Musings on shopping and girliness

[rikibeth]

So today, my big task was to get shadowflyer's mileage reimbursement check to the bank, and then go buy some badly-needed underwear and nightshirts.

Seriously, I hadn't bought any new nightshirts since Charlotte was a baby. She's eight. I needed some.

First place I went was Marshall's. Nothing I wanted. There were some pretty silk pajamas that weren't expensive, but they were powder blue, and I'm not really a powder blue sort of girl. They also didn't have the underwear I wanted.

So while I was there I decided to browse through the dresses, mostly out of curiosity. I had sort of an excuse -- a cousin's bar mitzvah in two weeks, although I already have a perfectly good dress that I planned to wear for that.

The sort of dresses I like are apparently in style this year. Silk georgette. Bias cut. Flutter sleeves. All 1930s glamour. And $29.99? I had to try them on.

This meant that I had to detour to the bras because I wasn't wearing one. I almost never am, these days. Under my chef's coat, who can tell? Same with the sweatshirts or loose things I wear when I'm not at work. OK, found a neutral one that wouldn't show under the dresses. Into the fitting room.

Size 8 dress fit, but size 10 was more flattering. The mid-calf length one looked too evening. The street-length one was tempting. Very tempting. If I'd known of another wedding or bar mitzvah or SOMETHING coming up where I'd need a silk georgette dress, I might have gotten it. But no.

I did notice something when I was trying the dresses on, though. My hair was DRAB. Dull, boring, blah, dark brown that would have looked better if it was jet black. I love black dresses (these were black with floral print), but the combination of a black dress and my hair was NOT good.

You'd think they'd make the lighting in fitting rooms flattering, so that you'd want to buy the stuff, right? No. It makes you look AWFUL.

So I decided that I'd use the money I would have spent on the dress towards getting my hair colored. Because the dress I already own is black, too. With a design of white Japanese letters and a couple of peonies. And my plain-brown hair wasn't going to do it.

I didn't leave Marshall's without buying ANYTHING. When I was considering the georgette dress, I realized that I did not own a daytime handbag at all suitable to wear with it, and hadn't in years. Beaded or velvet evening purses? Got those. Navy-blue leather corporate-looking pocketbook, left over from my receptionist days? Got that. And there's a white leather one for summer that was my grandmother's and is sort of usable. But other than that? A purple nylon school backpack, a black canvas Chinese field medical pouch, and, um, a bunch of canvas tote bags. And normally I just stick my wallet in my back pocket and head out. So I went to look at the black pocketbooks.

Boy, they're making ugly pocketbooks these days.

I wound up with a Nine West mini-bag in some sort of nylon or something that manages to look sleek rather than sporty. I think. Anyway, it'll be unobtrusive with my dress and my Capezio character shoes. I refuse to wear the monstrosities they're pretending are dress pumps right now. Who do they think I am, Rosa Klebb? Because it looks like there ought to be spring-loaded knife blades in the toes. UGLY.

Having totally failed to find underwear or nightshirts at Marshall's, I went to Target. I knew they'd have the sort of basic underwear I was looking for.

And they did. But damn, why are all the fashion colors tangerine and coral now? Blech. And the one pack that had hot pink and royal blue, they had in 5s and 7s but no 6s. Phooey. I wound up with packs that were gray, black, and white. Ho-hum.

Nightshirts were another problem. Tangerine. Greyed lilac. Apple green. I do NOT look good in these colors. I do not feel happy in these colors. And none of them were really the styles I wanted.

There were an awful lot of cute chemises and cami-and-pants sets... but I've learned that I cannot sleep unless my shoulders are covered. I used to buy pretty silk chemises, and they'd get shoved to the back of the drawer because my shoulders in the little spaghetti straps stick out of the blankets and get cold and I JUST CAN"T SLEEP, dammit. So I passed those by.

I almost got a set of pajamas with a wide-shouldered tank top and jersey pants that said "Bad Kitty" on them. They were cute, but not $18 worth of cute when I had three nice comfy flannel nightshirts that were literally fraying apart to replace.

I even looked in the men's department. Dammit, I was not going to buy men's "sleep Ts" when I had a drawer full or ordinary large t-shirts at home. They weren't long enough to be noticeably different. Where are the damned NIGHTSHIRTS? Obviously I'm going to have to order some from the Vermont Country Store for next winter, and pay the serious money...

What I wound up getting were clearance "muscle shirts" from the women's department, to wear with the flannel pants and boxer shorts I have for wear-around-the-house comfy stuff. Heather grey. I sense a pattern developing here.

I have apparently shed a lot more girlieness than I had originally thought.


Next post, the hair...