Something is Missing

September 2nd, 2009

Don’t you just love the first day of school?  The new school supplies, the excitement of a new schedule, new people, and, of course, new clothes.  When I was a kid, my mom never did a major shop for me to kick off the new school year.  We were broke and upwardly mobile, so a new wardroe bought on credit or with the rent money was out of the question. 

But now that I’m grown and have my own money, I usually do a big shop for clothes, shoes, and handbags twice a year–once in fall and once in spring.  Last year, my fall shop came to about $700 dollars, none of which went on a credit card.  Like I said, I don’t have a shopping problem, per se.  I budget for these things.  This year was different, of course.

This year, the night before the first day of school, I felt a little uneasy, and I couldn’t figure out why.  Something felt absent; out of place.  It dawned on me right around the time I should have been going to bed.  It wasn’t first day anxiety; it was the fact that I hadn’t given a thought to what I would wear.  In past years, I would have been looking forward not only to the new students and the new year, but also to the new outfit I’d planned just for this day.  I stared into the closet.  The same old stuff stared back at me.

By old, I have to admit, for most of this stuff, I only mean a year old.  The chartreuse/mustardy top with the blue flowered embroidery and boatneck collar that I ended up wearing was purchased last year from anthropologie, and in fact, I wore it to school on the first day last year, too.  It was a pretty blah feeling to be sporting the same gear for the same occasion two years in a row.  I tried to come up with some new combinations, but my work wardrobe is not as flexible as my going out or my casual one, and I’ve more or less exhausted all the possibilities already.

People who know me and know about this blog still playfully scrutinize me occasionally and ask if what I’m wearing is new.  I appreciate it, since it shows that they take an interest in me and what I’m doing.  Those are good friends.  Another thing I think it shows is that how we look is important to others, but maybe not as important as we think it is, and that they’re not looking at us thinking that we wear the same thing all the time.  To the people who love us and care about us most, it’s likely that what makes us look fresh is enthusiasm for what we are doing, joy, and the interest we show in them.

I really do want a new handbag, though.  And my workout wardrobe is pretty tired, and since I’m in desperate need of reshaping, that could be a bit of a challenge.  I’m not one of those women who goes to the gym, or even wants to, in full makeup, jewelry, and a coordinated outfit down to the socks.  I don’t go to the gym so I can look good at the gym; I go to the gym so I can look good when I’m not at the gym, i.e., living my life.  Exercise is part of my life, but it’s not a part I feel like I need to dress up for.  I’m there to get sweaty and feel gritty, not to get pretty and feel girly. 

My friend Sarah and I are thinking of training for a half-marathon in January, so I feel motivated to build my stamina on the treadmill.  I love the treadmill; it’s the only time  I watch t.v.  I have to admit, though, I feel a little like a hamster, since I think of it as a cable subscription that only works when I run.  Same $70 a month, waaaaaay better result.

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If a Backpacker Stops into the Salon for a Blowout, is She Still a Backpacker?

July 18th, 2009

Yes, I really did do that.  I was tired of my hair looking like shit, and there´s no way I´m washing it in cold water.  And I don´t have a blowdryer.  And I don´t have an electrical outlet for the flatiron, so this morning I stopped in to a basic type salon and had the proprietress wash my hair and blow it out.  I guess I am not really one for roughing it.  I like toilet paper, you know?

I am in Ecuador right now, for those few readers who may not know already, and I´m currently in the mountain city of Cuenca.  It´s the country´s third largest city, after Quito and Guayaquil.  I took a bus here from Guayaquil, and I have to say that it was both beautiful and utterly terrifying.  I can´t sleep at night because I so desperately do not want to die here by plunging off the road into a three thousand foot drop.  I want to see my son again.  I didn´t used to be so afraid, but having children changes that.  It makes you realize the value of your life.

