The iris are blooming this week. It is a glorious sight.
SUNDAY
What I wore to Mass:
Getting more wear out of my Easter dress, a vintage 90s linen Liz Claiborne A-line sheath dress bought on Ebay, while it's still Eastertide. I last wore it to the Great Vigil of Easter, with my duck-egg blue cardigan knotted at the waist, and boots, because it was cold.
Here I'm wearing it with my thrifted teal shirtdress, last worn on Friday in the Octave of Easter, as a duster, with the belt I wore with yesterday's rose-brown jumpsuit, and my thrifted Old Navy fisherman's-sandal wedges.
More views:
I pulled the front of my hair back in little claw clips for a half-updo.
Earrings my husband gave me for some gift-giving occasion, years ago:
The pink of this dress is right on the edge of being too peachy/orange for my cool skin tone. I'll probably always wear it with some shade of blue or teal to keep from being washed out by it. But I love the dress. The print is beautiful, the linen is soft and cool, the line is graceful. Just as I love the comeback of the 1970s shag, so do I also welcome the return of the 1990s floral dress. We wore some beautiful dresses in the 90s, and I'm happy to see them again.
I've thought about having the dress hemmed, because as a size 10 it's a bit long on me, but I dunno. In a lot of ways I like the versatility of a maxi dress. I could belt it a little tighter and blouse the bodice more, taking up length below. I could knot it (though with a linen dress, that's something of a commitment in terms of wrinkling and having to iron it later). I did take in the side seams on the bodice just a bit myself, because although it fits perfectly through the waist and hips, it was gappy and too wide up top. It's a lot better now. I'm not much of a seamstress, but I can do tiny things like that. What I don't trust myself to do is to hem something straight, so if I decide to take this dress up at the bottom, I'll have a real seamstress do it.
I love the loop-button neckline (don't know what else to call it). Pretty, feminine detail without being too extra froufrou.
As with yesterday's jumpsuit outfit (linked above), I think the varied lines of this outfit make it work. The belt is key here: it gives me a waist, so that I'm not just drowning in a lot of long fabric. Meanwhile, the dress/duster creates some extra length, but the two different hemlines keep the whole look from being boxy. I have light and dark going on, plus the interest of a print.
I think the aesthetic I had in mind here was something vaguely (but not too obviously) Edwardian, the idea of maybe a driving coat (which is why they were called dusters), or some other kind of loose overlayer over a longer dress to give a fluid movement to the overall effect. OR an Edwardian artist in a smock . . .
It is funny how when I consider an aesthetic for my clothes, I often think in terms not only of a certain kind of woman (of a particular time and place, though there might be overlap), but of what she's doing, what work she's dressed for. She's a librarian. She's the American outdoorsy cousin to the mother in Swallows and Amazons. She's either a potter or some other kind of visual artist that I'm not in real life, or she works in some artisanal shop and deals with shoppers in a laid-back kind-but-cool way over the counter. Maybe it's World War I; maybe it's the 1970s. Maybe it's both at once. The time-travel thing is fluid here. Whatever the time period(s), she likes to be outdoors as much as indoors: walking, gardening, reading on the porch. She is the person who, like Lucy Honeychurch, leaves a library book open on the lawn. I guess what I'm doing is inventing a fictional character, dressing her, and deciding to be her, as if I were an actress, only I'm playing a figment of my imagination to which I have given my own name.
Adjectives that I'd associate with various iterations of my aesthetic:
graceful
soft
fluid
flowing
unstructured
elegant
natural
active
outdoors
effortless
gentle
I tilt maybe a little bit cottagecore, although I'm not sure I count in that aesthetic, since I wore all the vintage dresses the first time around, when they were new and "cottagecore" wasn't a word.
I at least aspire to tilt maybe a tiny bit academic, at least in cold weather. If I had a cape, I'd wear it. But sort of romantic academic, not like Dark Academic. I'm a poet, not an orthographer. Steampunk doesn't do much for me, either.
