Date night in beautiful downtown Rutherfordton, North Carolina, where the shadows lie long on the golden sidewalks.
SUNDAY JUNE 27
Mass outfit:
I started with a thrifted gauze top I like, though it's a bit voluminous, and my thrifted Liz Claiborne rose-patterned long skirt, which is tight around the waist.
Just not feeling a lot of things this morning. Although I generally avoid this effect, I chose to wear the top loose and smock-like, even though it presents a wide shape. I wanted a loose, flowing, unstructured feeling, and this is it. So I'm choosing not to care that there might be more objectively flattering things to wear, or ways to wear these things I am wearing.
I needed something for a top layer, though, because it's cold in the church, and I prefer to have my shoulders covered at Mass. None of my cardigans seemed right. Then I remembered this thing I bought several years ago off a clearance rack, thinking it would be just right for something, sometime, and . . .
Now we're Edwardian.
And not taking ourselves too seriously. This is very OTT for me, but hey. Why did I buy this item – whatever you want to call it – if I wasn't ever going to wear it? I was waiting for the day to arrive; why should today not be that day?
Anyway, the long vertical line mitigates some against the width of the top. I have a layer that's summery and light (resigning myself to being cold in church) but provides some coverage.
I feel a bit costumed, but hopefully it's fun, not weird. Also feeling that if I want to look costumed, or weird, I've about hit an age where that is my prerogative. When we say dressing your age, it occurs to me to hope that this is one thing we might mean by that phrase.
Hair in a twisted claw-clip bun – you definitely need restrained hair when you're wearing a long flowing lace thing to church.
All items thrifted except the lace thing.
Also thinking it will be fun to try the lace thing over the Wool& dress I agonized over buying last week, whenever it shall appear.
AFTER MASS:
It wasn't that cold in church after all.
Came home and changed some but not all of my clothes.
Still choosing not to worry about shape, body image, flattering-ness, and all that. Focusing instead on the coolness, as in temperature, of layered shades of white/off-white, with blue shoes.
Thrifted top, old Target cotton drawstring trousers, which I've had since circa 2006. As cool and easy as shorts, and honestly, I like them better than shorts. Note to self.
Afternoon agenda:
*laze on porch swing
*read Strong Poison
*go for walk while listening to Able Muse-sponsored poetry reading at 3
*get around to making dinner
MONDAY JUNE 28
Today's agenda:
*walk in the morning before it gets too hot, with ultimate daily goal of 10K steps
*anthology work: send my end of edited MS to my co-editor, knock together one more essay and poem selection for possible inclusion
*work on fiction or possibly a poem, since I haven't been writing poems lately
*pick up college medical forms to send in
Day 4 hair in another claw-clip bun, this time braided and folded over. It's summer.
Easy dress.
This is an old favorite, bought on clearance from J. Jill in the spring of 2018 – I haven't been sure how long I've had it, but then I remembered that I wore it relatively new to a Fourth of July party at my aunt's, which my daughter and her husband attended as newlyweds, and they'd been married in the fall of 2017, so . . . that's how long I've had this dress.
It's been a good dress in lots of ways, though not quite as versatile as I had originally hoped when I bought it. For a good while now I've been buying dresses, whether new or thrifted, with the thought of being able to wear them year-round. While this dress is a nice heavy cotton jersey that's not at all too light for the winter (it's almost too heavy for the summer, in fact), the cut is a bit strange to style with the kinds of layers that would adapt it for cold-weather wear. I did wear it once late last fall, as a jumper over a tee with a long cardigan and my then-new camel boots:
This felt pretty cute. I don't know why I didn't reach for the same or a similar combination more often last fall and winter, but I didn't. Changing the open neckline with a tee underneath alters the feel of the dress quite a lot: without that one small alteration, the dress feels very definitely like something you'd wear at the beach but not elsewhere. I've never worn it to church, for example, except maybe once actually at the beach. As the indigo dye has faded, too – as it's supposed to; the dress is meant to fade like a pair of jeans – it's just looked more and more like a summer item, less and less like any other season.
