December 8 - Skinny

I'm wearing skinny trousers.

Not trousers that make me feel skinny, or trousers that I bought once when I was skinnier and couldn't wear for a while but suddenly fit into again. I'm wearing trousers that are skinny shaped. As in, I might as well be wearing tights. Except thicker.

I think we all know my feelings on skinny jeans. If we don't, let me reiterate: No one should wear skinny jeans except Iggy Pop in the late 70's/early 80's and Ewan MacGregor in Trainspotting. If you are neither of those people, you should not be wearing skinny jeans. I should not be wearing skinny jeans.

Here's the thing: I don't think people are making non-skinny trousers anymore. I was desperate for some new trousers that I could wear to work, so I set out to try to find even just a nice pair of black jeans or something. Something heavier than the nice black trousers I have been wearing to work so that my legs are a little more protected during the cold winter months. But I could scarcely find non-skinny trousers. They have skinny trousers for curvy women. Skinny trousers for skinny women. Skinny boot-cut trousers, which seems like an oxy-moron to me. Skinny stretch trousers. Skinny stretch denim trouser leggings. But everything is cut skinny.

I grabbed the largest sized skinny trousers I could find and tried them on. While they are not as terrible as I might have feared, they are not going to become my new favorite trousers. I don't like trousers that stick to my legs like this - I have to adjust where the fabric falls every time I stand up or sit down. I don't like trousers that require sitting down in order to remove them. And crazy as it may sound, having a fuller leg on one's trousers traps warm air inside against the leg and actually keeps one warmer than wearing these super tight, form-fitting things. And to make matters super annoying, I am ridiculously hungry today, so my skinny trousers are making me feel anything but skinny.

Please, Fashion World, please stop subjecting us all to the same trends. We're not all shaped the same way. The clothing shapes you decide should be "in" do not work on everyone. Please continue to make clothing of different shapes available to those of us who are not concerned with being "in." And Clothing Stores, please stop stocking only one style of trouser. Seriously.

May 14 - Revolution

There is no such thing as a comfortable pair of high heeled shoes.

I don't care what you say, I don't care how many years you have been wearing high heels to train your feet and your body to do things they're not supposed to do, I don't care how much you pay for your shoes; there is no such thing as a comfortable pair of high heeled shoes.

I keep finding random cute heels that I think will be fine, and that often times are fine. For a little while. But after actually wearing them for any period of time - to a wedding, to work, to an audition - my feet end up screaming at me, begging for soft, cushy socks and sneakers. The heels I wore yesterday were not particularly high, and have the extra cushioning in the ball of the foot for comfort, but they ended up rubbing off about four layers of skin at about the sesamoid bone (where bunions form, if one has bunions - do I have a bunion?) that is still screaming bloody murder at me. And I only wore the heels at work, and I didn't walk around very much at work yesterday, so that is, what, nine or ten hours of mostly sitting while wearing heels and I'm limping today because of it? And these are supposed to be comfort-designed high heels. Really?

High heels, though they are considered a symbol of female oppression by some, are cute and fun to wear from time to time. I like being taller than normal on occasion. But I honestly think they are little more than a torture device designed to make women look a certain way and to lessen a woman's power. It is harder to walk in high heels, it is virtually impossible to run in high heels, and in order to ever get used to wearing them, one has to wear them all the time to the point her feet are calloused and mangled and hard and numb to most kinds of pain. Wearing high heels too often can lead to back problems and knee problems and foot problems. And yet we wear them so we can be a smidge taller from time to time and have kick-ass calves. Which begs two questions:

1) Why?
2) In all the time we've been doing this to ourselves, why has no body taken comfort and wear-ability into account when designing the super cute high heels?

I get it - a lot of high heels are designed by men who don't actually wear them. So they don't know that while all of those little strappy things are cute, making them out of plastic means a woman is going to have all of these hard-edged plastic bits digging into her foot all day. And he doesn't realize that while cute and dainty, putting all of a woman's weight on the ball of her foot and supporting the ball of her foot with what amounts to a quarter-inch of plywood is not really comfortable. And he doesn't realize that the cute open-toed shoes that you really can't or shouldn't wear pantyhose with, but that are lined with leather (or a leather-like material that doesn't really breathe) induce foot sweat, which induces stickiness, which induces chafing, which produces blisters. And he doesn't get that while the heel of a shoe needs to narrow a bit so it will stay on a woman's foot, the joints in a woman's ankle need to move in that general area, too, so making that part of the shoe really stiff will lead to chafing and blisters, as well. And he doesn't get that pointy shoes are just ridiculous because nobody's foot is shaped like that.