Definitely a good dose of what might be called Sundancecore. It's been a long time since I last received that catalog; it's been an even longer time since I last lived in Utah. But that kind of Western edge . . . I'm a Southerner, but more of a Western belle than a Southern one. Ranchcore? Pioneercore?
I have lived in the American South (Tennessee and North Carolina), the American West (Utah), and also the United Kingdom (Cambridge). Certain semi-fantasy elements of all these contexts work their way into my wardrobe. But again, if there's anything I'm really not, it's a Southern Belle. Maybe a Southern Bluestocking, which describes a lot of the women on my father's side of the family, whose genes I seem to have been dosed heavily with in my making. Bohemian Southern Woman Who Belongs to a Book Society – though in real life I don't join things much – might be another character I play.
It does occur to me that in the outfit pictured above, regardless of any other aesthetic I might be reaching for, what I'm doing is Peak Homeschool Mom. Oh well. I have been a homeschool mom, in fact, for the last seventeen years. I really don't care if that's what people read into my outfit here. I just like long skirts sometimes.
My style mood board on Instagram (my account is private, but if you ask to follow me, and your name isn't johnqcreeper9753124680, I'll add you). I think the images I've collected on my surfing journeys say a lot about my aesthetic aspirations, if nothing else. Mostly it's about color, though I am paying attention to shapes and vibes as well.
Feeling all right, anyway, on a beautiful, sun-filled spring morning.
LATER:
Went thrifting with my daughter again. I took my outbox to donate – there wasn't anything worth selling, though I did also cull my sweaters pretty hard, reducing my stock from two under-bed bins to one, of sweaters I do really wear. I'll reassess in the fall, but I thought that one key to wearing the sweaters I like more often might be to have them all in one bin, so that I see my whole range of choices at a glance every time I'm looking for a sweater.
I will probably also outbox the Jones New York pink shorts I bought last time we went thrifting – they're just too tight, even though they're a size 10 and I can still wear my size 8 trousers. So I was looking for shorts particularly. Not much going, alas, but I did buy these Gap bermudas in sage green:
These are a 12 and fit pretty well, if a tad on the large side. That's better than being too tight, at any rate. They are very nice shorts, too, though I'm not sure I like them that much. This outfit felt pretty meh.
I feel like a tiny head on a big body, not my favorite feeling at all. Maybe it's just the tucked, draped tee, normally a good move but not doing me any favors here, since the fullness happens at the waist and continues in a downward trend. I don't have any statementy kind of jewelry that would draw the eye up and add interest, or any other accessory that wouldn't feel fussy and drive me up the wall if I tried to add it.
I'm going to hang onto these shorts and see whether I actually wear them and if so, what might work with them. I might cut them off some, because I'm not sure the length is so great. Again, though, they are really nice in terms of quality, and I like the color. They went into the drawer, not the outbox.
(Later thoughts: I might try them with the chambray shirt below, or another button-up loose shirt that I could half-tuck. I think the tee here, in addition to saying Look at my hips, is just not interesting enough with the very basic shape of the shorts. Too likey-like. The shorts might also work with, say, a blue gauze Indian tunic I have, either tucked in or worn out. Anything flowier, funkier, folkier, girlier. I think the basic, functional tee was a mistake with the basic, functional shorts. Just boring and blah, and you can tell by my face that I felt that way. I did not keep this outfit on.)
Still on a quest for some higher-waisted fuller-leg shorts.
I also bought, of all things, another pair of pink joggers (see my disquisition on my original pink joggers, Tuesday of last week).
I like these! For one thing, they're a dusty rose pink, not pastel-candy pink. The fit is slimmer, the material lighter than my others. They're still bulky through the hips – there is just no way joggers are going to be all that kind to anybody with hips. But I pulled out my soft thrifted chambray shirt, which I like to wear tied like this anyway, and with my funky old Florida Birks, I think it works. I should probably tuck the drawstring in. This outfit I did keep on for the remainder of the evening.
I also bought a pink t-shirt-weight hoodie which I'm not wearing now because I'm about to make dinner, and I'd be sure to splatter something on it that would never come out.