Tommorrow I will visist some Incan ruins, at Ingapirca, and then Monday I will go to the little town of Baños, just outside of Cuenca (there´s another, more famous, Baños in the north, near Quito), and bathe in the hot volcanic bath.  Not going to wreck my blowout if I can help it, though.  Tuesday, I´ll leave my hotel with all of my things and meet a bus that will take me on a tour of Cajas, the national park.  Cuenca itself is at 8500 feet elevation, and Cajas is even higher, so it works out well that I will have had a few days to acclimate before I have to go higher.  When I first got here, I was getting winded just walking around, and there´s been less of that today already.  I walked all over this city today.  Some of it was even intentional.  Some of it was me getting muy perdida trying to find the travel company that takes people into Cajas.  You can´t go in there without a guide unless you have a compass and supplies and stuff, so originally I didn´t think I would get to see it.  I paid the same company too much money to also take me to Ingapirca, but the regular bus doesn´t go there on Sunday and this is the only way it works out.  Nonetheless, without doing any major shopping here, the extra expense is not that big of a deal.  I am fairly sure the whole trip is going to be under $1200, including airfare and phone calls home at two dollars a minute.

Speaking of which, I´m going to wrap it up, so I can head back to my little hostal and call Mr. Baby himself.  He left me the cutest message this morning, and I almost missed hearing it.  When I called my voicemail, the message began but no one was really talking and I very nearly just fast forwarded to the end and then erased it.  But I´m super curious, so I kept listening, and I´m so glad I did!  The kiss he left me at the end was so enthusiastic that it almost sounded like a growl!  He´s going to be disappointed when he discovers that what I brought him back is sweaters.  You get what´s good when you go somewhere, and here it´s woolens, Panama hats, and leather.  For myself I have bought only a necklace that cost $10 but is big and chunky like it should be for now.  I also got him a tiny Panama hat that he can put on his finger puppets.

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Clothes Swap–a Roaring Success!

June 21st, 2009

As you know, I recently participated in a clothing swap at the Black Box Collective, which is in the West Central neighborhood, near the Parramore community, which also happens to be where I work.

I went to the clothes swap with the following:  Three pairs of jeans, a leather Kenneth Cole jacket that was a weird color and boxy and I never wore it, a polyester suit, two skirts, a tank top, and a dress.  I didn’t put all of it out on the pile, I don’t know why.  I wasn’t really ready to part with the dress and there wasn’t anyone else there that it would have suited, and I guess I jsut wasn’t ready to let it go.  One of the skirts in my bag I kept because I keep hoping I will find a top to wear with it, but I’ve had it fifteen years and worn it only once, so I probably should have passed it on.

I went there by myself, though, and I didn’t know anyone, so I felt conspicuous and didn’t want to be rifling around in my bag and then not putting stuff out on the tables, so I just put some stuff out and then didn’t go back into my bag.  Dumb, I know.  Anyhow, all told, I gave the leather jacket, the suit, and three pairs of pants.  I should have also put out one of the skirts and the tank top, but oh well.

It was a rally nice vibe they had going, there was an acoustic guitarist playing her own original music and singing, and I really liked both her voice and her music.  I don’t remember her name, so if anyone reading this knows her name, I’ll gladly give credit.  I’d make a crummy reporter, I guess.  Here’s a picture of her:

"All in favor of a new world, say I"

"All in favor of a new world, say I"

Yes, I know there is a lot of uninteresting background in the picture.  I need to learn more about cropping and editing photos, but I usually do it in Paint and I just can’t seem to make it happen this morning.  It’s like, rilly rilly giant, and I can’t crop out the part I want because even that doesn’t fit on the screen, and it won’t let me zoom out.  I might be retarded.  Nonetheless,  there was music and camaraderie.  I learned that they were planning on sending the leftover clothes to India, and since you know and I know that dumping excess textiles in poverty stricken areas is not always as helpful over the long term as we think it might be, I started asking around about who was in charge and had made this decision.  I got to meet a few nice people that way, including Sheena, who gave me props because my Daddy is a Union man.  While Sheena and I talked about how the problem of workers not being able to afford the products of their labor exists right here in this neighborhood (moreso even than the textile industry in India, for comparison), an apparently homeless man walked in off the street.  He rather nervously approached where we were standing and asked if all the clothes were girl clothes.  It felt good to direct him to where some men’s clothes were and convey a feeling of welcome.

