Interesting Wardrobe Choices

Ok, so I feel that I may have become one of those women with a closet bursting forth with clothing (actually mine appears to have already burst, judging by the detritus composing some of a makeshift "clothing carpet" on my floor)  yet has nothing to wear! Or at least nothing appropriate to wear. I find myself, once again, feeling utter perplexity as I prepare for work in the morning. I have some work pants, now - most of them worn down and embarrassing but passable for a government agency intern, even if one no longer is hemmed and is constantly shedding pant hairs. What I do not seem to have is anything closely approximately work-appropriate summer shirts. I have lots of sweaters and turtlenecks that would put me in fantastic stead for a winter job and/or a job in an air-conditioned-to-the-point-life-threatening environment, but apparently the only summery shirts I have are a mix of cut out dance shirts, undershirts, and things that I bought under the misconception that my torso is about five inches shorter than it actually is. I've resigned myself to this particular problem, as fall with soon be acomin' afterall and then all those nice turtlenecks will resurge into utility with a vengeance!! However this week provided two other striking examples of what i must term the NTW phenonmenon.

First, I had an interview on Thursday with the King County Prosecutors Civil Division to discuss a possible externship this fall. Now of course this is not quite as serious as an interview where money is involved - thank god, because I am not particularly brilliant at interviews and am often just relieved if I don't manage to start screaming an/or simply stare in foggy befuddlement at one of those awkwardly phrased gotcha type questions that they sometimes ask (my greatest weakness, interviewing). Apparently interviews are all about being the right level of attractive anyways, or so I've read recently. I guess more attractive people who dress "to show some shape" are - surprise surprise - much more likely to be hired and make a good impression, but female interviewers will often also punish particularly attractive women, so it's all about balance and knowing the gender of your interviewing. My moral from all of this is that in these dire economic times, I clearly should have saved the money being thrown into the pit that is law school and invested it in a boob job and a personal trainer. Darnit! Live and learn. Anyways, because this was arranged rather last minute and it's been a busy week, I found myself in the position of having no clean professional looking clothes and no time to do much about this. I went into the interview wearing a pair of black and blue pinstriped pants (acceptable), a shirt that was very tight, very low cut and tended to shimmy up my waist until it was a crop-top (not acceptable but hidden) underneath an jacket that I've had since highschool that from a distance actually looks fairly respectable until you notice that it's festooned with a decorative leopard print collar. At least I remembered to change my sneakers (the walk to work is about 40 minutes and involves quite the hike up and down hills) to professional(ish) shoes, although I had to be careful not to cross my legs in a way that revealed my salmon Sock Guy death kitty socks that I still had on.

Then on Friday, I made a very last minute decision to make the trek up north to attend a live music milonga featuring this swing duo from our community who recently made the (quite successful) foray into tango. On my way up there, I threw the first dress I could find into my bag as I seem to be terribly low on these as well. It is a smashing little black dress - a Versace one shoulder number I found at a thrift shop a few years back. The downsides is that while it remain scandalously short, it has become a little less "little" on me over the years, given it a lot more flexibility to twist and turn and make the "one shoulder" design kind of a "two boobs popping out on either side" design. This actually turned out quite well when I made the executive decision to don a male friend's black work shirt, turning my extraordinarily formal shocking outfit complete with moderate makeup and enormous earrings into something that more - uh - "bohemian" in Molly's terms.

I no doubt "should" go shopping, however I feel like whenever I dutifully do go shopping, I somehow still end up with NTW. Possibly because I get terribly confused in stores, afraid of the salespeople who seem hellbound on "being friendly", and frustrated with the meaningless sizing that I've ranted about before. Besides, once again hideous is in fashion (speaking of, apparently skinny jeans cause nerve problems HA) and the more conservative fashions are usually hidden in "Woman's" sizes, which apparently is now code for "plus size" which I find quite confusing as well. I imagine I would end up with something like the umbrella-having-its-period ensembles of these presenters for the Tour de France Polka Dot Jersey.


Yes, yes, there is a "polka dot" jersey awarded in the Tour de France. This is in addition to the yellow (big win), white (junior win), green (mountain climber kick ass win), rainbow (best crotch enhancing shiny bike shorts), plaid (best hair), and chartreuse (biggest douche). The plaid of course signifies the "wonderbread award" typified by gaining the most wonderbread points, presumably by eating lots of sandwiches while riding. Perhaps, I haven't gotten that quite right, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works, having watched a number of "stages" - the Tour is like fifty bajillion weeks long and thus is kind of an experiment of watching insanely in shape athletes dwindle from reasonably built sane looking men in funny outfits to holocaust victims over the course of "the race". I've learned quite a lot, mainly that with all those stages and jerseys in contention there's a lot of strategy. An insane amount actually. See, you ride in teams, and biking is all about drafting and attacking and other fancy words like this, meaning that you basically  have an entire team set up to block and slow other contenders for the strongest jersey contender or letting your strong dude ride behind you for a while so he doesn't get tired. Also, you have to fight the twenty temptations and do a final battle with Satan in order to make it to the final stretch around the Champs Elysee

At any rate, in case you missed the stirring finish: <*Spoiler alert*> Spanish dude who Lance Armstrong thinks is a douche beat out adorable dude who is a member of "The Schleck Brothers" (that loveable duo of rapscallion comedic ventriloquism) for the white jersey, so young  adorable guy has to wear white, which stains really badly when you're riding so he's kind of sad about this.  He did this by "attacking" after young guys' chain broke. I guess "attacking" doesn't actually mean whipping out a lug wrench and throwing it at your opponent's head, although that was quite colorful. Instead it means pedaling fast Apparently you're not supposed to do this when your contender has a mechanical problem, so Spanish dude might also be up for the chartreuse jersey. British dude won the final stage and said some charming things in a soothing accent before recieving some flowers and a trophy that looked like an abstract bird and/or a needle (useful for "attacking" in the future, I guess). And a lot of other european dudes with funny names won other jerseys.

What i'm saying with this diversion into Tour talk is that I should enter and get myself a jersey, because I think that would be the perfect way to start re-accumulating appropriate work shirts. I, for one, am bucking for the plaid one.