So here is what I would like to do. A lot of people, once they become rich and famous and have all sorts of disposable income, start a business of some sort. Some sell perfumes, others clothing, other food stuffs. I would like to put money into shoe research and development. Make shoes out of flexible, breathable materials that don't make you look like a hippie. Change the design of high heeled shoes to encourage a more even weight distribution so that the wearer is not walking en pointe all day. Offer support and cushioning where it is needed. Place straps where they don't cut up the foot. And with any luck, even make them affordable. Because everyone loves a cute pair of shoes, but nobody loves the blisters and Band-Aids that follow.

It is time for a shoe revolution! Who's with me?

March 25 - Acceptance

I tried this online service where you put in your clothing sizes and style preferences and they send you five articles of clothing they think you'll like. If you like the pieces, you can buy them; if you don't, you can send them back. Groovy, huh?

One of the blouses they sent me makes me look...old. Older than I think I look. It's a nice blouse, but sort of caftan-esque in shape and neckline so it makes me look like...a suburban housewife maybe? Not that there's anything wrong with being a suburban housewife - many of them work harder than most of us. But I'm not a suburban housewife. And I don't often dress like one, so it was odd to me to get this piece of clothing. They also sent me skinny jeans that don't quite account for the size and roundness of my posterior; a drapey-front cardigan that looks pretty cool but is not really cozy or soft; a cotton/rayon color-blocked long-sleeved t-shirt (complete with thumb holes) that I like the style of, but the fabric is so clingy you can measure the depth of my belly button when I wear it; and a light-weight infinity scarf with dragonflies on it. And as I tried on all of these articles of clothing, I found myself asking, "Is this the kind of stuff I should be wearing? Am I too old for Doctor Who t-shirts and soft boyfriend cardigans? Is it wrong to like how skinny jeans look from far away while hating how they feel and how they look up close?"

I think I need to be more adventurous in my clothing choices, but I don't feel like these are the adventures I'm interested in going on. I'm an artist, and while I am in my mid-thirties, I don't really look it or feel it, so I'm not sure I want to dress it (or older) at the moment. Is that wrong?

September 23 - Tattoos

If I may, you might want to have this playing in the background while you read this post. Or maybe you should just listen to this because it's great. Anyway. Moving on.

I get asked about my tattoo fairly regularly. Since it is a graphic, everyone wants to know what it means. So here is the story of my tattoo.

I don't remember why I wanted one in the first place. I think I wanted to prove something, or show that I was the sort of person who could get a tattoo or something. But whatever the reason, I thought about it for a very long time because I do understand that a tattoo is permanent. When I'm a 90-year-old grandmother, I will still have this mark on me, so I wanted to make sure it was something I would be okay with as a 90-year-old. And I thought a lot about where it should go to try to prevent it getting stretched and blurry and distorted. I settled on the back of my neck, as that part of my body is not likely to change too much as I age.

When it came time to pick a design, I talked to a friend of mine who was an amazing artist, and who I had been in love with for years. He was not, to clarify, in love with me. I was with him. He was...a little self-involved. And confused. But a great artist. So I asked him if he would design a tattoo for me that was "me" and would fit on the back of my neck. After waiting for a few months, he came back to me with a series of cat silhouettes. While they were good cat silhouettes, I remember giving him the "really? Really?" look. I'd known him for five or six years at this point, we'd been roommates and dance partners and the best he could come up with was cat silhouettes? I asked him to try again, so he did. A few weeks later, we met up and he had a series of designs that were more interesting and more abstract. We took a couple of them, combined elements of them, and came up with the design that is now proudly displayed on the back of my neck.

The next question was when to get it done. I wanted the artist there with me, and I knew which tattoo artist I wanted to go to. This was also right about the time my head was shaved and I was playing a performance artist, and I thought it would have been awesome to have the tattoo for that show. Sadly, the timing didn't quite work on that one, so it bled into the next show I was working on, wherein I played a creepy man.

Also at about this same time, I was gearing up to do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer for the first time, and doing various fundraisers to meet my funding goal. One of these fundraisers was a concert featuring myself and a couple of my favorite local musicians. On a whim, I sent a copy of my demo CD to a local radio station that features local music on a weekly basis and asked if they might play something and mention my show since it was for the Avon Walk, for which the radio station was also a sponsor. I got an email from the host of the show saying he would play one of my songs as part of the Local Anesthetic Capsule on Tuesday and Thursday nights of that week and I was giddy with excitement. Except for the fact that I had rehearsal for my new show on both Tuesday and Thursday nights, so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to listen.