At any rate, I was hoping for more versatility, but as it is, it's a nice dress and great to wear in the summertime. I have worn it over and over, sometimes for days on end, in the years I've had it. When I've had it on, it's always felt like the perfect dress, comfortable and easy but also flattering and stylish, at least within certain parameters. It's definitely a casual dress, and there's no real way to make it not a casual dress. But as a casual dress, again, it's just about perfect.
For a basically shapeless dress, it's nicely cut. I like the drape and the curved hemline. It would probably be more flattering if it hit just above the knee – where the hemline falls has been one of my less favorite details, though I've gotten used to it.
I like the blue-on-blue I've got going on here: the lighter indigo dress with my royal-blue/bright-navy EVA Birks. Monotone, but not too matchy.
Over the three years I've had this dress, I have worn and laundered it often and hard. And it shows.
That's why I'll be moving it out of my wardrobe at the end of the season, or at least moving it to "wear for walks and grubbing around, but not really an outfit" status. It's also sprung at least one tiny hole in the fabric. Honestly, this is probably because I haven't been careful about laundering, but also, when you wear cotton in the summer, especially to do things outside, you end up having to wash it a lot. And washing in hot is what eliminates odors. Being cotton, too, and a very heavy knit at that, this dress does not hand-wash well or dry quickly. I have line-dried it, but it takes forever. So what with one thing and another, as an item of clothing that I have worn heavily in at least one season over several years, it's taken a serious beating, and the beating shows.
I'm looking forward to my Wool& Camellia tank dress as both a replacement for and an improvement on this dress. In many ways the Camellia is a similar dress. It's the kind of dress I know I'll reach for as I have reached for this one (which I've done far more in previous years than I have this year), but with, I think, more potential year-round versatility. The Camellia, as a finer-gauge knit, should dress up more readily than this dress does. The darker, less bleached-out color of the wool dress should help it read as either casual or dressy, as a black dress might, without any sacrifice of ease or comfort either way. The Camellia should hit above the knee, too, which will make it more flattering generally, but especially with boots and tights in winter. It won't need such frequent laundering, and the laundering it requires is gentle. I'm really looking forward to receiving and wearing it.
Better go take that walk before the day heats up.
VARIOUS POST-WALK THOUGHTS
On walking itself:
Eighteen years ago, we were still living in England, where my average day involved walking roughly eight to ten miles: to and from my kids' school two miles from our flat, to and from the supermarket, to and from church, to and from the train station, to and from friends' houses, charity shops, the swimming pool, the park. All that, plus walking I did simply for pleasure, because Cambridge is a beautiful place to walk.
This is a lifestyle almost impossible to replicate in America, even if you try. Unless you live in a dense urban area – New York City, say – your life almost inevitably includes daily errands requiring a car. Even if there are supermarkets, for example, within walking distance, the walk is often so uncongenial as to discourage you from walking. I can remember coming back from Cambridge to Memphis and walking to the supermarket: not any farther away than the Cambridge supermarkets I frequented had been, but the roads were busy, and the sidwalk gave out for long stretches between our apartment and the store. It was hard to push the stroller I needed to push, both to convey the child who needed to accompany me and to accommodate the groceries I was buying, so six-months-pregnant me would not have to carry them home. As long as I didn't have a valid driver's license, which I didn't for the first month or so we were back, I did this, but it was a pain. Then I had a driver's license, and also another baby, and only a one-seat stroller and no money to buy the double one I really needed for the baby and the one-year-old. All of this spelled my defeat, at least in that particular area of trying to live as though I were still in Cambridge. It was easily the most depressing thing about not being still in Cambridge.
Our current small town is better. We chose to live here, in fact, for several fundamental reasons:
*It's an attractive, pleasant place, and was that way even when it was a whole lot more economically depressed than it is now.
*We could afford a lot more house here than we could in the more upscale town where my husband works.
*We thought: This town represents life on a human scale.
What we meant was this: Things are relatively close together. There are local businesses you can patronize. There are people you're going to see and remember and at least have a chatting acquaintance with. And there's a lot you can walk to.
