Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Day #7: Style. Where's my Power Suit?

After college I moved to East-of-Nowhere New Hampshire to attend graduate school. I lived in a mouse-infested, leaky-cielinged, one-bedroom apartment on the second floor with a dead bat in the walls. I decorated the kitchen with pots to collect water and covered up the dead-bat smell with enough candles to give me regular headaches.


And I dreamed of a more stylish life. One in which I was living on Newberry St. in Boston, wearing hip power suits and chic heels and sporting trendy handbags.


I also dreamed of becoming a teacher, so clearly I was living in some kind of salary-knowledge blackhole.



And how many teachers do you know who sport a power suit to stand in front of a room of 15-year-olds and act as a spitball target?

Then I got my first teaching paycheck and quickly realized that the closest I was going to get to a suit was a pair Old Navy sale rack pants with saggy crotch syndrome.


Now, don't get me wrong. I'm no slob. I clean up nice. But some days I go to work looking like I got dressed in the dark.

Because I did.


Fact: Because I work in the public school system, I have to wake up at an un-godly, un-civilized, unacceptably early hour. Mike, who goes to work at 8:00am like the rest of the free world, does not have to wake up when I do.


And Mike does not like to be woken up when I wake up.


So I have to leave the lights off. Sometimes, I turn the light on because I can't find something (I feel this is perfectly reasonable) and then go to, say, make coffee, and when I come back to finish gettting dressed, Mike has turned the light off.


I then blow dry my hair with the bathroom door open.


Yeah. How do like me now, light-turner-offer?


One day, I put on a black shirt and heels. I teach first period. I teach third period. I am right in the middle of putting my students to sleep with some lecture on transcendentalism or something ...


"So Thoreau really wanted us to look at our lives from another perspective, to see that there are options, to realize that we are just cogs in the wheel, to respect -- ARE MY PANTS BLUE??"


Students: [as they stare at me like I am dummer than the drop ceiling] "Yes."


I now keep the black pants and the blue pants on separate sides of the closet.


If style is a sliding scale, and one end is Ubr Hip and the other is Marm, then I would say I'm about dead center.


But I do own clogs, so... maybe I'm not being entirely honest in my self-evaluation.

But eff high heels, dude. God made our feet flat, people. F-L-A-T, flat. Not shaped like some crazy-ass playground slide that teeters on what is effectively a ballpoint pen.


Someone in the fashion world said flats are a-okay and I would like to full-body-hug that person.


Story:


As mentioned in a previous post, I was a bridesmaid in my best friend's wedding a couple weeks ago. I purchased a pair of champange, three-inch satin slingbacks that matched my dress. I tested them out at home. Seemed fine.


I wore them on the day of the wedding. By the time the ceremony was over, I was sure some skin on my pinky-hammer-toe was missing. By the end of photos, was waddling like there was something stuck in my ass.


I felt like this:



(Oh, and, by the way: "What the f---?" and "No this is not a real thing.")


These mother honkers hurt so bad I went in to full on temper-tantrum mode and whined to Mike, who -- thanks to a societal taboo that is grossly unfair -- has never worn heels.


I think penguins walk with more grace than I did, but I found the wedding planner and asked her politely if she wouldn't mind finding the (heavenly, blessed) flip-flops the bride had (bless her) purchased for us.


Then someone said "Perhaps you should wait to change your shoes until after the bridal party has been formally announced."


What I wanted to say was this:


Listen, lady, if I wear these soul-sucking heels for one more minute my feet will spontaneously combust and I will walk down those stairs and be formally introduced on ankle nubbins.


What I really said was:


"Um. No thanks."


To my relief, when I saw the bride, she lifted up her dress and revealed her own white flops.


Best. Bride. Ever.

5 comments:

  1. I do remember another bride providing pink flip flops to her very grateful guests. Best party favor. Ever.
    I had no idea I missed the epic moment that Beth decided heels weren't worth it. I thought you were a magical heel-bearing fashionista. Where have I been? I'm on board with this full force. Embrace the flats! Save the toes!

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  2. i was right with you sister...my big toe is still recovering a good ole blister. Plus we're tall...so I say adios to heels!!! :) Jen B.

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  3. F**k heels. I make exceptions for the wedge heel. You can both walk and boogie down in a wedge heel. And I don't tolerate back pain well. (And I'm 6' tall).

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  4. something i've picked up co-habitating with someone who doesn't have to wake up until later than i - post-shower, take your sleep shirt or some other soft and cozy garment, and gently place it over sleeping sig oth's eyes. then turn on lights with impunity!

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  5. Ha!!! LOVE IT!!! I hope you told her that I outrank in the flip flop decision. LOL

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