So flash to that Tuesday. It was unseasonably warm for March - the first really gorgeous day of spring. The artist who designed my tattoo said he could meet me after rehearsal, and I checked with the tattoo parlor to make sure the artist I wanted to go to would be there. He was scheduled until midnight. I went to rehearsal in the basement of the theater where I was a company member. I was surrounded by mostly new faces - we'd only had one or two prior meetings - and when we got to take a short break, I turned the radio on and got to hear my song Hamburg coming over the radio waves. I heard the deejay say my name and mention my show. I remember I was sitting in a big plastic chair and I curled up in a ball of excitement and humility and glee. And I remember that nobody else there knew quite why it was so exciting for me to hear this song on the radio. When I told them it was me, it was my song, there were half-hearted, "Hey, that's cool"s from a couple of them. I don't blame them - none of us knew each other very well, so they had no idea what it meant to me to hear my song on the radio. But I was over the moon. I was over Mars. I was over Saturn, at least.

When rehearsal ended, I stepped out of the theater into the warm Chicago evening and was greeted by my friend, the artist who designed my tattoo, and we jumped up and down and shrieked like idiots for a full three minutes because he heard me on the radio, too. He got it. He knew why it was a big deal. And then we hurried over to the tattoo parlor so I could get inked. It suddenly felt very important to get my tattoo that day, the day one of my songs was played on the radio for the first time. It seemed the perfect way to mark the occasion.

The tattoo artist I wanted to work on me wasn't there. It had been a slow night (I guess not many people get tattoos on Tuesday nights?) and he left early so he could ride his motorcycle on the first gorgeous day of spring. I was heartbroken and confused and frustrated. But there were other artists there, and one of them showed me his book which was pretty good, so I went ahead with getting my tattoo.

Now, I don't know if you've ever gotten a tattoo, and I'm hardly an expert because I only have the one, but it hurts like a motherfucker. I was in a chair that had me leaning slightly forward and I expected rivers of blood to start flowing down either side of my neck because it felt like he was slicing the back of my neck open. My friend held my hand through the whole thing and told me I could squeeze as hard as I needed to. I thought I was going to crush his hand; afterward he told me he thought I took it really well. The tattoo artist bandaged me up, which severely limited my movement, and sent us on our way. My friend and I went to get a drink and I felt like a total dink with this monstrous white bandage on the back of my neck. But that was it. The pain faded pretty quickly, and I was left with a unique identifier.

So that's the story of my tattoo. It doesn't mean anything, really, except that I have a friend who liked me enough to design a tattoo for me. And I got it done on the night one of my songs was played on the radio for the first time. And all of these years later, even it with looking kind of faded, I'm still so glad I have it. As Frank says, if I had the luck to live my life a second time through, I'd be sure to get the same tattoo.

Now if I could just pick a font for the next one...

September 3 - Costumes

As a costume designer, I completely understand why you would want to use an actor's own clothing if possible for a show.

1. You know it fits
2. You know the actor is comfortable in it.
3. It is one less thing you have to go digging for at the thrift stores.
4. It saves money.

I get it. I've done it. Because why buy fifteen pairs of black trousers, hoping one will fit, when your actor most likely has at least one pair of black trousers of her own at home that would work just as well and suit the purpose without spending all kinds of time and money. It makes sense.

As an actor, it gets weird after a while to use your own clothes in shows.

I was putting away my laundry last night and as I folded this one particular tank top, I thought to myself, "This is Hamlet's mourning tank top." It then occurred to me that it is the same tank top in which my Hamlet dies. (SPOILERS! Hamlet dies at the end of the play. As does everyone else. Almost.) Anyway. I have another dress in my closet that started out as an audition dress, but is now Gertrude's dress. One of my work blouses was, for a while, the blouse I wore when I played a murderer, so it was a little strange to wear it to work once that show closed.

