Finally done. I did it!

I did it. I went the whole years wearing only unique combinations of shirts and bottoms that were present in my closet on 1 January. I only messed up twice, back in January. It was kind of hard, and kind of...freeing? to not have to worry about my clothes but I must say I got really tired of my frumpy clothes. And...the flood gates opened as of this week. I bought lots of nice new things including a pair of really comfortable Frye boots that I may never take off again. What did I learn? I learned that some combinations may surprise you in looking really good, and some combinations...not so much. I will try to be more adventuresome in the future. I may log on later to wax philosophical about all this but as its New Years Eve I have to go.
Next year's Resolution? I may have to think that through alittle more carefully.

Happy 2014, everyone!!

Christmas elf

All green and red. Wearing a christmas lights necklace. For another work holiday party. This party is my favorite work tradition: the holiday potluck. Some folks are really good cooks!

David Sedaris got nuthin on me

Holiday attire

Or what passes for it. We had a Holiday Lunch at work today. I think this looks Christmas-y, if not fancy. That sweater came from Stockholm. I was sent there in January to do a clinical site training in 1995. It was colder than I expected so I ponied up the big bucks for the garb worn by the locals. Its dark there, too. Sun comes up at about 10:30 and sets at 2. It never gets bright. No wonder they drink. And kill themselves. Merry, merry.

Ho ho ho. Who you callin' a ho?

Slouching towards the finish line

December. It has been cold. And I broke my ankle on the 2nd when jogging off some extra pecan pie. The world contains really good people who are there for you in disasters. I am so grateful to the two guys who stopped and helped me.
So now I am trying to integrate this big black plastic and velco footwear into my wardrobe. How am I doing?

Hopalong Harding!

Holy crap when will this ever end?

November done; off into the last month of this.
Confession: I bought a shirt and a pair of pants off of Gilt. They were 40% off. How could I resist??? I will not wear them until next month except to try them on. Might have to go back: mail order pants are always a problem. So I am still in line with the letter, if not the spirit, of my new years resolution.
Speaking of pants I went to the doctor for the annual check up and have officially gained 10 lbs. Do you feel me? 10 pounds! That's why I have retired the blue jeans and the brown cords. It is unsee,ly for an old bag such as I to be toddling around with Camel Hooves. So I went into the depths of my closet and drew forth a pair of Eli Tahari dress pants. Straight leg dark brown wool. Very seemly.
I also pulled out some shirts. All of this stuff is from the closet. Now you know, dear reader, that I have much too much stuff in my closet.

I am really looking forward to throwing this worn out stuff away and refreshing my sad closet. I no longer feel that I haven't gotten my money's worth out of these items. I have gotten that and more.

putting something on....

Remember my post about getting dressed versus putting something on? Here I am, reduced to putting something on. I spend an inordinate amount of time shopping online these days, putting selected items into my shopping cart then shutting the site. I can't wait until after christmas when the sales all start and I can buy a bunch of replacements for the awful stuff in my closet. I have started slowly throwing stuff out, and have "grown out" of at least two pairs of pants this year. I am dying for a pair of nicely fitted pants with a leather stripe down one side; some new sweaters without pills all over them, a large silk shirt to wear with new pants. Man alive.

Just for funsies I took a picture of myself in front of the full length mirror in the (ahem) ladies locker room at my workplace fitness club. That's the red pants shot below. Ya know, the full length mirror I pose in front of at home is a free-standing one and it tilts backwards. I suspect that because of the angle it tilts at it makes my butt look bigger than it actually is! That's my story and I'm sticking to it. That, or the fitness club mirrors are angles to make you look good in order to prop up self esteem. Because let's face it: the women's locker room is a horror show. All false pretense fades away.

Anyway. Wearing a dress today. Thanksgiving and Hanukkah tomorrow on the same day. Then December and I can get this whole thing over. Yay!

looking good here. Why?



big ass big boots you cant see



Sister's birthday!

