Thursday, March 31, 2011

three weeks: up. panic: setting in.

Yesterday marked twenty-one days since I received confirmation from Drexel regarding the receipt of my application and essay. At this point I should have been contacted if they wanted me to interview.



Needless to say: I am borderline losing it.



On the plus side: I just drew an adorable picture of a rodent!!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

the wiz

I've been vegetarian for almost twenty years. I blame this on the owner of the most fantastic pair of overalls you could ever imagine. I need to find or make a picture of them.

(Parallel: in some ways they may be similar to that horrible dress.) The bib of the denim overalls presented the viewer with an airbrushed rendition of a kitten playing with a yarn-ball. The yarn-ball was rolling away but the kitten was also slightly, noticeably off-center. Her name, "Jeanette" went down one of the legs--in cursive, but down anyway. As a 6th grader I found this really upsetting. Script should read left to right, not top to bottom.

These fancy pants were created by someone who was in "The Wiz." That memory is distinct. It seemed strange that a teacher should be wearing jeans to school. It seemed strange that an adult should be wearing overalls in public. It seemed strange that an adult should be wearing images of a kitten at all.




She talked about meat and used as a source what must have been The Teacher's Guide to Upton Sinclair, First Edition. I was scarred. Hearing about the "little yellow tablets" put into globby oil to color margarine had a terrible impact on me. The composition of hot dogs ruined me completely. That day, I threw away my ham sandwich. Probably we all did. I never ate meat again.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

I didn't think it was that bad.

This is really embarrassing.

After work I went to several stores looking for various birthday, baby, shower and wedding gifts for all of the happy, lucky people in my life. After two hours of waltzing around in public I met my mom who looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "What is that?" she asked nervously.
I turned red and looked down expecting to find a sticker or cheerios stuck to my boobs. Nothing there. I swung my head around, thinking maybe she saw something when I'd turned at some point. My back was clean too.
I looked at her, my brow matching the shape of hers.
"I have no idea." I sad vaguely, waiting for her to get specific.
It turns out she didn't like my dress.

She couldn't believe I not only bought it, but wore it. Wore it to work. Wore it to go out.

I found it pretty surprising considering it's been in the occasional-rotation. It's far from my favorite piece, but it's really comfortable and it wasn't cheap.



About twenty minutes ago I was standing in the kitchen hanging out with my little sisters. (They're 27 and 23, I talk about them like they're both eight.) Kathy looked at me and, in the middle of discussing the amazing pretzels we just finished baking says, "You're really good at making weird and delicious food out of nowhere but what are you wearing?" My jaw sort of dropped. I looked to Susie, the 23 year old with impeccable style for some support.
"Yeah." she agreed. "It's dumpy. Maybe it's too long. And the waist is low. It's just bad." They felt the same way my mother had. I looked at her, waiting for more. "You didn't go anywhere in it, did you?"
LONG PAUSE.
"No," I started, almost lying to save myself for the humiliation that comes with admitting you've spent an entire day in something terrible. "I just went to work and Wawa. And I went shopping for a few hours." I work with preschoolers. They (most of them, anyway) don't care what you look like as long as you're fun. I crawl on the ground. I paint. Today we made green eggs + ham. I also made "oobleck." I was covered in powder and pigments for the majority of  day.
I had no idea this dress was so bad.

My family used to joke about submitting a video for "What Not to Wear." Fortunately that stopped about six months ago. Now that I think about it, they stopped talking about it shortly after I bought this.

OH NO. Now it's occurred to me...I think I was wearing this maybe three months ago. My friend made a comment about how I looked ready to teach kindergarten. At the time I figured it had to do with the fact that I was going to or coming from work. Second guessing that assumption. I thought it was a cute thing to hear. I thought he meant it as a compliment.

This is so stupid. It's black, simple, I bought it last year at the gap. It's cotton, a racer-back. The dress has pockets. I wear a shirt under it with leggings and boots.
The dress that's earned so much attention?