They say that the clothes make the person, and I am of the acting camp that believes the costume makes the character. So to do all of these things that I would never do in my normal life while wearing my own clothes...it leaves a mark on the clothes. The clothes become the character. And for a period of time afterward, putting on those clothes brings the character back to life. I had a pair of iridescent Converse sneakers that I wore in Leftover Voices that I could not wear again after that film was over because of the connection those shoes had to that project. It didn't feel right to wear Celia's shoes out in the normal, everyday world. With most pieces, it just takes time for the residual character energy to fade enough so I can start wearing the clothes as clothes again. During the in-between time, though, I get to have a closet full of old friends.

August 6 - Corporate Dress

I am not a fashionista. I think we all know this about me already. It is amusing to me, doing VEDA again this year, to look at my videos and realize that I have been essentially wearing the same six outfits for the past three years. I am not a fashionista.

The one time that this bothers me, though, is in reference to the clothes I wear to work. I wear "business casual" clothing to work. Albeit with Converse sneakers, but it's business casual. Nice trousers, nice blouses, appropriate sweaters, the occasional skirt or dress. I look...corporate. With sneakers. Not everyone in the downtown area has to look corporate, though, and when I walk around the corner to grab a sandwich for lunch, for example, I see guys walking around in jeans and Batman t-shirts and I become insanely jealous. My inner geek wants the ability to rip of my corporate exterior like Superman to reveal the Doctor Who t-shirt I wish I was wearing, so I could be easily identified on the street as a geek and a sci-fi fan. Then maybe they would smile and say, "Cool shirt," and we would know that a bond had been formed between two strangers with similar interests and we would go our separate ways feeling like we belong somewhere in the universe.

Instead, they see a girl in black trousers and a sweater set, carrying a sandwich and don't think twice about her. There is no bond, no belonging, no smile.

I hope that someday, corporate America starts listening to the studies that show that employees who get to wear what they want to work are more productive than those who have to follow some dress code. And that workers are more productive when given more individual freedoms, and that employees are more productive when they feel valued. So maybe someday, when I pop around the corner to get a sandwich, I can do so with my geek flag flying loud and proud for all my fellow geeks to see.

May 5 - Non-Issue

I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish physical appearance was a non-issue. Specifically mine.

I would like to think that in my life and my interactions with other people, a lot of the things that were once, I dunno, taboo? are now non-issues. I don't really care what your sexual orientation is or your religion or your skin color or your gender, if you are a kind person, we're going to get along just fine. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my friend's sexual orientations because frankly, it doesn't matter to me who they choose to sleep with and who they want to spend their lives with. I don't care who my friends pray to, or if they choose not to pray at all. And I don't mean that to sound crass or dismissive or uncaring - I know that for a lot of people, these things are integral parts of their identities and these things are important to them. What is important to me in human interaction is communication and respect and kindness. If those things are taken care of, the rest of it is just the sprinkles on top of the sundae.

But somehow, I still find myself totally hung up on my own physical appearance. I realize that this blog is probably coming off very vain and self-centered, but apparently, I have some issues to work out at the moment. I'm sorry about that. But at the same time, maybe somebody else is having issues, too, and my talking about it might be useful to them.

I'm tired of having to think about what I look like, and what my clothes say about me, and how I'm being judged as I walk down the street for...whatever. For my pants being too lose or too tight. For my tattoo showing or not. For my preference for dark colors. I'm tired of it. I'm so freaking tired of it.

Side note for all the geeks out there: I tried to type "freaking" just now, but what showed up on the screen was "fraking," which I almost kept.

I tried to buy clothing today. I went to a bunch of stores I never go to and I went to one store I always go to and by the time everything was said and done, I walked out with pieces I think might work but I'm not really crazy about and an overwhelming need to go have a cry. Wait, let me back up a minute.

I read this blog post last week and fell in love with the author just a little bit. I think it is partially because I read that post that when I had to shoot myself in a video for work, I didn't cringe at the footage and pick it apart in my head, saying I should have worn different jeans or styled my hair differently or anything. I actually looked at that footage and thought to myself, "Hey, I'm actually pretty cute." It was a strange moment for me, but one that I felt meant I was making progress. And today, in rehearsal, I was standing on a platform on the stage and the guy understudying the lead was standing on the floor and he came over and picked me up in a fireman's carry. And I let him. I didn't grunt or groan or struggle or shriek, I let him pick me up over his shoulder and set me down elsewhere. He didn't break a bone or pull a muscle or anything. He just picked me up and set me down. So I was feeling good about myself. Comfortable. Somewhere along the way, I also decided that I don't like using the word "fat" to describe myself because I am not fat. I am not a size two, but I am also not morbidly obese. So I want to stop using the word fat to describe myself, even if it's in the context of a comment that never leaves my own head.

