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!)

source

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???

Emergency trousers?

source

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.

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.