I did some of my own browsing and scored a yellow message tee with a bird

embroidered on it that goes with my picnic shoes, a J Crew skirt for work, a short demin skit for kicking around in (that just so happens to be from Abercrombie and Fitch, no less), and this crazy plaid dress thing.  It will look awesome with tights and ankle boots this fall.yearwithoutshopping-0171

When I did get to talk to one of the organizers, Alex, she heard me out about how our overconsumption of textiles leads to the depression of prices for all textile related trades and industries, if not their outright destruction, in the places where our excess ends up.  She informed me that they had a specific contact in India to whom they were sending the clothes, but that shipping was pretty pricey and they only planned to ship a few boxes.  This is where I piped up with the needs of families right in that very community, some of whom I work with, that can’t always clothe their children the way they would like to.  The school I work in has a free clothes closet for kids to shop in, no questions asked, and I asked Alex if maybe I could have some of the leftovers.  She was super pleased because the Black Box Collective wants to participate in and be part of the community it’s housed in, and this is one way they can do that.

I agreed to meet Sheena the following day to bag up what I thought the kids could use and would like, and one of my co-workers met me there.  We spent an hour helping ourselves to the goods and also folding, bagging, and moving all the rest of it.  That day, I found a pair of grey skinny jeans with ankle zips, which was super awesome because I’d wanted some last fall and had been browsing the internet in search of the right ones.  So it was cool that I found some for FREE–well, I paid in labor.

All told, it was a super positive experience.  I met some great people, got some “new” clothes, and did a good deed for my kids.  I also talked to some activists about the effects of our voracious appetite for clothes and, in a sense, educated them a little about something they hadn’t considered.

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The First Day of the Rest of this Year

April 20th, 2009

This is the last article of clothing I bought.

This is the last article of clothing I bought.

I wanted to start this blog on Easter, which would have been symbolic, in an ironic way.  Perhaps in a predictive way. 

I tend to procrastinate; I have lots of big ideas, but few of them actually make it into the air, and even fewer of them have actually flown.  To quote Commander Lightyear, it’s more “falling with style.”  Even my best ideas usually find themselves stifled between the pages of this notebook or that journal or soaked under a cold drink on one of the business reply envelopes a good friend taught me to see as free scrap paper.  So I am just getting around to what really should have been done a week ago.   Typical!

What I am doing here is part experiment, maybe part statement, all hopeful ambition, and may evolve (devolve?) into performance art. 

What will it be like to go a whole year, 365 days starting now, without buying clothes for myself? 

I don’t have a “problem” with shopping.  I have less than $1500 in credit card debt, I own my home, my car is paid off, I have a chunk of money in a retirement account, and money in savings.  In fact, I love clothes, if not always shopping itself, and I read fashion mags and know the season’s dos and don’ts.

So why do it?  All I’m going to do is drive myself crazy, right?  Maybe.                    

Do you know what happens to the clothes we middle classers cast off?  First of all, only a small percent of the clothes we give away in this country are actually worn out.  I’d guess that’s equally true in other developed countries with substantial middle classes.  Those clothes make their way down through the ranks, out through the hind end of Goodwill and the Salvation Army and eventually into giant bales of aid sent to Africa.  What it does there is depress the value of cotton, and render farming textile crops or weaving fabric exercises in humility and futility.  It takes away the potential livelihoods of those people who would be traditionally occupied as dressmakers and shopkeepers.  It allows land to go uncultivated in the most rapidly spreading patch of desert in the world.

On the other end of its production, it employs women in Asia at slave wages, and keeps children from school to do piecework for a pittance.  Some clothing manufacturers foul the environment around them, (in addition to their workers) with dyes and solvents while they’re making our clothes out of plastic.  These companies have moved to cities we don’t know how to pronounce in countries we know from National Geographic because there are few regulations, the labor is cheap and disorganized, and do they really need another reason?

So there’s that, but really, I just want to know if I can do it.  Any woman who enjoys getting dressed would find it a struggle.  I wonder how I’ll feel when I really want something different to wear.  I wonder if I’ll have ideas about different things, or what I will do with the energy and time I currently spend reading about, looking at, and thinking about clothes.  That’s what I want to write about.  I wonder how creative I will get as I try to adapt to stay current, if that will carry over into other parts of my life.  I wonder how out of style I will look and feel in a year, and what I might learn about myself.

I’ll post pictures everyday, so that there will be a record of what a whole year with no new clothes looks like.

Next:  What are the rules?

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