Same trousers, Wrong trousers

I have been wearing the same trousers to work (mostly) for about 2 weeks now.

Same Jeans by The View, a band from Dundee, where I used to live.

So far, no one has said anything...

They are nice enough, (grey-ish, black and white checker-ish) professional, they fit alright...

strangely enough for me...

No one at work has yet commented on these trousers.  Which is strange, given that the trousers are attending my job as frequently as I am, and given that in the past I have been issued A GREAT DEAL of (unwanted, unasked for, and sometimes rude) fashion advice WTF! from ladies at work.  (I don't want to dress like the ladies at work, and YOU do not want me to dress like the ladies at work!)

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Clearly this in not one of the ladies at work, but merely an illustration of their kind of office attire.

Anyway, it's the closet, the closet has once again sucked in all my work clothes and my will to live and my will to clean.

I am looking for a job up in Albany, NY, (Mr. Cereal has relocated) and while I do I'm packing, and my room and my things are feeling vengeful and making my life difficult.  I cannot find weather appropriate clothes.  I cannot find clothes that fit.  I cannot find anything in the vortex/black hole/dumpster/bin/skip that is my room.

If there were ever a time for emergency clothes THAT TIME IS NOW.

So... I leave you with this cliffhanger. WILL M dive into the closet tonight and unearth different trousers? WHAT will she wear to the horrifyingly scary business conference development extravaganza at a convention center on Thursday?  WHEN will the insomnia end???

Pants!

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Yeah, this image really grosses me out.  But there you go... Spaghetti pants.

Punchline first, then joke.

My sister: Do you want to come over and get a pizza and watch tv?
Me: no, I'm anxious and I wouldn't be comfortable. I just want to be at home where I can do my stuff.
My sister: Ok.  I hope you get the ants out of your pants.
Me: Imma put these ants in YOUR pants.
My sister: Ok!
My sister: Pants!
My sister: Spaghetti!
Me: You're spaghetti pants!
My sister: I like that one.

So, clearly I have been shirking my responsibilities with this blog.  Meanwhile I have been focusing on tumblr, which requires less typing.  And before you think about how LAZY that is, think about tendonitis.  I think it's been exacerbated by packing and moving big boxes of books.

Mr. Cereal and I are planning on cohabitation.  In a deconsecrated church.  In upstate New York.  When I put it like that it sounds an awful lot like squatting.  But it's not.  The place we're going to live is really beautiful, and I will have enough room to DO things, like making things, and organizing things.  I'm really excited. 
I am less excited about all the moving and the packing.  I love my books.  They seem to love me a lot less.  Unless they are into sadism, in which case they are showing their love the only way they know how.

This is my bad time of year.  This is the time of year where I want to hole up and do nothing but hibernate.  So having to DO THINGS like organize, pack, look for a new job, look for a new car, organize a car loan, be pleasant, leave the house, all of it is draining and daunting, and TIRING.  I'm freaking exhausted all the time.
But not too tired to call my awesome sister spaghetti pants.

Emergency trousers?

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I, like others, often struggle with what to say on the spur of the moment, like when confronted with a hideous baby, or when someone makes me really salty eggs (or, perhaps, more likely, when I make someone else really salty eggs, as eggs and chicken are my worst things to make and I have now made them both for Mr. Cereal.  I have done the opposite of what most people would do-- purely unintentionally, I assure you-- and cooked things I cannot cook first, rather than cooking my best things.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?  Dear reader, I was not thinking at all.).

I like the idea of storing some things up for emergencies--
like what to say in an emergency
and now have thought that maybe I should invest some-- time? money? effort?-- something in emergency trousers.

I like to imagine emergency trousers-- or indeed, emergency clothes of any sort-- as being the kind of thing that could save you!  There you are, you need something to wear for a special interview, an important date, or, the one special piece of clothing you are convinced will cause someone to see you the way you were always convinced they would.  Magical clothing which could save you.  Emergency sweatshirt which feels like a hug.  Big comfy emergency socks which warm you up just thinking about them. Underwear which are so ugly that they will convince you not to sleep with the wrong person.  Clothing that will save you, even from yourself.

And so, maybe it's not new clothing at all that would be suited to being emergency clothing.  New sweatshirts don't hug you the same.  New jeans aren't broken in right.  But the sweatshirt that you stole from your sister and you're not supposed to be wearing is the one that makes you feel beautiful and it's the one you were wearing when something good happened to you.  That flannel you loved that she left under your pillow when she went away to college was way better than one you could buy in a shop...
Old clothes are emergency clothes.  Old clothes soothe you and save you and help you.  I am an old clothes person. I am like used clothes, like the velveteen rabbit, I'm all worn in, but hopefully you love me better for it.