Here's another if-Johannes-Vermeer-were-alive-now moment: Woman Taking a Picture of the Back of Her Head.
I like this as a photograph, though if you wonder whether I tire of myself as a subject, the answer is, perhaps surprisingly, yes. But compositionally, it works: the relative brightness of my hoodie (a gift from my mother two or three years ago, which I wear almost daily, but almost never as part of an actual outfit), everything else fairly neutral. There are my towels stacked in a wooden box on a table, because this bathroom doesn't have a linen closet. And there's some of my unreflected hair, in the upper left corner. AND the obvious meta business of the image on the phone screen.
Note to self that I like my hair braided, and that it's not somehow a waste of nice clean hair to wear it this way if I feel like it.
Also:
Here is a dead snake somebody found after Mass today, brought home in a sandwich bag, and thoughtfully left on the kitchen island. It's the little things.
MONDAY
Oh, hey, how about another style challenge?
This week: SPRING IN MY CLOSET
That is, don't. If you must spring, go do it outside where there's more room.
The challenge on Instagram, meanwhile, goes like this:
Monday: Spring color combos
Tuesday: Spring prints
Wednesday: Spring layers
Thursday: Spring dress/skirt
Friday: White for spring
I have to admit, I like these challenges. This one seems like what I'd just do anyway, but it's good to have a prompt for the day, to make me dig about the closet a bit more. A challenge also means that I plan ahead, at least a little, which makes daily dressing a matter of putting on what I've already thought through, rather than a source of decision fatigue and defaulting.
Thoughts I'm having on the front end, while drinking my morning coffee:
* I want to try again with those shorts I got at Goodwill – if it gets warm enough. Highs this week are high 60s to low 70s, so it won't be actually hot, and I'm not sure I want to commit to shorts. Still, that green seems pretty springy, and I can wear it with any of a number of more feminine tops in blue or pink or white.
*Meanwhile, if I didn't want to wear shorts today, which I'm not sure I do, I can wear my duck-egg-blue crop jeans, maybe with my green tee, last worn in last week's No-Boring-Clothes challenge for "monochrome Wednesday." Or with something pink, like possibly the light hoodie I bought yesterday.
*I'll wear my thrifted Liz Claiborne skirt for a "spring print" on Tuesday. OR the skirt I'm meditating for Thursday (keep reading). OR the silk floral kimono hanging in my closet, which I haven't worn since high school, at least (I've owned it virtually all my life, having gotten it from my grandmother), and which I rescued out of the dress-ups box some time back. I could wear that kimono over just about anything and look springlike: a thought.
*Wednesday will be a good day for light layers, since the high will be only 63, with a projected low of 34. Ideas might include my duck-egg blue cardigan or my denim jacket.
*For Thursday's prompt, I have a number of dresses or skirts I could possibly wear. Making a note to myself to consider a particular floral skirt I haven't worn since last spring. Of course, it does occur to me that I could wear that on Tuesday, and I might well do so, in which case I'll wear a dress on Thursday.
*White will be hard, since I have only white tops, no white bottoms or dresses. I'm actually a little afraid of wearing white, since I'm sure to get stuff on it. I don't generally wear an all-white outfit – in fact, I can't remember ever wearing an all-white outfit since my wedding, 31 years ago. But on Friday I will make myself wear something white, and it will be good for me.
**Incidentally, I had started out this year, after a little burst of acquisitions in January, thinking that I'd largely have a no-buy year. And . . . yeah, well, if you've been following me at all here, you'll see that that has not been at all what has happened.
Not that I'm just madly buying clothes right and left. I'm really not. And since January, I haven't bought anything new at all. It's all been thrift and Ebay, which is something I feel fairly committed to (exception: I did recently buy two new bathing suits, to replace one I'd had for about ten years).
But I think that what this year needs to be is a replacement-and-curation year. I guess it makes sense that as I'm trying to hone a clearer idea for a range of aesthetics for myself – colors, shapes, moods, influences – that I hope will carry me at least through the rest of what we euphemistically call middle age (which it is if I'm going to live to be 113).