Today is my little sister's birthday. We are both middle aged women now so it feels weird to refer to her as my "little" sister. But truth told she is little and petite and was always and still is "the pretty sister". Burns me up. You know, like Taming of the Shrew? In order for the beautiful little sister to get married they have to foist the battle ax older sister off on some unsuspecting man? Yeah, that's me. Old battle ax. But it's OK! I'm OVER IT now! I'm "vivacious"! Fuck that.

Anyway I love my little sister dearly, her being petite and beautiful notwithstanding. I hope she's having a great day at work over at the USGS (oh did I mention that she's a damned Geophysicist? So brilliant as well as lovely?) and I hope she likes the cookies I dropped off for her.

Here is what I wore on this auspicious day. When I got to work I wrapped a colorful vintage scarf around my neck to keep warm and add color.

Battle ax ready to do damage

Maybe I can get back to Oz in these shoes

"there's no place like Oz, there's no place like Oz..."

I can see my underwear!

I didn't wear this before but it looks like it

I had my silk Classiques cross-over top on last time. Today, its a long sleeve Tahari t-shirt. I know these things because I have a database that keeps track of stuff.

Am I smiling, or am I like a baby: passing gas? Probably passing gas.

Christmas is coming and I have been to the mall with my sister. I bought a pair of glittery gold flats that will soon show up here. Shoes and outerwear were excluded from the deal. Ha! Anyway, I have my eye on stuff that I want. I went and tried on a bunch of stuff I thought I wanted and discovered that they fit poorly. That saves me quite a bit. Once pants fit around the waist they are baggy on the legs. Fit the legs = too tight around my floppy waist. I think this has something to do with middle age, and is why some companies specialize in middle aged clothing. I think its also the reason (along with arthritis) that old lady pants tend to have elastic waists. But I will die before I shop at Chico or Coldwater Creek. No. Will starve myself to death first.

My sister told me my selfies were terrible. Now I am self-conscious.

Grimace

Hair dye. October finished. My big ass is a good thing.

It makes me sad to realize that most of my female compatriots at work dye their hair. Even the ones with a healthy distain for fashion. It belies insecurity that I was not aware that these amazonian women at my workplace, the biotech survivor warriors of 5 or more downsizings, "doing more with less", and vicious aggressive white male bosses possessed. That they have stood strong in the face of this relentless battering, but cower at the sight of a grey hair, is profoundly disturbing to me.

Here is October. I have added some sweaters. The J Crew cashmere turtle neck is really shabby. It is completely covered with pills but its warm. Target sweater is also shabby, and purple Martin and Osa is from a chain started by Gap, I think (Fourth and Towne?) that was aimed at middle aged women. It failed. Because all us middle-aged women are in denial right up to the elastic waist pants and flower printed sweatshirts that mark "old age". OMG I look frumpy in these shirts.

I have a new lady boss at work (probably dyes her hair) who while possibly younger than me dresses very conservatively. But she probably thinks I'm insane. These combos look terrible.

Finally, there was a study published recently is the International Journal of Obesity showing that women with big cabooses were healthier, and had smarter kids, than their narrow-assed compatriots. Here is a link to the abstract if you don't believe me (I don't see the smarter kid thing here. I read that else where. Something to do with Omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy or something):
http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v34/n6/abs/ijo2009286a.html

 

That big ass means I will live forever

Mi gusta flowery shirt

It's the Real Me.

It's my Nature...

Accidental Dress Week

When I compile the database for your viewing pleasure, I take the tracking documents in to work and during my free time, I updat and post. After updating for September I accidentally left my tracking documents at work. Therefore I could not accurately put together novel top/bottom combinations. I arrived at the solution: the return of Dress Week.

As you can see some of this stuff is OK and some of it is pretty terrible. The nadir was the cool Fall day when I determined that I needed to wear a pair of cotton knee-highs with my clogs. With the long Eileen Fisher linen dress

 Here they are: Because all other shoes wouldn't work. Sometimes you just have to go with whatever works at the moment.

Below is the Dr Seuss shirt. Dubbed as such by my well meaning boss.