But then I went shopping. I needed a bathing suit, and something fancy and white. Honestly, trying to find a white outfit was more depressing than finding a bathing suit. I went to five or six stores, stores aimed at teens and twenty-somethings, stores aimed at the whole family, stores aimed at 30+. And in every single store, I had to grab just about the largest size on the rack. In some cases, those sizes were still too small. The pieces that did fit were not designed with a curvy girl in mind - the hem landed in the least flattering spot, or the waistband bulged in the back, or whatever. These clothes were designed for women with a very specific set of measurements - measurements I'm pretty sure most women don't have. Hell, even some of the sales people would obviously not fit into the clothes they were selling. One woman greeted me and it occurred to me after the fact that if I was buying the extra large bathing suit bottom, she wouldn't even be able to shop in the store where she worked. This poor girl probably never gets to take advantage of her employee store discount because none of the clothes they carry allow women to be any larger than a size 8 or 10. How fucked up is that? Seriously.

Now, I'm not advocating obesity. I'm not saying people with potentially life threatening medical conditions shouldn't seek help. But it has also been shown that overweight does not always mean unhealthy. Often times, yes, it does. But not always. And even for the overweight people who are unhealthy - they have to be able to wear clothes, too, right? Wouldn't it be nice if they could wear clothes that were comfortable and flattering?

The kicker for me in all of this is that I am not fat. I am not unhealthy. I am not a size four. And I can barely find an outfit in an entire mall full of women's clothing stores that is comfortable and flattering.

I know the fashion industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that provides jobs for thousands of people and a creative artistic outlet for a select few. But I wish it was a non-issue. I wish physical appearance was a non-issue. It shouldn't matter if I'm wearing this season's jeans or last season's jeans, and to many people it doesn't, but there are still enough people out there to whom it does matter that one afternoon spent in a mall can completely destroy the self-esteem of a woman like me. A member of Mensa. A musician. A brilliant actress. A kind and loving friend, sister, and daughter. And I can't be the only one who feels this frustration. I can't be. Which would seem to indicate that the issue is not that there is something wrong with me or the way I look or how I am built, but that there is something wrong with the clothing designers and the general belief that women shouldn't have breasts and hips because they are too hard to design around. Fuck that. Breasts and hips are amazing. My badonkadonk ass is glorious and deserves a pair of trousers that do it justice.

Or, the simpler answer, is to make physical appearance a non-issue. I don't care what you look like, or what you're wearing, or whether you have "gym hair" today or what. Let's just agree that we're both human beings and see where the conversation goes from there, shall we?

Please?

April 25 - A Bone to Pick

It is a pretty widely held opinion that John F. Kennedy was a good man and a great President. Okay, not everyone thinks so, but a lot of people do. He did good things and was a great orator and had a fascinating personal life. I'm not going to debate any of that. But I do have a bone to pick with the former president.

Hats.

Specifically hats worn out of doors.

Prior to Kennedy's term in office, people wore hats outside. It was considered polite and appropriate, and people knew (especially men) that it was proper to take your hat off when you went inside. But JFK and his wife were fashion icons and he stopped wearing hats out of doors. He had quite the fashionable quaff and didn't want to cover it up or something, I guess, so he stopped wearing hats out and the rest of the country followed suit

And we know this is an American thing because hats are still worn in other countries, at least to fancy events. Just look at the amazing fascinations they wear in the UK. But in the United States? We have stores that carry "every hat under the sun" which amounts to baseball caps from every major league sports team. That doesn't count! Hats have brims all of the way around; caps have bills. What about cloche hats and bowlers and newsboy caps and pillbox hats and top hats sombreros and fezzes and fedoras? You can't say you carry ALL THE HATS if you only carry technicolor baseball caps. You're missing out on dozens of amazing hats.

I love hats. I like wearing hats. I like wearing hats out of doors. Baseball caps are not the best hats for my noggin, and I believe the lack of hats in modern American culture can be traced back to John F Kennedy's presidency when America stopped wearing hats. And somewhere along the way, we decided that baseball caps were appropriate headgear for any occasion, including spending time indoors. No. I want a better selection of hats to be readily available these days, and I wish we, as Americans, took better advantage of this fashion goldmine.

So thank you, Mr. Kennedy, for all of the amazing things you did for this country. But could you bring back the hats out of doors? If, for no other reason, so rich white guys will stop wearing toupees that are sad attempts to recreate your luscious headsuit *cough*DonaldTrump*cough*?