I am trying to buy things that will last me. I'd like to get to a point where I can make some investment purchases, as I did with my Doc Martens last year, but not much else. In the meantime, I'm trying to choose secondhand items from decent brands, in good materials.
I am in the process of replacing things that are wearing out. A lot of what I sent in for donation yesterday was stretched out, pilled, too small, developing holes, or stained. These items can go for rags, in other words, if nothing else. I don't expect poor people to wear clothes that I don't think are fit to wear – though people do upcycle things in remarkable ways, so that I hesitate ever to say that something is completely beyond use, especially if it was decently made to begin with. Meanwhile, some of it simply wasn't flattering to me, though it would be to someone else – I've been systematically culling boxy cardigans that hit right at the hips, for example. Some of it I just didn't wear, and it was taking up real estate in my closet, drawer, or sweater bin that could be better utilized by things I do, or potentially will, wear.
This will probably go on for some time, since I can't just go to the thrift store and find a 1:1 replacement for that one smocked periwinkle Loft top (last worn on Palm Sunday) that I adore, that has developed a pattern of tiny holes that I hope nobody notices. That top is going to have to go sometime soon, but for now I'm hanging onto it, until I can find an equivalent replacement in better shape.
What I'm trying to say here is: this is not a no-buy year. Instead, I'm trying to set myself up for a no-buy year, a prospect that seems easier when I consider that from this August on, my youngest daughter will be away at college, so there won't be as many thrift-shop-bonding occasions happening. And yes, that makes me cry, and it might well be the case that thrift-shop bonding becomes thrift-shop therapy for a while.
But I would like to get to a place where my wardrobe basically makes me happy and includes anything I need for virtually any occasion, with the same pieces working to dress up or down as needed, so that I don't have MORE, I just have MUCH in what I have. According to Nat Tucker*, wardrobe creation is a two-year process. It seems worth it to me to take my time, but to be moving steadily in the direction of a closet of clothes that I know will make me look good, so that I don't have to worry about whether I look good, and so that I don't feel that I have to buy more things. I could set myself the goal of a no-buy year and really stick to it, without feeling deprived or over a barrel.
*Whether you like her personal style or not, her general principles are very helpful and applicable. After a while, if you follow Instagram accounts related to her program, like Colour Science, you do start to notice certain style tropes among the women who participate in her paid-membership Boss program. At least part of this is a function of the fact that they're mostly in Australia and shopping at the same stores, and have bought a lot of clothes which Nat Tucker designed herself. I really like those clothes, as it happens, and it's interesting to see how the different women wear them differently. Still, you start to recognize certain pieces and certain looks. All that to say: you don't have to own any of those pieces (I don't), or even want to look that specific way, for the larger, common-sense ideas to work for you.
That goal of not worrying about whether I look good is absolutely key. I think that's what personal vanity really is: crippling self-consciousness. If I look in the mirror a lot, or take many pictures of myself, it's not because I want to worship myself. It's because I want to remind myself that I'm okay. It's anxiety and insecurity, not self-adoration. More and more, actually, I think that's how sin works in our lives: not as that bad thing you did, or even that bad thing you are (Thomas Aquinas, for one, will tell you that you are not a bad thing, because you are a created thing, and the creator does not make bad things). Instead, it's more like being in prison. I hate feeling self-conscious. It's a kind of bondage. And yes, God's grace in confession is a key ingredient to getting past it, because I can't do it by myself, but if grace builds on nature, in Thomas's famous phrase, then it seems to me that the way that that happens is our cooperation with grace on every level, including whatever it takes to move the cripplingly self-conscious person out of that self-consciousness. It's a process that involves some level of self-awareness, hence all the navel-gazing.