From our house, just off the town square, we can currently walk to:
*five restaurants (three that serve dinner) CORRECTION: I think it's six restaurants now, and at least four serve dinner. One is breakfast and lunch; the butcher shop has seating for deli lunches, so I'm counting it.
*one coffee shop
*two pubs
*one secondhand bookstore
*two thrift shops
*the library
*our dentist
*three antique malls (that I can think of, anyway)
*two seamstress/alterations businesses
*one frozen-yogurt place
*one ice-cream place
*a general store that sells local produce
*a rather upscale but very good butcher shop
*the greenway trail
This list represents everything on or around Main Street and the courthouse square, all a pleasant walk. It's also possible to walk to a shopping center that has a Dollar General, a Dollar Tree, and our pharmacy, but the walk is not pleasant. I've done it, but not often.
Since I bought this fitness watch thingy a couple of weeks ago, I have been assiduous in trying to walk ten thousand steps every day. Usually I succeed. Yesterday I didn't, but it was Sunday. Gotta take a little break sometime. But mostly that's my goal, to walk ten thousand steps. I give myself a boost, as I did this morning, by a concentrated morning walk, often with my husband. We walk from our house down to the railroad crossing, which is also where the greenway trail crosses our street. We turn one way, walk to the end of the trail, then turn and walk all the way back, crossing our street, to the far end of the trail, then back up to our street, a distance (by the time we return to our house) of roughly 2.9 miles. We're not race-walking, and we usually stop in at the bathrooms along the way for at least one break, so this whole operation takes us about an hour and twenty minutes and close to seven thousand steps. From there it's not that hard to get in three thousand more.
Still, all of this pales to the amount of walking I used to do in England – where I was fitter (when I wasn't pregnant) than I've ever been in my life, before or since. My husband and I have been talking about further habit changes we might make, particularly once the children are away at college this fall, and our grocery intake can be both reduced to and focused on the tastes of two people who aren't teenagers. For just two of us, for example, I can scale back the amount of groceries I buy at Aldi, and focus on getting my produce and meat via the general store and the butcher, to which shops I could walk as many times a week as I needed to. In Cambridge I shopped daily, because we had a fridge the size of a pencil case to serve the needs of a family of four, then five. For the two of us, I could shop daily, on foot, again, to a great degree. I can't really afford to do that now. Meat is expensive enough from Aldi as it is. But for a reduced household, I could buy the more expensive local meat, and do it more or less on the daily.
Anyway. Usually my husband walks with me in the mornings, but he wasn't feeling well today, so I walked by myself. I took my phone and earbuds, first to listen to the Daily Gospel/Lectio Divina on the Hallow app, then to listen to Bill Bryson's At Home, which my older daughter recommended to me two or three years ago, and which I've been pegging away at off and on for a long time. I guess that would count as my "moderately easy" Mother Culture book.
On other things:
Just sent off my edited version of the anthology MS to my partner in anthologydom . . . now to contemplate this additional essay.
LATER
Here's me after going to pick up college health forms, then scanning them one by one and airdropping them one by one to the child who had to submit them. I put on a top layer because I knew it would be cold in the doctor's office, even though I was only in there for maybe five minutes. Changed into my Birk Floridas, too, while I was at it, since I've been neglecting them lately.
Why is dealing with forms and scanners more exhausting than twelve-plus years of home education? I really couldn't say, but it is.
TUESDAY JUNE 29
Rainy and cooler; I'm about to head out for a walk, then a daily agenda much like yesterday's, which if that is not the real story of all our lives, I don't know what is.
After angsting about shorts last week, that's what I'm choosing to wear today. I also angsted last week about whether my chosen shirt looked like a maternity shirt; today I am choosing not to give a flying.
What I want to focus on is how much I love this blue and this green together.
The narrow silhouette of the shorts does work, I think, to balance out the billowiness of the shirt. The details in the shirt mitigate against the utilitarian plainness of the shorts. And all this just to go for a walk and then sit at my kitchen table.
Still doing claw-clip updos, this time a French twist. We'll see how well it holds up outdoors.
All outfit items thrifted.