This combo not too bad, either

What was I thinking?

The Michelle Obama skirt

This combo not too bad

The man that enters his wife's dressing room is either a philosopher or a fool

Balzac, right? Its all about women's artifice, and the effort we put in to construct the facade each day. Yes, I'm talking about foundation undegarments. Well that and all the other stuff we do. I'm pretty open minded about a lot of things but I do not like having my significants see me shaving, plucking, polishing, clipping. I wonder why? Is it a vestige of that creation of artifice? I don't want spousy to know that I'm less than perfect? I think he knows it, but we continue to play along. The response that it's "disgusting" belies how deeply this idea has permeated our thinking.

In addition, I engage in the artifice and the result is what you see here. It takes quite a bit of attention to detail to acheive this level of mediocrity. So why bother? All the ladies I know undergo various levels of grooming, most more than I do, and most of us are only managing to keep our appearances just under the average curve. Seems like a lot of work for a ho-hum result. On the other hand I operate under the delusion that I am the Queen of Sheba as I apply my Jergen's. Maybe that's what its about. Self-soothing behaviour.

Anyway here is September.

And here was my scarf trouble this morning:
You can probably tell by my expression which one I went with. I am a trained biologist after all and nothing warms my heart like frogs, bugs, critters and pretty flowers.

 

 

plain



brightly colored



bugs!
 

Can you sense the desperation?

Running out of wearable combos. It is starting to get cool again. I will dig out more sweaters soon.

why does this make me look fat?

Little red cords! Little red cords!

How I love my little red corderoy pants. Here they are as part of my aged hippy get-up. So glad that its Fall and I can wear them with alacrity.

making this look good!

No I am not wearing the curtains.

Aging hippy chick

I got this aging hippy chick aesthetic down cold. Far out, and solid!
I hope I'm doing it gracefully. And tastefully.

Groovy

Somehow, aging hippy seems more respectable than aging punk. Hippy comes naturally, but so does ADB. Hippy punk? Is there any such thing?

Sweater issues

I have worn the crap out of my sweaters this year. They are starting to get tatty. And this morning I was faced with a dilemma: which of my dirty tatty sweaters pairs best with my colorful Milly shirt?

 
Here is where I started. Milly silk tie-neck blouse with Eli Tahari cotton tan trousers. It is a frozen wasteland in my building (in more ways than the literal) so I need a sweater. I think a bright cherry red sweater might work but I don't have one. Tan sweater? No. I have a white sweater that works well with this top but that would be a white sweater with tan pants...subtract liveliness from my already dour demeanor and folks might not even see me.
 Green!

















Maybe not. Ai yi yi. I like this green sweater because it has a wildly patterned silk lining which is cool and unexpected. But it looks godawful with this shirt and if someone sees the lining in conjunction with the patterned shirt they might have a seizure. Safety first.
Black!

Ho hum. I guess this will do even though this ancient sweater that I got off of eBay when eBay was something new, cool, and useful has a big hole in it.
Really. That's it. This is what I wore to work.
I must say the outfit looks best without any sweater at all.

Everybody panic!

So this Sunday, Philip Lim for Target went on sale. I was very excited because I like Philip Lim and I was delighted at the prospect of getting some of his nice designs in washable polyester for 30 bucks. BUT THEN: I remembered this blog. I remembered my New Year's Resolution. I had a vicious argument with myself all day on Saturday. "But it's Philip Lim!" "But you promised!" "Jackets weren't included!"

It was kind of funny. I grimly set about refreshing my browser into the wee hours, hoping to get access to the Target site at 9 pm PST ("it's midnight EST!") to no avail. By using some fancy internet footwork (ahem) I was able to load the leather jacket into my shopping cart at about 10 pm. However I did not pull the trigger on it as I was worried about sizes. By 7 am on Sunday, when I woke up, all of the tuxedo jacket and pants were sold out. In fact, they were listed as sold out in the local stores even before the stores had opened. Interesting.