My end goal is to move from self-consciousness to more outwardly-focused generosity of spirit: to have something of myself to give, reliably and without angst. It might sound silly, and even like rationalization, to include something as superficial and material as clothing as part of the process of getting to that place, but we are, as it happens, material beings as well as spiritual. There's a word for thinking you're meant to be a disembodied soul; that word is gnosticism. If you're a Catholic, you know that the body matters, and that it is meant, in the great scheme of things, to be integrated with the soul, not at war with it. That's why stewarding your health matters. But it's also why your clothing matters: not as a way to hide the body, as something to which you attach shame and guilt, and not again as some kind of idol. It matters because if you choose it well, so that you feel good and beautiful in it (which is not wrong, a thing I wish I didn't have to say), then you have done some soul-care that enables you to get past yourself. For people in religious life, the habit takes care of this, but if you're not in religious life, then I think this is a good and integrated way to think about attire and self-presentation, in the whole context of your own lived vocation.
I also think it's good, obviously, to be modest in your spending on clothing, relative to your overall budget, and to do what you can not to perpetuate the the worst of the fashion industry, where human trafficking and slave labor contribute to the production of too many of the things on offer for us to wear. I'm in no position to be judgmental about this – I hope that if I were in a position to judge, I still wouldn't. Our control over the world we've inherited, including its various economies, is limited. Given contingencies which we would never have chosen, we do the best we can. But it's important to know, as far as we can, what lies behind the various choices before us, and to use our prudential judgment to proceed as morally as possible, with the remotest possible level of cooperation in known evils.
All of these things are things I think about regularly. They're relevant – they have to be – to my current state of wardrobe curation. There has to be some end goal besides just having a bunch of stuff. In fact, my goal is precisely not to have a bunch of stuff. We live in an old house, and my closet is small. My wardrobe is contained in: that small closet, two drawers in a bureau, and one under-bed bin. It really can't outgrow those boundaries, especially as we'll almost inevitably be downsizing hard sometime in the next ten years. The day my husband retires is the day we stop affording our current house, sadly enough (but also, it's a big house for two people, especially assuming that one day all our children will in fact reclaim everything they want out of it. As much as I love it, I can imagine feeling so overwhelmed by it in the end that all I want is to escape from it).
I don't even want a walk-in closet (unless I'm going to put my bureau and my bin in it, and maybe even make it my workspace, and even then . . . I dunno, that amount of storage space sort of scares me. It feels like a mess just waiting to happen). As it is, I feel I have more clothes than I can wear – though this may just be a function of my long-standing habit of wearing the same two or three things over and over. These style challenges are helping with that – I'm learning to wear more things,and to enjoy having something new to wear all the time, without necessarily having to go shopping for it. My goal is to have a small, contained wardrobe that offers me that "something new without shopping" all the time: things I love, feel good in, and look good in, for any occasion, without ever having to set foot in a shop.
My closet as of right now, including three formalwear items which I plan to keep and tweak according to the demands of an occasion:
That's . . . let's see . . . here's my overall inventory, including closet, drawers, and sweater bin:
*3 formal dresses
1 champagne midi
1 slaty blue midi
1 midnight blue long (rescued from the dress-ups box)
*13 other dresses
My goodness. I had no idea I had 13 actual dresses.