Thanks!

April 14 - Twitter Topic

I didn't know what to blog about today, so I put the call out to Twitter for a topic. Nic Lake was the first to respond, and he responded thusly:

"Sports. Boobs. Music. Food. The Loop. One thing you can do next week that you really want to do."

So today is going to be a bit of a hodgepodge. Ready? Okay. Here we go:

Sports: I've been thinking recently about how a lot of nerds/geeks/dorks use their lack of knowledge about sports as proof that they are nerds/geeks/dorks. I take issue with this. I am a geek. I would run against Felicia Day for the title of Queen of the Geeks if there was such a thing as a campaign for Queen of the Geeks, and I think I would have a pretty good showing in the election (but she would ultimately still win as approximately 3,000,000 more people are aware of her existence than are aware of mine, but anyway). But I also enjoy sports. It has been determined that I am a huge Cubs fan, I've been to basketball games and futbol matches and loved loved LOVED learning to be a derby girl for the play I did in November of last year. Does this make me less of a geek? If anything, I would argue that it makes me more of a geek for the simple fact that I am wearing a Cubs shirt under a Cubs hoodie as I write this post. Geeks can like sports, just as much as athletes can be geeks. Or something.

Boobs: Mine are rather nice on their own, but I do appreciate a good, supportive undergarment that makes them look amazing. Does that make me vain? I don't really care. It feels good to have a good boob day.

Music: I recently signed up for an online streaming music service and at the same time that I put together a playlist of new music that I am enjoying, I put a playlist together called "Bubble Gum" full of songs that have a beat, have mostly stupid lyrics, and sometimes actually make me kind of ill so I have to fast forward through them. It's music to turn your brain off to, which is what I want to listen to from time to time. But somehow, in compiling this playlist, I neglected to add any Lady Gaga. I feel like my Bubble Gum Pop Music Teeny Bopper card should be revoked.

Food: Food is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems. Mine specifically. It is my security blanket and my kryptonite. I wish I could quit it cold turkey, but I just really really really like to eat. I'm sorry; I know that's not cool and I know society says I should eat less and whatnot (and I'm actually really trying to be better with portion control), but I just really like eating. I'm not ready to give that up.

The Loop: Arguably the best variation to pull out with an eight-month-old who loves to play airplane.

One thing I can do next week that I really want to do: Hmmm...I've been kind of itching to go roller skating recently. Though I probably should schedule another fencing lesson for myself. And I need to get going on draping/patterning/building a bathing suit and a fancy white dress for myself. And I want to spend some time with my Hamlet monologues. Ooo! Or catch up on Doctor Who! (I might do that tonight.) Which means I will probably most enjoy when I have a few minutes to take a nap with my cat on the couch.

...and scene. Thanks for the suggestion, Nic! That was fun.

April 2 - Spring

Spring is a really weird time of year for me. I love that the world starts waking up again, things turn green, the weather gets warmer, blah, blah, blah, but there are a lot of really odd and/or negative emotions that come with springtime, too. Even when it's not Springtime for Hitler. And Germany.

I love that the weather is getting milder. But I think we have all figured out by now that I hate being cold more than just about anything. Living in an apartment in Chicago, I do not have control over the heat in my apartment - I am at the whims of the radiator system that has been set up in my building. If the temperature outside is below 55 degrees Fahrenheit (about 13 Celsius for our friends across the pond), the heat comes on. If it is above 55, the heat does not come on. Sounds simple, right? Except when the outdoor temperature hovers between 55-60 during the day and at night, which it often does for a week or so at a time in Chicago during the spring. Then the heat doesn't come on at all for a week or so at a time, but the outdoor air temperature isn't quite high enough to heat the apartment on it's own, so it just gets cold inside. I know I should love spring with the increased sunshine and lovely, mild temperatures, but I always wind up colder than I'd like to be. I'd be fine with fast forwarding to summer.

I love that there is more to do in the city in the spring and summer. But I often find myself wishing I had a special someone to go do those things with. Until I remember, I'm rubbish in romantic relationships. I honestly am. Now, this is not to say I couldn't make a good girlfriend - I think I have shown glimmers of being a good girlfriend in the past (for the twenty minutes of my life I've had a boyfriend). I always find myself in a position, though, of having to balance boyfriend with the rest of my life - theater, various training exercises (roller skating, fencing, etc.), family, friends, work, my general introvertedness - and boyfriend always ends up losing. I keep thinking that when I meet the right guy, I'll want to give up some of my introvertedness to be with him, but maybe that's an incorrect assumption. Maybe I'll need to make a conscious choice to give that up for him. And honestly, that thought freaks me out. I treasure my alone time. Treasure it. I stay sane by not interacting with other humans for a couple hours every day. So I find myself in that really odd position of wanting someone around I can smooch from time to time and knowing that if I had someone like that, I'd be miserable.