WEDNESDAY JUNE 30
Last day of the month! Submission deadline for the anthology! We're actually going to overshoot the deadline just a little, mopping up some details and making some last-minute additions. I knocked out an extra section only yesterday: an essay plus a short selection of poems for an additional author we wanted to include. Now I have the whole formatted MS to review while my co-editor finishes some items on his end. Just one more little push . . . and then it's not over, but we will have an entire working draft to proceed with, and that is something indeed. I had never considered that it was possible to generate an entire 250-page book in five months, but apparently it is, and together we have done it. Huzzah for us.
I woke up at 6:30 and spent some time sanding rough edges off a short story I've been writing for two or three years now (250-page critical books: 5 months. Short stories or poems: YEARS). The story had come back from a contest where it was a semifinalist – the top 5% of submissions, the editors hastened to say – and after some months away from it, I had to confront the fact that the ending, all along, has been all wrong. Glaringly all wrong. It's one of those stories that has to end distinctly one way or another: someone is in a perilous situation and presented starkly with at least a subconscious choice. In previous iterations, the protagonist has made a choice that (as I can now see), however dramatic, tanked the whole narrative, largely because it negated anything she might have learned in the course of the story. She had to do the opposite, and I had to figure out how to work her up to that opposite choice. I revised the story backwards, starting from the end, cutting a bit, moving some things around, figuring out what to do with some imagery I wanted to keep, but not in its previous narrative setting. Things have come much more sharply into focus as I've done so. Now all that remains is some final judicious pruning, to get it down to 5,000 words.
It's a sunny morning and looks like being warm. I'm going to try to get out and walk early-ish, and dress lightly. Yesterday was soft and overcast, but even so, in the shirt I was wearing, I got hot walking. Today I might opt for a dress, or else one of my pairs of light cotton-sheeting wide-leg drawstring pants with a tank top. In addition to reviewing the anthology MS, I've got to revisit the doctor's office to pick up another child's medical forms and superintend the submission of said forms to the correct recipient at said child's chosen university. I also need to submit a grocery order and do some menu planning, or at least give the menu some forethought, since I don't plan meals in any great detail.
Today's outfit: dusty rose-pink with dusty green.
Walmart tee: bought sometime late in the winter. Again, again, the kind of purchase I'm committed to avoiding henceforth, but it's a nice heavyweight soft cotton with a decent drape. I bought large in both this color and navy, for the sake of tucking them in, but I sort of wish I'd gotten medium. The cut was a bit closer than I wanted, but it might have fit better through the neck and shoulders. Anyway, I do love the color, especially with the faded sage-green of these trousers.
Target trousers: bought new in something like 2006. There was a span of years, in the first heady flush of the skinny-jeans experience, when I didn't wear them, but I am glad I've hung onto them all these years, with the off-white ones I wore on Sunday. I have outboxed a pair of brown ones that have never felt right, even though they're the exact same pants in the exact same fabric, which just goes to show how powerful color is. The right color will cover a multitude of sins; the wrong color will expose them all without mercy, and even invent some in case of a shortage.
This for example is really maybe not the most flattering outfit in terms of shape. But the fit is easy, the look is basic, and the colors are so pretty together that they kind of make up for whatever's not quite on point. It was comfortable to walk in for an hour along the river trail (though if I'd known before I went out the door that that was where we were going to walk, I'd have worn sneakers, because that trail is mostly gravel and a little uncongenial in even the most walkable sandals). The vibe is pretty right for me: relaxed, soft, unstructured, outdoor-arty.
Washed my hair last night, braided it and slept on it wet. Still haven't taken it down. This soft stretchy bamboo-fiber hairband (not that visible, but it's charcoal gray) was the other one in the pack with the sorbet-green one I wore last Wednesday. I guess Wednesday is stretchy-hairband day?
Hole in the right leg of my trousers:
I'm getting rid of clothes with holes, but I dunno. I forget how this happened – it was a thing that happened, like with scissors, not the spontaneous springing of a hole. I could mend it, I guess, though in however many years I've never gotten around to it and haven't been that bothered by it. These trousers look kind of weathered anyway.
And so to work.