1 maxi
pink floral
6 midi
1 pink floral jumper
1 teal A-line travel dress
1 navy sheath dress
1 navy fit/flare
1 light indigo shapeless dress
1 black A-line travel dress (for choir, mainly)
6 above the knee
1 purple pattern
2 gray (tee dress, empire-waist knit)
3 blue (bleach dyed empire waist, smocked tiered jumper, teal shirtdress)
*6 skirts:
1 bright pink tiered midi
1 sage-green twill midi
1 blue/green floral midi
1 blue/green/purple midi
1 blue/teal/lavender maxi
1 pink floral maxi
*22 (?) pairs of pants:
1 blue denim bootcut jean
skinny jeans in
1 charcoal gray
1 red
1 sage green
1 eggplant purple
1 duck-egg blue crop
joggers:
soft pastel/candy pink
rose pink
stone/green satiny finish
charcoal gray wide-leg
wide-leg drawstring:
sage green
light stone/off-white/bone
*3 shorts:
1 brown
1 sage green
1 light stone/off-white/bone
*9 leggings
1 charcoal gray
1 light gray
1 navy
1 magenta/rose
1 brown capri shapewear
1 teal thermal
3 black
*34 tops (not counting half-tees for layering)
5 woven button shirts:
1 teal velour collarless
1 midnight-blue/green patterned velour
1 light chambray
1 denim collarless
1 royal-blue pucker fabric
5 long-sleeved tunic-length
1 aqua flowing
1 indigo-white tie-dye
1 soft grape
1 A-line burgundy
1 gray boat-neck with curved hem and pockets
1 short-sleeved tunic-length
1 A-line blue/brown geometric print
3 long-sleeved tees
1 teal lace-bottom
1 purple lace-bottom
1 soft blue scoop-neck smocked
1 long-sleeved snap-up tee/cardigans
1 periwinkle
1 long-sleeved no-button blouse
1 white lace-yoke
2 long-sleeved hoodies
1 pink tee-weight
1 gray linen
9 short-sleeved tees
1 army green
1 indigo/white tie-dye
1 indigo/dark-indigo tie-dye
1 v-neck navy
1 pintuck flutter-sleeve navy
1 scoop-neck embroidered navy
1 royal blue
1 soft rose/purple knot-hem
1 rose pink v-neck
7 sleeveless/tank
1 navy-white geometric print
1 pale blue
1 periwinkle smock-neck
1 plum smock-neck
1 soft pink lace hem
1 white gathered-neck
1 white pintuck, curved hem
*13 sweaters
3 pullovers
1 gray/black asymmetrical microfiber
1 royal blue cotton ragg-knit cable
1 pink ramie/cotton lightweight
11 cardigans
1 apple/grass-green boyfriend
1 taupe lightweight boyfriend
1 duck-egg-blue cotton hip-length (good for knotting)
1 light periwinkle gray butterfly-sleeved delicate knit (fits weird)
1 mid-heavy gray drape
1 beaded gray above-hip 50s-style
1 gray patterned duster
1 royal blue heathered duster
1 rose/soft-grap fuzzy duster
1 light-blue shrug
1 periwinkle blue open-crochet hip-length
1 plum cable-knit v-neck hip-length
*Jackets/coats
1 gray wool peacoat
1 chocolate-brown suede peacoat
1 teal long quilted coat with faux-fur-trimmed hood
1 moss-green corduroy blazer
1 nubby gray-white knitted cardigan/blazer
1 jean jacket
I won't bother right now with scarves, although I have them in various shades and patterns of blue, purple, white, seafoam green, etc.
I also won't bother with bathing suits, nightclothes, or undergarments. Just assume I have an adequate supply of those things.
All of this is the inventory I have to work with, and while I know people with several magnitudes more clothes than I have, frankly it seems like a LOT. If I can't get dressed out of this abundance for any occasion that might arise, then heaven help me. I really could have a no-buy year if I needed to, honestly, though again, some things are on the edge of being too worn out to wear.
Um, anyway, it's still Monday.
It's going to be 73F today, so I did decide to try the green Gap shorts again. As you might recall from Sunday's rumination, I think the reason they weren't working with the tee I had chosen was that all the pieces of the outfit were too utilitarian and possibly, despite the pink, maybe kind of masculine. My feminine body, with its life-giving hips and thighs, was not flattered by all that.
Today I thought I'd try pairing the masculine shorts with some more feminine pieces. I pulled out my favorite thrifted Loft smocked periwinkle top – a color I love and look great in, with feminine, Edwardian-type details that aren't too extra, as they say. I love this shirt and dread the day when it really does comprehensively fall apart. These shorts are a tiny bit loose and apt to ride down; all the more reason for a belt. I picked this pale-pink scalloped belt, an old one from Walmart. Nothin' fancy. Or ethical. But there it is.
First of all, I definitely have spring colors going here. Right now in my backyard the bluebells are having their brief season, and this top is their color.
