Soup Shoes

Today I was musing on my old soup shoes.  They are somewhere in my closet at the moment.  Since I am no longer sitting at the front desk, I no longer have to wear dress shoes to work.  Instead I wear sneakers most days, adding a touch of insanity to even my most normal outfit, and making the crazy ones look that much more dressed-in-the-dark-baglady-ludicrous. 

Good old soup shoes.  They were the high point of some of the outfits last year.  They were so named because one shoe had a slight stain, probably from some soup.  They made me look more homeless than usual, especially when paired with ugly trousers.  I looked like someone had dressed me out of a Salvation Army charity box.

I like my sneakers better, mostly because they are comfortable and help my feet stay warm.  I must be getting old, all my fashion is so clearly based on warmth and comfort.  And I now own about 80 scarves.

(source)

The difference between ugly and hate

I've been thinking a great deal lately about the difference between clothes that're ugly and clothes that I hate.
This is mainly because although I recently (read: sometime last month) organized my closet enough so that I could enter it, it has now become so disheveled and crammed that although I can reach into it, I can no longer get into it.  This makes it harder to chose clothes.  So I generally go with what I can see.  And this leads to some interesting choices.  Many are the days I have appeared at work looking like I got dressed in the dark.  I didn't, I just don't care if I match or not.  And many are the days I have worn things I don't particularly like, just because they are clean and within reach.

There's a difference between things that are ugly and things that I hate.  Some fit into both categories.  Sometimes it's the way things fit or feel.  They can be staggeringly uncomfortable.  Or ill-fitting.  Or just WRONG.  They can be wrong.  As I am trying on these garments I am putting them in the bag to go to the charity shop-- one monkey's trash is another's treasure, which is how I ended up with many of my lovely clothes in the first place.  And I am glad to see them go to another good home.

But as I sometimes wear these emergency clothes (read: need to clean your room, Miss!) to work, I often think about how clothes make you feel.  The subtle differences in your day when you feel better or worse just because you have the dark and guilty secret that you are wearing an elasticated waistband, or that you folded over the waist of your trousers to stop them falling down, or, as has happened to me, that your trousers DID fall down in the parking lot on the way in to work.

I'm trying.  I buy clothes too large without trying them on.  I have long felt that I am not good enough for good clothes.  I am trying to feel better.  But I do love my ugly clothes.  I am just trying to love ugly clothes which actually fit.  It will save me hours of parking lot humiliations in the long run.

And the trousers go to...

Today's trousers: baby-poo brown plaid with a subtle blue stripe, jauntily mismatched with a blue floral shirt because it was what was laying on top of a box where I could see it this morning. 

Oh, M, how I enjoy your fashion sense!  So quirky, so devil-may-care, so COLORBLIND!

Yes, yet again I look like I got dressed in the dark... but I didn't!

These trousers are the ugliest color in my collection, but I think not the ugliest trousers overall.

The trousers are ugly, but the photograph is unflattering.
It's win-win frankly.

Oh. You wanted to hear about the date. 
1. I did not fall down
2. I did not spill
3. I did not mention Stalinworld as my ideal honeymoon destination
4. I did not mention Stalinworld
5. I did not mention my love of genocide as it relates to my research on cultural nationalism

Surprisingly we were still able to make conversation.  So we'll see. 
And: this is not me, but it could be