a bobbly scrobbly squiggly wiggly dog
Who the hell do I think I am? I just spent almost three hundred dollars at Ann Taylor. I have been looking for something to wear to my sister's wedding, which is in the daytime but not at a church and elegant but not super-swanky cocktail elegant and do you see? Do you see what I mean? Oh to have a penis, and to be able to just pull The Suit out of the closet.
I hate to shop, and shopping for a specific occasion is even worse. I hadn't been looking for the wedding outfit for very long, and thus far had made just one trip to Nordstrom during the placebo pill week, which was a total fucking disaster. On a normal day I can accept the facts—that I have the body of a root vegetable and the head of a small garden pea and hair from ten years ago and the facial expression of an skeptical, bespectacled weasel—with something approaching equanimity. During placebo pill week, the very same facts about my body made me want to kick in the horrible three-way mirror and then cram shards of it into my mouth.
Then, on a whim, on my way somewhere else, I went inside Ann Taylor, a store that I normally find very intimidating because the women there—how can I explain this?—all look like grown-up ladies who volunteer for stuff. Also, to my mind it is very expensive, but then again my brain seems to be stuck in some college-years thrift-store-shopping rut, where I refuse to believe that a shirt can cost more than ten dollars. I mean, it's just fabric, right? You can't eat it or be entertained by it? You can't smoke it and get high? And it's still fifty bucks? But there I was in Ann Taylor, trying on a gray suit with a flippy little skirt and a short jacket and some “dusty rose”*-colored sweater thing underneath, and then, simply because it did NOT make me look like Mrs. Potato Head, ripping it off and shoving my credit card in the face of the well-groomed salesclerk. With barely a glance at the price tag. People have been trying to talk me down all day: You can wear it almost anywhere! Dress it up with heels, dress it down with a plain white blouse!** Not a bad price at all for a suit, really! But I am still totally freaked, and a little embarrassed. Since there are not that many clothing lines for girls with parsnip torsos and Brussels sprout breasts, I guess I will just have to be Ann Taylor's bitch.
*A very perky woman named Melinda told me this. She told me that this “shell” in the color “dusty rose” looked great under the suitjacket. “Dusty rose” makes me think of “A Rose for Emily,” and from there we go straight to genteel Southern necrophilia, so I am not entirely happy with this characterization of my garment.
**BONUS LIST: CLOTHING-RELATED WORDS I HATE
1. Blouse
2. Panties
3. Footwear
4. Sportswear
5. Lycra
6. Midriff
7. Underwire
DORK ALERT
1. I wrote a fan letter to Elliott Sharp and he wrote back! I am convinced it was because I mentioned his fondness for open tuning based on Fibonacci numbers. My friend Kat uses the word “geeked” to mean “excited” or “stoked” (is that a Detroit thing?)—when I say I was pretty geeked to receive email from Elliott Sharp, I mean it in more ways than one.
2. I cannot get the Rex the Runt theme song out of my head. LT and I got the first DVD from Netflix, and it was very enjoyable in that weird British sort of way, but two hours of claymation dogs is really just too much.
3. Did you know Hilary Mantel is fat? Neither did I. And I don't care, not in the least, but she is one of my very favorite novelists in the world and when I found out from the New Yorker profile that she is a large person I was briefly disconcerted in a how could I not know that, I like you so much sort of way. It's kind of interesting (or maybe it isn't) that the protagonist in the latest one (Beyond Black) is also overweight, although the book is by no means centered on that fact. I think that, in this age of trendy memoirs and persistent pathologizing of overweight, people (myself included) find it somewhat surprising to encounter a fat writer who hasn't written about being fat. Although we shouldn't. Find it surprising, that is. I think I need a nap, Ann Taylor really screwed with my head.
HOLD THE PHONE
I spoke to Nora this morning as she was eating her hard-boiled eggs. I think the girl is secretly doing Atkins or something—she adores hard-boiled eggs, peanuts, cheese, tofu, anything in the protein category except meat, and probably meat too if I would ever give her any.
Nora: Hi Mommy! Where are you at?
Me: Hi Nora! I'm at the office!
Nora: Are you sure?
Me: Uh…yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Are you checking up on me?
Nora: Yes. Yes, I am checking up on you. [muffled] Daddy, can you take the yolk out, so I can talk to Mommy on the phone? [clearer now] Hi Mommy! Where are you at?
And so on. And somebody get that girl a speakerphone or a headset or something! She can't be expected to dissect her egg and quiz me on my whereabouts at the same time.
Later, when I came home from work, the eggs and whatnot worked their inexorable magic and I found myself sitting on the floor watching Nora poop. I keep hearing about all these lovely toddlers who want privacy for their pooping endeavors, but that's not my Nora. No, she insists on company, and if she is having a particularly hard time she even wants to hold hands. Sometimes it looks like a creepy fundamentalist prayer meeting in there, with us holding hands and Nora's head bowed in pooping concentration.
On this occasion she was taking an irritatingly long time to poop, so I suggested that maybe the poop would come later. Nora usually denies this with a force normally only seen in people accused of treason, and will sit there (with me as her poop hostage) for however long it takes to be proven right. This time, however, she said, “Yes. The poop will come later. Right now the poop has gone back in his house and he is doing poop stuff.”
Yikes. No one told me it was Personify Your Poop week.
—mimi smartypants declines to participate.