Later that same day I was at Target looking for gunea pig chow and lo and behold: there were some of the pieces from the Philip Lim collection! Not all the stuff, and the sizes had been pillaged. I grabbed a handful of things to look over and try on. And guess whay? Most of the pieces were meh. Quality was pretty good on most of the things. The classy draped dress was nicely made and is a possibility. The shirts were less so, and the only one I likes was the grey sparkle T shirt. Kind of disappointing, really. The pants were all long gone.

In the end I was true to my Resolution even though I walked right up to the brink. So no, I don't have stong enough willpower. I was stopped by my taste rather than my conscience. Hmmm. Not very flattering.

Next source of panic was from my beloved sister. My lovely, genius sister is blessed with great taste in clothes and plenty of money. Fortunately for me and my daughter, my sister often changes her mind about her clothes and sends articles down the line to us poor relations. She handed a set of shirts off to send to my daughter this Sunday, but I intercepted the one I have on today:

One handed!

This pretty shirt is from Joie. Its flowery silk (!) with multiple patterns and its sleeveless with a very high neckline at the shoulders.

Now: this is a hand me down so it doesn't count. Right? Right?

I will send all the other shirts to my daughter as intended. But I love this hippy dippy old woman thing that I have going on here. It's one of the real mes.

August done.

Getting there!

My clothing is starting to wear out and get too small (ahem).

One thing I have noticed is that by looking at the pictures from this blog, I can get a more objective sense of what works and what doesn't. In fact, I look back at some of thoses photos and I cringe. I wore that to work? Eeeeee.

It works the other way, too. I never thought that this great shirt would work with blue jeans but I think it looks perfectly acceptable from this photo:

My Scrabble cup "F" is backwards! My brain hurts!
 

Dress Week: the deep end of the shark tank

This dress is made of knit silk and it feels like wearing water. I totally love it. It has a draped neckline that's hard to see. Eileen Fisher.

Beltless and flapping in the breeze

Dress weeks continues: shark grey dress

Dogfish? There's a dogfish joke in there somewhere.
This is a Calvin Klein grey merino wool knit shift dress with a matching long sweater. And a rather glamorous long belt. We had a meeting with a Scientific Advisor at work today so I had to look presentable. I like this dress but I'm not sure it looks too good on me. The dress fits better now I'm porked up a bit: a little sexier if that adjective can be used. Used to itch but I wear it with a slip which helps enormously.

One more day of Dress Week. I can't think what I will wear tomorrow...nothing but suspiciously bad taste dresses left. And a few really cool retro dresses that are difficult for me to wear ironically (remember the Zoran turtleneck dress from a few months ago?). I might wear one of the retros just to freak everyone out.

Heh.

When dresses attack

Following our Shark Week convention, here is an example of the mess that is created when dresses attack. This is a Missoni for Target dress. The fabric is really nice. I was surprised at the quality of this particular collection for Target. This dress would be great if it did not have the kangaroo pocket Right There. Now I do love a pocket and this one is functional. It connects completely through, like a tube. However it is poorly located...

 

 

 

Cop Copine leggings with naughty white seams up the back that end in little bows. Ended up in black Dansko clogs. Its hard to see but the dress has a black button up placket.

Anyway.

Dress Week!

Like Shark Week, only with dresses. It's a short week after the Labor Day Weekend, but I am going to give my sad old clothes a rest and wear dresses that I dig out of my closet. Here is an ancient Eileen Fisher linen maxi-dress that still works because it's maxi length. Scarf to add color. Should have worn a sweater to fend off arctic indoor chill but I didn't.

I'm smiling because Kathleen told me to

 

My other clothes are getting pretty worn, especially the pants. I noticed last week that my wide-leg denim trousers are losing a hem. I need to stitch it up to continue wearing them all Fall. In addition, laziness is catching up with me and many other pairs of my pants are shrinking to new sizes that are beyond demur old woman appropriateness...must drop a couple of pounds or...or...buy new pants!!!

Why does this look so bad?