The green of the shorts isn't the green of this foliage, but it's a soft, tender, un-muddy green. The muted play of these three colors, periwinkle, pale dusty pink, and sage green, feels marvelous to me. Exactly my zone.
As far as the week's style challege goes, we're winning so far.
This also, to my mind, represents a really positive tweak on the outfit that didn't work yesterday. The softness and smocked detailing of this top work so much better with the basic, utilitarian shorts than the plain, rather boxy v-neck t-shirt did. Even the slimmer, more curved straps of the Birk Floridas are better than the plain EVA Arizonas I was wearing.
Wearing my hair down works better here. Yesterday I was complaining that I felt like a pinhead on a big body. Part of that effect, obviously, was that I'd braided my hair. More hair volume, on the other hand, balances out the whole silhouette. If I did opt to put my hair up today, as I might later on if it starts to bug me, I'd go for a looser ponytail, maybe flowing over my shoulder.
It is still kind of chilly this morning, so I tried a couple of cardigan options with the shorts-top base pictured above.
I have worn the heck out of this big furry cardigan, which I bought at Goodwill sometime early last fall. It's a little bulky, maybe, and maybe a bit too much of a season-clash. At least the color is springlike, which was the prompt. For schlumping around the house, doing my normal writing work, until the day warms up: fine. I did cuff the shorts an extra turn, just so that the hemlines wouldn't be exactly the same. This is all okay.
But I also tried this:
Thrifted also-periwinkle-but-lighter-and-bluer Pierre Cardin cardigan in this lovely open crochet pattern. I always get compliments when I wear this cardigan – it just is pretty. Again, I think the feminine delicacy of it plays well with the basic shorts without making me look too Grandmacore. And again, I think wearing my hair down is the right move. It often isn't, as I reflect. I have voluminous hair, and too often I've left it that way, and it's been too much for the whole silhouette. But today it feels like the right balance.
I could wish the cardigan were shorter, so that it fell right at my waist. I have been knotting it a lot when I've worn it with skirts. Not sure I'll bother today, since I am wearing a belt, and it's a fairly drapy cardigan. Also, I keep being cold, so I might very well put the big furry cardigan back on. (Which, in fact, I did).
Today's to-do list:
*finish the essay I didn't finish Friday (Bruce Beasley): DONE
*begin research for the next essay (Angela Alaimo O'Donnell): SORT OF
*look at poems and maybe try a form exercise for myself: REVISED A DRAFT
*read something related to fictioncraft: DIDN'T HAPPEN
*take a walk: WALKED TWO MILES WITH MY ROSARY AFTER SUPPER
*eat, because I forget, and that's not good. At this very moment I'm having leftover ham-and-chickpea salad for breakfast: two cans of chickpeas, diced leftover ham – maybe half a cup, maybe less – diced red and yellow peppers, diced boiled egg, salt, pepper, and onion powder. This ham-and-chickpea salad is what we had for dinner last night. The key to my eating during the day, I have found, is to have made something for dinner the night before that a) has leftovers, and b) is easy to eat without needing to be heated up. Or to have tortillas on hand and make either a scrambled-egg wrap or a quesadilla. OR for the Ninja to be clean so that I can make a smoothie. If it warms up enough, I might have a smoothie for lunch, though I probably won't be really hungry for lunch until almost time to start making dinner. DONE
The dead snake, pictured above, remains on my kitchen island. Another to-do item for today is to confer with the proprietor of said snake, in re. its ultimate destination. The kitchen island is but a wayside stopover. Besides, it's starting to smell.
Also, my first-ever publisher's advance came in the mail today. That Is Something.
TUESDAY
Projected high of 73F today, with a low of only 52: lovely weather.
Day 4 hair, which I plan to wash tomorrow. It's pretty straight right now – I actually like the silky no-frizz action and was going to wear it loose, but it felt kind of blah. I decided to change up the silhouette by reducing the mass of my hair in proportion to the rest of the outfit, first in a low ponytail, which also frankly felt okay but kind of blah, not polished enough even for the relatively casual look I was going for.