LATER:
Still daydreaming about investment shoes. After my strikeout with a pair of thrifted Dansko clogs (the heel began to disintegrate almost as soon as I got them), I have been leery of the whole clog thing. Then I saw someone wearing a pair of these lovelies, which have an actual wood sole and heel. I could wear a pair of clogs three seasons of the year, at least, only giving them a miss when the weather's extra cold or wet. The taupe would be versatile year round, as would the tan – though the light slaty blue ones do catch my eye.
In an ideal world where things cost nothing, I'd get both a pair of these and a pair of Doc Marten oxfords. In the real world, it's going to be a toss-up.
LATER STILL:
All these shoe thoughts have prompted me to clean my closet and some of my shoes, which had been literally gathering dust. Must think to wear my Chinese canvas Mary Janes. Must must must. I have them. Must wear them. Need to wear my Converse, too.
EVEN LATER:
More student health forms completed and sent. Best of all, my co-editor has SUBMITTED the manuscript after all for the poetry anthology!
All that out of the way, my shadow and I contemplate the front garden, which is something else again at the moment.
It's crazy, but eating dinner on the front porch, we watched the hummingbirds and bees, and it was glorious.
THURSDAY JULY 1
Feeling tired today, although I slept uncommonly well: nine-plus hours, with about four hours' deep sleep, according to my fitness tracker. I hadn't realized how much the anthology was weighing on me – it honestly didn't feel like that much work, just twenty or thirty minutes here and there during the day, in spurts of a hundred words or so at a time. But it had been a potentiality for so long, with conversation beginning in 2019, that I begin to see how much the luggage of a very idea can weigh, even when you've forgotten that you're carrying it.
After dinner last night with the kids, we went out to the local pub to celebrate the manuscript submission. I changed into a repeat of Sunday afternoon's outfit, because I had felt so good in that white-on-white combination. I felt good again, cool and floaty on a warm night. That's why it's so helpful to keep a diary of what you wear – you remember what really works. Pictorial evidence makes it easier for you to reach for the same thing when you want to feel good again. 10/10 would recommend.
Now it's Thursday morning, a new month, and I'm finishing my coffee and steeling myself to walk. I've hit my ten-thousand step goal two days running, and even though I'm not feeling it right now, I know I need to get up and front-load my daily steps with an hour on the trail.
Then I'll come back and review my fiction projects. I've been pegging away at both the short story I mentioned yesterday and at new stories/chapters to fill out a novel-in-stories – which is really a novella, a string of stories, and another novella, which maybe is a weird construction including all the things publishers least like to see (nobody wants novellas; nobody wants short stories) – following a family's life in reverse chronology, and moving between two houses.
In the opening novella, the daughter of the family, Amelia, returns in middle age to the family's house at the beach to prepare it for sale, in company with her present and former husbands and her twelve-year-old daughter from the first marriage. The stories that follow introduce the whole family, mostly through the consciousness of the mother, Caroline, and the losses and survivals that mark her experience. The closing novella finds Caroline and her husband Cash as young parents at the beach, in company with their lifelong friends whose marriage is falling apart. The disappearance of their four-year-old son John marks a further crisis, pushing their own marriage to a breaking point. And if it sounds as though I'm writing a book proposal here, I won't say I'm not warming up to it.
Today's wear:
Old Navy jumpsuit in quick-dry fabric, bought last fall; Walmart cheapie sneakers from last spring, which I'm going to wear until they fall apart, and not replace with better-quality hikers until they do. Wearing the jumpsuit unbelted today for ease, though it's not the most alluring silhouette. Braid with scrunchie. Gray stretch headband, same as yesterday.
Walking in sneakers today, after walking consistently in sandals, because my feet and legs are feeling stressed. These aren't particularly supportive sneakers, but they do have more structure than a pair of EVA Birks, so we'll see what difference they make.
POST-WALK:
It's a hot one. At least, it feels hot, though apparently the high is only 88F, and it's 84F now. In the sun on the paved greenway, it felt a lot hotter than that. I am confirmed in my impression that the fabric of this jumpsuit, moisture-wicking and "activewear" as it is, does not breathe that well, and is hot to wear for outdoor activity at the height of summer, even when the height of summer is as relatively mild as this.