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Jeans are a type of trousers

Today's trousers: unsuitable for work, but I am wearing them anyway.  I'm a rebel! 
They are green, with patches.  PATCHES.  (I did not, despite my sewing prowess, install the patches myself.  They came pre-installed.  A strange concept.)

 

Now, part of my quiet and insubstantial rebellion at work is that I am in pain.  I'm in a little physical pain, and a little emotional pain, and a little existential pain.  I'M IN A LITTLE PAIN.  And so I express my pain in a healthly manner, like wearing inappropriate clothing and turning up for work JUST on time (not early! take that, work!).

This is a face in pain.

And not just because of the birds' nest hair going on. 

Anyway. Mr. Cereal has a sewing project for me-- something I have not attempted ever!-- jeans.  I'm a bit worried, but more because I see it as a challenge.  Luckily there is a ton of help on the internet.  And Mr. Cereal seems to believe I can do it.  (Though his words last night were less encouraging-- "you're my only hope!")  Ah, worth a try.  And I do like to have a project.  Plus, success would be incredible.  And jeans are, after all, a type of TROUSERS....

(I just can't say PANTS.  Pants = underpants.)

Building things

I keep finding myself stuck in a rut in front of my computer, making notes on projects I find interesting and I'd like to accomplish instead going ahead and accomplishing them.  I'm very tired of this.

I want to go ahead and build things, write things, and make things instead of making a library of notes on the things I will one day build and make and write.

 Notes from when I was working on my thesis- part of my "library of notes".

I made a list, either last year or the year before, of vague projects I wanted to accomplish, like painting something that I wanted to hang in the house, sewing a piece of clothing I liked to wear, things like that.  Goals that are within reach.  The thing that I did not foresee is that by becoming involved with Mr. Cereal, those things are actually more of a possibility instead of less of one.  I have never had a boyfriend who is so encouraging of my goals while providing inspiration for new ones-- and not in a weird or creepy or overbearing way.  It's difficult to explain.  Since we have become serious I have become involved in martial arts (on the bunny slope-type level), which I am enjoying so much more than I ever would have imagined.  But I am also enjoying the things I do by myself even more.  I can talk about any of my projects or ideas with him-- publishing my thesis, creating Cornell-type boxes, embroidering a representation of a mass grave... and he has ideas on some of them (good ideas!), and ideas for other things I can do.

I am not used to this kind of thing.  This seems like what people have been talking about, about what relationships could be like, but which I have not had.

Anyway.  I'm making a plan to accomplish more. And I like that.
Oh, and I plan on keeping Mr. Cereal around too, if he lets me.  He makes my life a bit better all the time.

Made this for a friend a few years ago. She and her husband wanted fish, but had no room.  Viola!  I created a few fish they could hang from a bookshelf (I guess a fish-mobile of sorts) that would sparkle as they turned around.

yeah, it's corny...

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Symphony in Brown

Because my beloved co-workers are in the office today I am wearing an EXQUISITE ensemble in brown.  A symphony in brown.  (A symphony of ugly, more like)  And because my beloved Stella is in the office today I chose a terrible shirt to amuse her.  I have already done my hideous Liz Lemon dance to amuse Catherine.  I am on co-worker amusement fire today.  I am living to make others happy, and it is making me happy too.

Mr. Cereal is having a tough day at work.  And I have a plan to make it better later.  I'm really excited about that too.  I don't want to spoil it, but it doesn't involve a symphony in brown. 

Speaking of brown, it always makes me think of Lewis Mumford's book The Brown Decades:A Study of the Arts in America 1865-1895.  Mumford was, of course, a student of Patrick Geddes, the subject of my thesis.  Mumford had a problem with the way Geddes taught, as illustrated in the way Geddes would take people (specifically Mumford himself) through the Outlook Tower, showing them how to see Edinburgh through it. 

It's an interesting idea that Geddes was so insistent on showing people how to see things the way he saw them.
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trousers can be deceiving

Today's trousers: from this photo they look awfully normal.  I look awfully normal. 
Luckily, these trousers are deceiving.  I have Helena Bonham-Carter-eqse (HBC) hair (though it is admirably tamed, sort of) today.  It is Bride of Frankenstein hair.  It is epic.

And though I have had my V8 AND all my vitamins, I have pre-caffeine face.  A lot.  Strange hair, strange face, normal trousers.  It may be a strange day.

The apparent normalness of my trousers reminded me of something I came up with this summer: the ugliness of the elastic waistband of your soul.

Oh, and in other news... I seem to have a boyfriend.  Yep.  I have reacquired my beloved Mr. Cereal.  No more excruciating first dates for the foreseeable future.  I am ecstatic.  Not over the lack of first dates, which is great, but because I genuinely love Mr. Cereal.  And he does not mind (and indeed enjoys) if I talk about genocide, Stalinworld, etc.  I am a terrifically lucky girl, even if only for a brief time.  And I am happy.