Springtime also excites me because it's dress weather! I hate wearing tights and pantyhose, so I love it when I can wear a dress without the additional eight pounds of undergarments. But since I've been sitting inside most of the winter, I feel kind of gross. I'd like to show off a little leg or a little arm, but feel like perhaps I would be doing the world a favor if I kept all of that covered. This has been particularly weird lately, to the point where I don't trust mirrors. In my mind's eye, I am about a size 82 and always look greasy and tired. In the mirror, I look kind of cute and not nearly a size 82. The mind's eye thing makes it a little weird to go try to find a guy to smooch every now and again, too. So I sort of feel like I'm wearing dresses in spite of what society is telling me I should wear, instead of for the joy of being a little girly.

So hooray for baseball and warmer weather and fun things to do, but weirdness abounds as well. Meaning if I seem a little off, or do things that seem out of character, it's because it's spring and I don't know how to act otherwise. Anyway, gotta run to catch a bus. Talk to you tomorrow!

March 29 - Thoughts

I tend to wear rather dull clothing. Tops with no frills, trousers that usually look like (or are) jeans, sneakers, hoodies. Sweet jebus, I dress like the unibomber. And I usually wear black because I feel like wearing colors draws too much attention to me. But there are a few things I wish I could pull off or I wish I had more of that I could deploy for special occasions. Hats. Big rings. Bling. I'm not the bling-y sort, but every now and again, I wish I could wear some giant dangly sparkly necklace and insanely uncomfortable high heels and walk down the street in slow motion with wind in my hair.

I got a new hat, and a new giant ring. I'm feeling sassy and it's kind of fun. Could this be the beginning of a wardrobe shift?

March 7 - Too Many Clothes

I am wearing entirely too many pieces of clothing today in an effort to stay warm but also look cute and kind of girlie. I am wearing:

• Undergarments (top and bottom, and I think they even match today)
• Pantyhose
• Tights
• Socks (2)
• Boots (2)
• Spandex dress (to function as slip under...)
• Regular dress
• Sweater
• Watch
• Rings (2)
• Earrings (3)

And when I go outside, you can add

• Scarf
• Coat
• Gloves (2)

I am so ready for spring when the clothing list is undergarments, dress, shoes, rings, watch, earrings.

March 2 - Winter

If you've read this blog for any period of time, you know I hate being cold. Which makes it odd that I live in Chicago, yes, but this town is just too good to pass up. Anyway.

Right around this time of year, I start getting really antsy for warmer weather and today, I figured out why. I'm tired of wearing boots. I'm not much for sandals, and I firmly believe that flip-flops are not shoes, but it gets exhausting and dull to wear the same heavy, clunky snow boots every day for five months. I miss my sneakers! I get cranky without good, comfy footwear.

I'm wearing my sneakers at rehearsal tonight. Because I need to. Come on, Mother Nature, bring on the sneaker weather. We're ready.

February 21 - Fashion

I got a copy of Harper's Bazaar at work the other day. This is odd to me for several reasons.

1. I never subscribed to Harper's Bazaar.
2. I don't usually get random magazines at work that aren't work related (I don't work in fashion).
3. I'm not at all fashionable.

I had to think about it - when was the last time I read a fashion magazine? I don't even really look at them while at the dentist's office or anything. I might pick up a gossip rag, but I avoid the fashion articles like the plague. Honestly, everything I know about fashion, I learned from the Fug Girls. And I hope to one day be famous enough to get fugged by them. I will totally wear a cracked out dress to the Oscars someday that has "Heather and Jessica - this is for you!" bedazzled across the bodice if that's what it takes, because I seriously want to get fugged by them. Anyway.

My thoughts on fashion are these: people need jobs, people need creative outlets, so they make all kinds of things for other people to wear and they tell us certain things are cool and trendy and hip so we have to buy new clothes all the time in order to keep up because people need jobs and creative outlets. Think about it - if someone were to invent a fabric for making, say, trousers that would instantly conform to the wearer to make him or her look fabulous all of the time, nobody would ever need to design another pair of trousers again and millions of people (designers, drapers, stitchers, weavers, store sales clerks, etc) would be out of jobs. So the fashion industry exists because without it, lots of people would be out of work and/or creative outlets.