This week and next week will be heavy reading weeks, as I prepare for my fiction residency beginning on the 12th of this month. Time to do a serious nosedive into fictioncraft . . .
FRIDAY JULY 2
Undergarment thoughts . . .
As part of my preparation for a no-buy year in 2022, I'm taking a good look not only at the clothes you can see, but also at the clothes you can't. This is a stretch for me, I will admit. I am absolutely the kind of person who will wear underthings until they fall apart, because nobody sees them but me (well, and my husband, who loves me and puts up with my self-neglect, but who would not neglect me, if he had his way, nearly as much as I neglect myself). In fact, for months now I have been wearing three bras in rotation, all of which have only one closure hook, because I can't be bothered to hand-wash them or pick them out of the laundry to hang dry, and as a consequence, hooks have gotten ripped off in the dryer. They were cheap bras to begin with, because I hate bras and bra shopping. All this time, I've been wearing them time by simply fastening the one hook to both eyes on the back strap. It doesn't not work. At least, it wasn't not working until the wires of which the hooks are composed started poking out, which means that they started poking me.
I have had, at the back of my underwear drawer, a couple of bralettes that I bought years ago, not even knowing that there was a word for what they are. They were pretty cheap, but soft and serviceable, and they held things together about as well as I required. One zips shut at the front; the other is a pull-on style. When I began to be annoyed by the poking wires in my other bras, I rummaged around the drawer and pulled these out. The idea of something soft, gently supportive, and completely metal-free had begun to appeal to me anew – the problem with these two bralettes, and the reason I'd quit wearing them and returned to more conventional cheap bras, was that the little foam pads in them were a pain to deal with at washtime, and had begun to disintegrate.
My solution, at least as a stop-gap: pick the most annoying of the poky-wire bras and cut the cups out to use as pads. This works. Bralettes I haven't worn in years have suddenly returned to daily use, with hand-washings when I take them off at night.
BUT I also felt I needed a third bralette to add to the rotation, as the ones I have aren't quite so quick-dry that they're ready to go the morning after a wash. Also, the ones I have are still quite cheap, and I wanted at least one nicer one to add to the mix. So I bought this one (not an affiliate link; just informational). It arrived yesterday, and is, for the price (which is a lot for me to spend on a bra, but really not that much as I know bras can cost), quite lovely and soft, with wide, comfortable straps. I look forward to getting a lot of wear out of it.
I also bought some extra pads (also not an affiliate link) as reinforcements for my homemade recycled ones, though I plan to cut up the rest of my old bras to make more of those.
I really like bralettes. They're far more comfortable than a conventional bra, at least for someone of my relatively modest size (I think I'm a 34B, but I'm never sure), and they don't create bulges at the back. They can also provide some extra coverage, as a camisole or crop top would do, but without a whole extra layer and its attendant weight and bulk. It's been years since I last wore an underwire bra anyway. Not looking for a whole lot of lift and shape, just some basic control and support.
I still need to buy some underpants as well, as my weight gain over the last year means that many of the pairs I currently own don't fit smoothly, and the ones that do are wearing out to an unsightly degree. They're always clean and decent, mind you – just old and a bit fatigued.
These are the purchases I really need to make. The fact that I've made a move to consolidate my wardrobe around my forthcoming Wool& dress means that I can focus the remainder of my clothing budget on these less-glamorous things – and regard them, maybe, as a little more glamorous than they've seemed in the past.
I need to think socks, too, though my sock drawer is reasonably full right now. I have three pairs of Snag tights coming to augment my rather tired tights stash for the fall, but I really would like to add more wool socks. Currently I have one pair of socks (from Target, not some super-ethical source, though they do seem to try) that doesn't ride down inside my Doc Martens – I do wish I'd sized down in those boots, though the size I have works all right if the sock is thick and stiff enough. I also have some gigantic wool hiking socks, some of which are hand-me-downs/left-behinds from my outdoorsy son, and they work all right under jeans, but they're a bit too bulky for all the times when I want to wear Docs with a skirt or dress. So that's another place in the wardrobe where I need to focus my attention.
