You know what I'm really tired of? Women being obsessed with bigger boobs. Seriously, either you have them or you don't. A couple of my friends who were "blessed" with naturally large breasts desperately wanted smaller ones, you know why? Because big boobs can give you back aches. They get in the way of activities like jogging. Well, real ones do anyway. Maybe the surgical kind are made of cotton candy?
You know what else I'm tired of? White women tanning their skin until they either reach a kind of opus in orange, or achieve a dried tobacco hue. I understand wanting to have a healthy "sun-kissed" glow, but all that means is a little color in your cheeks, your forehead, and perhaps a slight golden cast to your normally pale skin. Maybe if you're very outdoorsy you get a little more golden, get some freckles, but this isn't the tan I'm talking about. The kind I'm talking about is the kind you either have to get under the beam of a tanning bed, or dedicate lots of time cultivating on lawn chairs.
I think brown skin is beautiful on those who were born wearing it.
There is a woman in this town who I will be careful not to describe here, seeing as I have a tendency to get myself in trouble, who has achieved the most intense dark orange opus. I don't know how she can look in the mirror and not see how scary she looks. Combined with her amazingly stiff coiffure, I find it impossible not to stare at her when she crosses my path.
This all further emphasizes my earthiness. My careless approach to
hippiesville. (I was just about to offer proof that I'm not actually a hippie by declaring my lack of
Birkenstocks...oops. I do have a pair of them. Damn. But not the traditional hideous ones that so many old hippies pair with droopy thick socks.) I do believe in make-up. It's not as though I am into people being naked of charms and fun adornment and I've used almost as much hair dye as Cyndi
Lauper which is just as fake as getting a dark tan when you start off looking like moonlight.
It's just a question of personal taste. I'm expressing mine here. I'm completely aware of how much people hated my brightly colored hair when I was a teen. The green hue invoked a lot of ire out of the big boobed tanned girl crowd.
I just drifted off on a mental trip. I was thinking about all the styles that I think make women and men attractive. Taking a kind of inventory of what that grouping of style might make others think. What opinions they might have about what I think makes people attractive. Well, this is what makes the world so fascinating, isn't it? I don't like fake tans, but I do think kohl rimmed eyes are wonderful. Even on older women. I like people to wear the skin they were born in and just love it. I feel like, generally speaking, their natural skin color will make them most attractive.
I loathe Jimmy Chou shoes. Seriously-I think they are awful. I hate
strappy shoes with six inch heels. I love almost all 1930's shoe styles. I love men's shoes. I love boots. But not sexy
strappy spike-heeled boots. I like work boots. Yep. And you know something you won't believe? I think work boots are sexy. Indeed I do. I like
mary-
janes. I love platform shoes in the 1940's style.
I love it when people mix work boot style with diamonds. Throw a little plaid in there and I might actually get a little faint with excitement.
This all makes me think of the Olsen twins trying to be taken seriously in the fashion world. A whole lot of sycophants have already declared them to be style icons. I look at them and all I can think is: will these girls ever stop looking infantile? Will their faces ever look grown up? I can't take them seriously. Not only because their sense of style is amorphous, but because the eyes that look out of their baby faces look so empty.
OK, so I'm thinking about how one could sum up my sense of style and the first thing that comes to mind is: diamonds in the dirt. I like rustic food that has been given a little bit of glamor. I like utilitarian clothes: knickers, knit tops, boots, tights, and berets. An outfit that can travel anywhere. An outfit in which you could dig up bulbs in the garden and then go out in later. I like my interiors to be functional and sturdy but to have grace and good lines as embodied in Deco furniture. Furniture that is well designed for living that is also sleek and beautiful.
In my garden I like to see flowers everywhere, I like an abundance overflowing my property line. But it all must be useful: flowers that can be cut and brought inside, vegetables, fruits, and medicines. A purple
cone flower is not only beautiful to look at, loved by beneficial insects, but if you cultivate it for long enough it can yield powerful medicine. That, to me, is perfect natural design.
In my dining room there are no dishes that I save for special occasions. I believe in having things that are useful and beautiful at the same time. If they are useful and beautiful they should be used and admired in every day life.
You could say that a person's sense of style is a frivolous part of their life, but I say it informs a person's whole life. It informs how they live. It goes so much deeper than just decorating and personal adornment. I have always objected to
rabid over-zealous feminists declaring that clothes are much too trivial for them to care about. As though it makes them superior to not care about these things. As though caring about the clothes you wear or the make-up you apply automatically means you can't simultaneously care about other things. When a woman declares too strongly that she couldn't care less what people think of her and that she's not going to wear make-up just to please a stupid man, she is actually saying a lot more about herself than she realizes. And it isn't all pointing to personal strength of character either.
My entire life is colored by my belief in the perfect mixing of function and form. I don't buy clothes I won't clean my house in. That doesn't mean I only wear sweats. I wear APRONS to cover my good clothes while I cook and clean. Although, admittedly, my apron wearing was really curtailed by getting super heavy. I used to wear them all the time, every day. I dressed up to garden, perhaps I wore some chinos and boots, but I would also wear lipstick, jaunty caps, and pretty jewelry. There's no reason to separate glamor from dirt. We are living our lives every single minute we aren't dead, why waste most of that time saving the "good stuff" for the special occasions that never come?
This philosophy informs every aspect of my life. The heavy parts as well as the airy bits. This is how I can see beauty and charm in work boots. Boots you can wear anywhere, do anything in, there's such charm in that versatility. It's very working class of me, I suppose, but I'm alright with that. I have no desire to be anything other than what I am. Being able to see the beauty in ordinary objects makes the whole world more engaging. And when ordinary objects are designed with exquisite care, it makes life easier to live. It makes cleaning house more satisfying. Crushing garlic with a perfectly designed garlic press gives me an extra frisson of pleasure while cooking.
There's room for us all, luckily. Even
Dita Von Tease who I am not going to slam because I'm sure someone I know is friends with her. Dita: do you ever wear work boots? (And I don't mean in lingerie, either.)
I decided to dress Headless Helen as myself, the way I was. 
No, I haven't turned into a sad sack of potatoes. It just occurred to me that even though I can't dress myself in my actual style, Headless Helen happens to be the exact size I was. Only her boobs are bigger than mine. So I can show you all who I really am. Or was. Was/am. Because this is still how I'd dress if I could choose what style to wear.
This shirt is one that I love but never got to wear because a friend gave it to me after I was already too big to wear it. I keep figuring that I'll be able to wear it some day and keep it, tag and all.