Sometimes I am mystified by why an outfit looks so bad. This is a checkered Theory shirtdress. The colors are a bit untraditional but I like the yellow and purple thing. I am wearing a pair of black leggings with it. Shirt dress and leggings; how innocuous can you get? But somehow it looks terrible.


Unbelted

So I tried on a couple of pairs of leggings and tights. Because the bottom of the dress is open due to few buttons and the presence of a large bottom affixed to the back of my thighs, wearing tights or very tight leggings made it look like I was flashing folks. No good for work. So I decided that I needed a pair of leggings that look like "pants" rather than "tights" so I went with these thicker Hue leggings.
Since the dress is loose, I thought that a belt would spiffy this mess up a bit. No:



OMG

The belt really accentuates my big square hips and protruding bred-dough encased belly. And it caused the dress to pop up at a funny angle at the bottom. How wrong can you get?

In the end, I went to work with the dress unbelted. It is so comfortable I feel like I am at work in my pyjamas but who cares. My reputation as an eccentric old bag is intact and there's no fashion mishap that will change that.



August progress

I am developing a wish list of clothes I want to buy on 1 January 2014. I expect by that time everything I want will either be on sale or gone from the stores. But this is how I am coping.

Some recent pictures:

Love these Donald Pliner shoes



ADB. Why? Because, Seventies.

That's right, I'm not from Texas. Texas wants me anyway
 

That guinea pig is stylin'. Ladies, we should take a page from the rodent's book and dare to be ourselves.

what can I say

I haven't got much to say. Spent the weekend at Family Camp up near Yosemite. I was happy there. Came home and had a thought provoking dream about a very old Bob Dylan. It was more profound than that sounds. More of an exploration of aging, life, one's legacy and what it means to the individual and to others. I woke up chastened and quieted and a little depressed. Depressed isn't the right word; its more like I'm slowed down at my center. Slowed down because I'm processing input that isn't conscious. Too much wiring making too many demands on the central core of my soul. Or whatever.

Oh I can add a caption.

Look! I'm smiling? No its just gas.

Insane, or Not?

So there is this rather cruel website called "Hot, or Not?" where hapless young women upload photos of themselves, and other folks log on to rate their looks as "hot" or "not".  Full disclosure: I have never visited the website but the very idea of it makes my blood run cold. However, today while I was getting dressed to run errands around town it occurred to me that I might need and appraisal of my outfit. Rather than Hot or Not, it would be "Insane, or Not?"
On the weekends I try to avoid wearing anything that is in the database because I am bored to tears with those clothes. But since I haven't bought anything all year long I am forced to be creative.

Now here's the thing. I am wearing a top that has a built in bra, but ones physiology still shows through. To disguise this fact I put the little light cropped sweater over the top. I am wearing a gold circular pendant as well. OK. Wasn't sure abut this but went with it.
At Safeway, a rough looking old character smiled at me and said "Nice outfit". Charmed, I smiled back and said thank you.
I think it was my physiology that attracted the attention.

July done. Plodding along!

 Hmmm. Looks terrible! I wonder what happened. I copied the screenshot as a jpg file like usual, and uploaded it here. That is what I have always done in the past. I think it has to do with the Windows 2010 change-over. Since my company switched to Windows 2010 computer stuff has changed for the worse. I don't understand how Microsoft stays in business putting out such crappy software. And my company has progressively adopted online document sharing and database sharing that it legislates everone use whether it works and is integrated across the sites or not. Kind of makes you want to slit your wrists, to be honest. I found out the crux of the problem: Global IT has goals to roll-out, but not to implement or support, their software imprimatuers. So they acheive their goal by dropping their turds on us. Ta dah! They get a nice bonus for meeting their goals. Meanwhile, the rest of us victims are working twice as long to do what we had been able to do before, trying to create fixes and work-arounds. Try contacting IT to get help? That is not in their job description.