Today already I've done some fiction revision; I need to spend the bulk of the day reading, to prepare for my Wiseblood Books residency which starts in ten days.
It's raining and cool, so I plan to put off my walk for later on, when things dry out a bit.
What I'm wearing:
Every time I reach for this skirt, which I bought for $2 at the Good Neighbor Shop down the street last fall, I consider how, at the time, I thought I might not wear it. Too full to be really stylish. Too long. Too stereotypically Homeschool Mom. But I bought it, and my goodness, have I worn it. Every time I wear it, I'm struck by how pretty I feel in it, how graceful and shapely. Yet I can do anything in it. The heavy twill stands up to wear in all kinds of situations as well as it would in a pair of trousers. I've never hiked in this skirt – honestly, it might be a little too long for that. I can't quite see dealing with this much fabric while trying to scramble up a steep incline. But short of that, this skirt is IT.
One of the things that made me choose the Camellia tank dress, in fact, and not the Sierra, is that the Camellia seems to be made of a finer, lighter wool, whereas the Sierra is more like a French terry, heavier in weight. I thought the Camellia would tuck better into a skirt to act as a top, and the skirt I was principally thinking of was this one. It's nice to reflect that wearing the same dress for a hundred days won't have to mean not wearing other things I really like.
Skirt, belt, and shoes thrifted; top bought many years ago in the Juniors section at Belk.
Same outfit with sneakers, for a walk:
Not my favorite look, but it's okay. It does give me another light-dark-color-pattern sequence to work with. With a dark shoe, which also provides some pattern against my foot, my skirt becomes both my "light" and my "color," with the top as both "dark" and "color," and the braided belt as "light" and "pattern." This way my shoes are a definite "light," the skirt is more of a "color," the top is "color" and "dark," and the belt is "light" and "pattern" (but belt and shoe don't match, which keeps things from being too boring).
The sneakers were a Walmart buy from about 18 months ago. They're cute and comfortable, and I should remember to wear them more.
Either sequence works, but again, really, I'm just a sandal person – that's why I haven't worn these sneakers more, though I like them and am glad to have them. I'm wearing them today for a walk to save my rather decrepit thrifted Birks from wearing out completely, but will probably put the Birks right back on when I get home.
I'm wearing my hair down today for the first time in probably ten days. I washed it Tuesday night – just shampoo and conditioner, no styler of any kind – sqeezed out as much excess water as I could with a microfiber towel, and braided it to sleep on. It's been in a braid ever since, until today, when I took it down, combed it out with a wide-toothed comb to detangle and smooth, spritzed it with a spray bottle of water until it was moderately damp, smoothed on some styling foam (Not Your Mother's Curl Talk foam, easily found in drugstores) using my hands as if they were a straightening iron to slide the foam over the top and bottom of my hair, and scrunching it in. I flipped upside down to do this, so that I was sure to reach both sides of my hair, and also to try to get a little volume going. Now I'm going to let it air dry.
My typical hair routine, twice a week, is
1. To wash with a sulfate-free shampoo (the brand I'm currently using for both shampoo and conditioner is Emerge, which I found in the "ethnic" hair section at my local Walmart), scrubbing my scalp vigorously for some minutes, to loosen any buildup and increase blood flow. I should be more intentional about scalp massage between shampoos, because it feels great and is good for your hair, but I often forget. Occasionally I'll add a solution of cider vinegar and water to this step to clarify my hair and scalp, if it feels as though there's any product buildup or my scalp is itchy or flaky. Rinse thoroughly, and concentrate on making my hair really soaking wet, not just getting the shampoo out. The goal is to get water into my hair.