Now, I know there is that lovely bit in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep schools Anne Hathaway on her insistence that fashion doesn't really apply to her because the fact that she is wearing a cerulean sweater was pre-determined for her years ago by designers showing cerulean gowns and the trickle-down theory of colors in fashion. I get that. What I don't get or don't like about the fashion industry (and why I try not to participate in it) is this: for that collection of cerulean gowns, for example, the color cerulean was chosen on the whim of the designer, knowing full well that cerulean does not look good on everyone. The trickle-down theory of colors also happened knowing full well that cerulean does not look good on, nor appeal to everyone. And what happens is we get stores full of cerulean clothing that only appeals to or flatters a certain segment of the population, yet we are all told that in order to be cool and hip and trendy, we have to wear cerulean. So people are left with the choice of look like an idiot in the wrong color, or don't be cool. Which actually sounds like a choice between don't be cool or don't be cool in my book. But what do I know?

Things get worse when we branch out from colors into styles. Hip huggers can actually be physically damaging if you wear them too long or too often. The only people who look good in skinny jeans are Ewan MacGregor in Trainspotting and cocaine-addicted rock stars from the 1970's like Iggy Pop. Cropped t-shirts only look good on people with strong abs. Long t-shirts and sweaters do no favors for those with high waists. Vertical trouser pockets make those with wide hips look wider. Pleated trousers make everyone look pregnant or bloated. The list goes on and on, yet these are all fashion trends that have come and gone (and come again) in the last 15 years. And people buy into them, all the time because the fashion magazines tell us this is what we have to wear in order to be cool, likable, attractive, and socially acceptable. When in all truth, when you see a woman who is 5'1" and weighs 160 wearing shin-length pleated cargo pants, a cropped sweater, and a big chunky necklace, you laugh at her behind her back and wonder if she looked in the mirror before she left her house. She is trying to be hip and trendy instead of dressing to her body type.

Dressing to your body type. Such an ugly phrase, but such a useful tool.

We're all stuck in the bodies we're stuck in. Some of us have yellow undertones to our skin, so if we wear yellow, we look jaundiced. Some of us have really wide hips so sheath dresses never fit right. Some of us have narrow shoulders, so suits look slouchy and even t-shirts of the "right" size can look too big. Some of us have big boobs, so button-up shirts always look snug. Some of us are naturally petite, so we have to shop in the children's or junior's section and have a hard time finding office-appropriate attire. People literally come in every shape and size imaginable. The fashion industry designs things that fit women who are significantly taller than average and significantly thinner than average, and expects those trends to trickle down to the rest of us, still somehow flattering our myriad different shapes, sizes and colors. It is a ludicrous idea.

Which brings me back to why I am not a fashionista. I'm learning how to dress for my body type. I know my hips are ginormous, so I don't buy trousers with vertical pockets or pleats, and I don't buy skinny jeans because they make me look like a sugar cone with ice cream spilling off the top. I don't buy neon because nobody looks good in neon. If I find a piece I like - a sweater, a pair of jeans, etc. - I will hold onto that piece until it literally falls apart and I will wear the hell out of it because even though the fashion industry would like me to believe that I need a whole new wardrobe every three months, I know my body doesn't change so drastically every three months that suddenly, a whole different style of sweater or jeans or whatever will look better on me that what is currently flattering to my shape. Yes, my personal style changes a bit over time and I might go through phases where I prefer dresses to trousers, but I'm still going to pick dresses in styles and colors that are flattering to my shape, no matter what style the magazine tells me I should be wearing. And if I can't find anything that fits the bill in the stores, I won't buy anything. I'd rather go home empty handed than spend lots of money on something I'll never wear, or won't feel good about wearing.

So I got a copy of Harper's Bazaar in the mail at work the other day. I honestly don't know what to do with it. It is ginormous - probably weighs two or three pounds - and full of things I'm sure I won't like and wouldn't look good on me anyway, and/or tips on how to turn myself into someone I am not. I feel guilty throwing it away because people worked really hard on it, and that is a lot of paper to dispose of, even if it is recycled. I guess it is a good thing I am going to a collage workshop this weekend - it can be fodder for images and words I need to make my art.