” and “Bald Guy in the Hawaiian Shirt – and couples would go get their prize.
The last dance of the night was the big hit of the year – The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”. Almost everyone had already gone home.
The DeeJay called out, “Hey, Skinny Little Girl and your friend – Come get your prize!”
That was US!
We WON!
And the Deejay gave Doris a tee-shirt and he gave me the 45 single:
Perspective is Everything.
By that last dance, everyone still dancing in that parking lot had already won a prize. We were the last dancers left who hadn’t won anything. The DeeJay took pity on us.
But that’s not the way we saw it.
To Doris and I, the last dance of the evening was the BIGGEST EVENT.
We won the FINAL ROUND.
The DeeJay saved us till the end so we could be the GRAND PRIZE WINNERS.
Yes, Perspective is Everything.
Doris and Me - Groovin' in the Parking Lot
Thanks, bloggers:
Edward Scissorfeet
I love blogging. There is no better way to complain. It’s therapeutic.
This is the second time in six months that I found this when I went up after breakfast to make the bed:
This is the foot of the bed. On my husband’s side.
Despite the evidence, I am not married to this guy:
This is one of the monsters from “Where The Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak. I love this guy. He has no name in the book. In the children’s opera, Sendak called him Moishe, after a relative. In the movie, I understand they changed his name to Carol. Just goes to show that you don’t have to have a weird name to be scary. (I have proof in the shape of my former boss.)
But my husband is not Moishe/Carol.
Last time I looked he had only slightly abnormal feet.
What does he DO at night that results in shredded sheets?
I am sleeping right beside him. I am an excellent sleeper. But you’d think I’d wake up when the flamenco music starts.
We have a king size bed. Sheets are expensive.
When I brought my husband up to look at the bed, he said, “Do you think you can fix it?”
I’m not sure…
He may have been thinking:
Duct Tape.
Edward Scissorfeet.
Even I’M not THAT vain
Spring.
That special time of year. Time for renewal. Time for change. Time to change to my cotton cardigans.
As I lighten my wardrobe (and this year my hair), it always becomes clear to me how very light I am.
For a person who was originally a brunette, I am extremely pale. Like the white underbelly of a fish that swims at the very bottom of the sea.
So I have to start in Spring if I am going to bare my shins come Summer.
If I had a vote (and I plan to someday), self-tanning moisturizer should be awarded a Nobel Prize. Maybe in more than one category: Science AND Psychology. It scientifically enhances MY self-esteem.
I’m already gradually building a little color on my pallid appendages. I’ve learned that gradual is the key. Because streaky orange is only marginally better than blue-white. (Although in the primitive days of self-tanners – like six years ago – I was grateful for streaky orange.)
And if there’s anything I like as much as cardigans, it’s sandals. Shoes are prison. Sandals are Toe Freedom.
So I need tan shins. Because pantyhose and sandals will ALWAYS be too old for NotQuiteOld.
Though God knows, they now make pantyhose just for sandals.
Yup, Toeless Pantyhose.
A wonderful idea, I guess. But unless your sandal hits it exactly the right place, it’s going to be pretty obvious that your toes are sticking out the ends of your socks.
Maybe it would work for peep-toe shoes. But I don’t have any peep-toe shoes. The nice thing about sandals is letting your feet spill out as much as they like. I believe in giving that special freedom to all my toes. Letting only my big toe breathe is not fair to all my other strangled little toes.
And now besides sunless tanner and toeless hose, there is yet another scientific advance in summer leg fashion.
Toeless knee-highs.
**
Who in the world are these things made for?
If knee-highs are cheaters for wearing under slacks, why would you need them in the summer? If you’re wearing pants and sandals, how vain are you if you need silky smooth ankles?
But then again, if my self-tanner gets too streaky, I can always wear them with my shorts.
I Solve Life’s Neurological Mystery
I’m sure by now everyone realizes that my husband does not read my blog.
I love him very much, but I also love the freedom to laugh at his craziness, or wonder about his mysteries.
This is a mystery blog.
My husband is not neat. Mostly because he has an impenetrable belief that he should save everything.
He has old catalogs. When a new catalog comes, and I ask him to throw away the old one. he tells me that he wants to know what things ‘used to cost’. Hmm.
And you never know when you might need an old receipt. He keeps receipts for cat food that our kitties have ingested so long ago, it’s not even compost any more.
I am not the neatest woman in the world. I consider myself about average.
Here is a comparison of our respective desks:
His:
His Desk
His PC
Mine:
My Desk
My PC
Okay, so he’s not neat. No big deal. (just annoying as hell.)
So here’s the mystery.
This is how the peanut butter looks after he has had a snack:
Why does a messy guy do this with the peanut butter?
And it always looks like this. If I stick a knife in there and leave a gouge, the next time I open the peanut butter jar, it looks like this again.
I have concluded that this must have a neurological basis.
I have spent numerous hours comparing our brains. Through diligent scientific observation over the past twenty years, I am now able to share my findings.
This is how my brain works.
My Brain.
This is probably not every women’s brain, but with a few substitutions, it is probably close. Perhaps other hobbies may substitute for writing, books, and art. And women with children probably have a bigger love lobe, with their shoe lobe commensurately smaller. But I am sure that all women have a similarly complicated mix.
And this is my husband’s brain:
His Brain.
Notice that Cars and Sports (Motorsports in my husband’s case) take up approximately the same space that Hair, Makeup, Clothing and Shoes take up in my brain. And whereas he has one Money lobe, mine is split between Money and Jewelry. Guns take up all his hobby space. And my Love lobe is complex – with sublobes for Sex, Family, and Friends. That part of my husband’s brain is defined a bit differently.
And see that tiny little spot near Food that holds his Neatness brain cells? That’s where the peanut butter is.
Marital Harmony
As I’ve previously complained mentioned, my husband and I do not share the same taste in music.
I love James Taylor. He loves The Beach Boys.
Mention classical music, and I think Debussy. He thinks Gene Autry.
Sexy mood? I’m all Marvin Gaye; he’s Elvis.
We go to a wedding, and I’m hoping for “Mony Mony” – he’s hoping to remain seated.
But he’s been in an incredibly good mood lately. And a few days ago, he ran out to the supermarket for milk and came home with these:
So what does Connie Francis have in common with Strauss waltzes and Benny Goodman?
Twenty-five cents.
He stopped at a tag sale (which I have NEVER known him to do, and he found these old albums for twenty-five cents each.
Now I like Benny Goodman. And I used to like Huey Lewis – I even saw him perform in 1989. But I also haven’t seen my turntable since 1989,
But my husband likes a deal.
So he’s up in the attic looking for the turntable.
*******
And while I am complaining reflecting–
There is no bigger musical disagreement in my house than THE BEATLES.
I love them. They sang on the Ed Sullivan Show on my thirteenth birthday. They sang to me.
They changed the world.
My husband agrees: They changed the world, all right. They ruined everything.
But my husband likes a deal.
So when he went out to buy a couple of T-shirts the other day, he came home with this:
Why? Because it was a really good deal.
But he HATES The Beatles.
I think he looks mighty good in his Abbey Road tee.
And he tells me he bought it because he knew I would like it. (But I know he really liked the price. After all, he has a skateboarding tee too, and he’s about to turn 67.)
Regardless of his motives, I am feeling a little guilty with him wearing my idols.
I think I may have to reciprocate.
So I need to know –
Where can I get a Gene Autry cardigan?
notquiteold 