OK I am done. I think you guys heard this song before, if you are not singing it yourself.

putting something on versus getting dressed

Those are different concepts. I can respect folks who get dressed even if the end result is not something that I would wear. I work with lots of people from very different cultures. Even so, you can see who Gets Dressed versus who just Puts Something On.
Here is a picture of me wearing something. It is really hard to get dressed when 1. you lack enthusiasm 2. you are constrained by your ridiculous New Years Resolution to wear only what you have in your closet for an entire year. Wait a minute. My phone matches my shirt. Seriously I did not intend that.

Crabby old ladies post

"This is so wrong in so many ways:
1. Geek Chic glasses make you look youthful, playful and current.
2. Big necklaces make you look old. Period. Ever seen a youngster in a big chunky necklace?
3. Earth tones? Nothing says 1970 like earth tones. Bright colors look good but they have to be the right bright colors for your skin tone.
4. Long skirts are in style and comfy so shut up. Mid-calf does look frumpy because it's simply out of style right now.
5. Hide your neck with a turtleneck? Go right ahead. Just don't wear a big necklace to hide your neck. We can SEE it, OK?
6. Everyone looks bad in a poorly fitted jacket, and in clingy jersey knit. Doesn't make you look old, just poorly dressed and we should know better by now.
7. Shapewear for every day? Your clothes should fit, your undies shouldn't be too tight, and therefore you shouldn't need everyday shapewear. Get serious!!
8. If you want to tie a pretty scarf around your neck go right ahead; it looks funky and retro-cute. Anything that says funky and retro-cute, in small doses, has the opposite effect from "aging" you. Scarf on your purse is weird. I only do that when I'm carrying one and it can't be avoided. Do avoid taking style tips from the French. because this is the US and you will look silly pretending to be French. If you're not French.
Nothing is more "aging" to a woman that trying too hard to look like you are avoiding looking "aged". My best advice is to filter current styles through your lens of experience, and apply decorum. Wear good clothes (including underwear) that fit well and don't create tucks and rolls.
You are a elder member of society and deserve respect. Shake that respectable thang!"

I got all riled up about that Yahoo post on what to wear to not "age" youself. That kind of crap gets me all excited. There is a lot of really bad advice to older ladies out there and not much that makes sense. The very best way to not "age" youself is to be connected to current events, to be happy and lively, and to have a positive attitude. You could be wearing a flower print sweatshirt and mom-jeans and not be "aged" with a sunny disposition and a happy outlook.

meanwhile, Here I am in black with big necklaces. Ha! LOL! OK my necklaces are not that big. But I am wearing geek-chic glasses!

Oh for christ's sake

http://shine.yahoo.com/photos/fashion-mistakes-look-older-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Ffashion-mistakes-look-older-slideshow%252F-photo-2651252-201600315.html

meanwhile, spot my "mistakes" in the photos from this blog.

Also, today's photo is courtesy of spousy. I thought that change might be good.

Royal baby day

Hello,
It may be silly but I am delighted by the arrival of William and Catherine's baby boy. I was touched when William was born, his mama holding him in front of the hospital in white knee socks. She looked so, um, vulnerable? Small and young and sweet. Maybe not in real life but that is how it looked to me. So now that baby has his own baby. The circle of life. It's not trivial really. I'm delighted at the presence of any new baby.
Then they grow up and nobody cares.
And this is what I had on:

A new baby is a tacit reminder of death. Its a shame that we get such a short and shabby ride across the universe. A little flash of light and that's it. All in service to make a baby. That we will love for a while. Then it will grow up. And we, then they, then their kids will be forgotten. What for?

OK I'm done now. I must need coffee, or a glucose dripline, or something.

Fly away! How I wish

Here is what I had on when I left the house on 18 July 2013. This sweater has what is called a fly-away back. There are two panels that overlap but are not connected that serve as the back of the sweater. I like the idea but in practice it looks baggy and shapeless from the front.
I like the idea of flying away though. Wish I could scoop up my little family and plop them down somewhere under some tall trees with the sun streaming through, where we could live without a care in the world. Satisfied and comfortable and peaceful.
But no. So I wear my shapeless fly-away sweater and dream my little daydreams, clutching my red stapler, as my desk is moved once again.