The trend: personal dressing

So as I've gotten thinner and thinner (and I am by no means thin...or even healthy...but I'm getting closer, and any discussion about that is not going to happen right now), I have found myself being drawn more and more to fashion. Not just new clothes (which have been completely necessary as I have dropped almost 4 dress sizes), but fashion. I am becoming more and more obsessed with style and trends, and I want to be a part of it. My problem with that is threefold.

First, the latest fashion isn't really available at the Gap. Now, I don't want to knock the Gap (and the other mall-stores like it). I get some good stuff there. It's affordable, and available. But it is far from cutting edge. And it's too casual. Even stores like Ann Taylor (which I love) and Banana Republic, which are more dressy, are really not up with current fashion. They're close, but not quite there. And I live in Austin, which is a great city, but not exactly a shopper's mecca. And the mall-stores are basically all I have. Second, even if I had really cutting edge fashion available to me, I'm a state employee, and while I love my job, it doesn't exactly leave me in the financial position to invest in a high-style wardrobe which, as we all know, can be just a wee bit expensive. Third, and this is the most difficult, I still am overweight, and I have a very hard time pulling fashion off. Frankly, most cutting-edge fashion is made for people with waists smaller than my thighs. And they (or their designers and assistants) know how to put a look together. I don't. Hell, even when I get down to my goal weight, I am not shaped like a model. I have boobs, and much to my husband's delight, they aren't shrinking in proportion to my weight loss. Which means all the tailoring in the world isn't going to let me pull off most of the hot styles. Sure, I wills soon be able to rock the naughty nurse look, but I'm gonna have trouble with "the floaty dress" (which is going to be all the rage this spring). And frankly, the naughty nurse thing is only going to get me so far in life.

All of this is leading up to what I just found on the vogue website. I went there just to see what's up, and I found that what's up for the spring is something called "personal fashion." What, you may ask, is that? Well, according to Vogue, and Vogue knows about these things, personal fashion is all about putting "your own unique spin on spring with stylish mismatched layers of lace, sparkle and leggings." Now, I'm not to hot on leggings, but I think I may just be able to pull off mismatched. All I need to do is take my queues from Emily, who has a...unique...sense of style all her own, which her teachers love, but I find painful. Today, for instance, she wore a black, pink and gold striped Guess long sweater with pink tights. I told her she had to at least wear leggings, so she went and got pink, orange, yellow and green striped leggings to put on. The effect was...well, either horrific or striking, depending on whether you're a true fashionista or just a mom. I guess I'll just have to embrace it though, 'cause it's what's hot right now. Who knew I'd end up taking fashion advise from my five-year-old.

I'll have the strawberry fields salad, hold the pretension

So I got lunch today from this place downtown called Leaf. Normally, I'd hyperlink to the restaurant's site, but I'm annoyed with them today, so no link for them. Why, do you ask, am I annoyed (let's pretend you did ask)? You may say, "I've been there, and they have the most fantastic salads." You'd be right, of course. Their strawberry field salad is to die for. But, I don't like it exactly how they make it. Which should be no problem. It's not like I'm wanting them to custom blend dressings for me. I just happen to not want bacon on my salad, and prefer not to have four pounds of goat cheese and onions in it either.

So I went in today at 11:30 or so, and I was the only customer in the joint. There was no one eating, nobody in line, nada. It was just me and about 10 employees all standing around looking self-important. So I walked up and told the closest person I wanted two strawberry fields, but each one would be a little different. So the first girl got another girl to do the second salad. Then the first girl took off on the first one. She acted like she was the A.J. Foyt of the salad-making world. Or like there was a customer waiting to be served behind me. Or--more likely--as if she had very important things to do with her time other than make a stupid salad for a stupid customer. The second girl asked me a question, and when I turn to answer her, the first girl dumped what had to have been the equivalent of two large red onions on my salad. I said "woah, hang on there...." And then I got the look You know, the look that says "how dare you question my salad making abilities, you plebeian?" Not to be deterred from my mission to eat an entire salad without giving myself putrid onion breath, I told her to take some of the onions off. That nearly sent her over the top. She then proceded to make my salad with so much anger and hostility you would have thought I had told her I voted for McCain, or didn't believe in global warming. Much to her bitter disappointment, I still made her make my salad the way I wanted.

Apparently, the part on their website where they say "Our impeccable staff will strive to serve you with common courtesies" is meant to be very loosely interpreted. Or perhaps they strive for that, but it's one of those Big Hairy Audacious Goals that they just won't ever be able to attain. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to keep going there. But next time, I'm going to actually tell them that I want the strawberry fields, hold the onions and the pretension.

Praise the Lord

I got an email today from "Praise the Lord." It told me I could have my money prayers answered just by clicking on the provided link.

You know things have gotten pretty bad when you start getting spam from God.

Do I have to care?

So, lately the headlines have been...well...dull. I don't know if it's just me, or what, but I don't give a flying rat's ass who Tiger Woods slept with, or what position he did it in. I just don't care. I don't care if his old lady clubbed him in the head. I don't care if he did fifteen porn stars at the same time as shooting five under par at Augusta.

I also don't care that the global warming nuts tweak and massage their data to make me think the world is going to end. This really shouldn't be news to anyone. I seriously doubt you could find any big study that didn't have some data massaging in it. Science isn't perfect, friends. It's subject to interpretation and zealots are always going to interpret it to appear the way they want it to. Or, more precisely, big corporations who fund zealots are always going to insist that the data is interpreted in a way that will result in the greatest profit for them. Get over it. That's what makes the world go round. (well, technically, it's not. But the rotation of the earth is probably somehow influenced by the ozone gases, and our pollution of the world by emitting carbon monoxide is probably slowing it down or something. Someone should probably do a study). I promise you that the zealots on the other side do the same shit. They just haven't gotten caught yet. Probably because they aren't stupid enough (or organized enough) to form a large organization devoted to promoting their agenda and then keep all the incriminating evidence on a single server.

I just want some news that I give a shit about. Frankly, I don't know what that would be at this point, but I'm willing to experiment and find out. If you've got something interesting to tell me (or the world), bring it on.

Texarkana...woot

So here I am in cloudy Texarkana. It's cold, dark, and desolate. They lost my co-worker's luggage. So far, I'm impressed! But the real fun is yet to come. Dinner at a fine Texarkana restaurant. I can hardly wait.

I feel fat

I haven't blogged in a long time, mainly because I've been busy as all get out. But I found an interesting blog today, and I decided to post it to my site, so while I'm here, I may as well write something.

I am about to go to Texarkana for work. I really don't have any desire to, but hey, that's why I get paid, right? Anyone know a good way to spend an evening without a car in the middle of nowhere?

Me either.

Oh, the title of this post is because I have gained weight for a week straight now. I have been doing really well on my diet. I had lost 44 lbs. But then there was Thanksgiving, and I snapped and ate poorly, and I have been doing the same ever since. I'm already up 2 1/2 lbs. Ugh. I'm going to try and get back on track today, but I'm traveling, which makes it hard. There's probably not a lot of healthy options in airports and BFE. Oh well, there's always the day after tomorrow.

Here's another reason to break my diet... a 24-hour "diner" with what appears to be good (not really diner) food. It's appropriately called "24 Diner". I hope their food is better than their website.