2. To condition my now seriously wet hair with a generous amount of silicone-free conditioner (again, the drugstore brand I'm using now, and liking, is Emerge). Use a big handful of conditioner, I squish it onto and into my soaking hair, working it through thoroughly and adding more water so that I get a "slip" that feels like seaweed: really slimy. At this point I carefully comb out my hair to detangle. I might stop and shave my legs while the conditioner soaks into my hair. My main aim is to maximize the amount of water that's trapped in by the "oil slick" of the conditioner. It's the same principle as putting lotion on your skin right after your bath, while it's still damp: what your skin and hair want is not so much the lotion or conditioner as the water that those products seal in. Once I've let the conditioner sit for a few minutes, I rinse it out, again using as much water as possible (because more water = better, always).
3. At this point either I'm finished, because I'm going to let my hair dry naturally and be "naked," or I add a styler, either gel (currently Aussie Headstrong Volume gel) or a mouse or foam (currently the Not Your Mother's Curl Talk foam I mentioned above). The difference between a mousse and a foam, incidentally, is that a mousse is delivered via aerosol, while a foam comes in a pump bottle. If it's gel, I emulsify it with a little extra water in my hands and, in several stages, using roughly a ping-pong-ball sized dollop, I smooth it over and under my hair (again using my hands like a straightening iron), then rake it in with my fingers and scrunching out the extra water and product – aiming to hear a squelching sound when I do so. If it's foam or mousse, I don't necessarily add extra water, and I might wait till my hair is only damp, not soaked. I smooth it on as described above and scrunch. I bother with this step because it does give my natural wave/pattern some hold and definition. If I'm using gel, once it's dry, I fluff it out some with my wide-toothed comb to add volume and break up the crunchy "cast" it leaves behind. My hair isn't quite as tightly defined that way, but I think it looks better. It's a nice balance between rigid stylized waves and "she didn't even care" – my normal natural look, but nudged just a little in the direction of having a style.
All of this takes about as long as washing my hair has always taken, and is just as difficult. I'm not a person who's going to spend hours on my hair, ever, on any kind of regular basis. What I'm about here is normalizing wearing hair in its natural texture (feeling compelled neither to straighten nor curl it, nor to berate yourself because your hair isn't either straight or curly). But I'm also about finding simple, easy, non-time-consuming ways to make "difficult" hair, which is how so many of us with wavy hair have always thought of our hair, not only behave, but thrive.
I don't necessarily get big, magical curls out of this simple procedure, though it does produce some nice spirals and coils among the looser waves. What I do get is healthy, shiny hair that to one degree or other looks as though I meant to make it look the way it looks, instead of looking as though I haven't tried at all. Minimal effort >>> impression of effort. Insofar as I have "hair goals" at all, that is my goal.
I do use a diffuser in the winter to speed up drying time after washing. Especially in cold weather, my hair takes all day to dry, and dragging around with clammy hair for hours and hours is miserable. But that's the most I ever do, other than the basic wash routine I've just described.
In between washes, I do either
1. nothing
2. some kind of ponytail or updo
3. a refresh like the one I did today, with some water and foam.
The damp result:
A little styler does help with managing growing-out bangs.
OK, well, I think I've about exhausted my fund of personal-care information for the time being. The only other thing that wearing this green skirt makes me think of is that I have broken down and bought an apron – another one of those things I've never bothered with, but I'm sick of grease stains on all the clothes I like (including this skirt). I really want not to grease-stain my wool dress when it comes. I bought a cotton-linen Japanese-style crossover apron, another cheap Amazon purchase. This blog is all about ethical style, except when it's not. The real upshot of it all is that I should re-learn how to sew, but I'm probably not going to do that, unless empty-nesting gets a lot more boring than I anticipate. Anyway, we'll see how I like this apron . . . possibly I'll splurge for a more expensive one from a more ethical source at some point.
SATURDAY JULY 3
Currently 70 degrees, with a high of 84F, and sun predicted all day. Tomorrow after Mass my daughter and I are going to see the "Immersive Van Gogh" exhibit in Charlotte, but for today I have few plans.
Check out the manual can opener the same daughter found for me at Goodwill yesterday:
I have no idea yet whether it works, but it's certainly photogenic.
Today I'm living on easy street:
My favorite simple blue t-shirt swing dress with Birks. All thrifted.
Hair rather wild. I combed it out, but haven't done anything else to it. I will wash it this afternoon to be ready for Mass tomorrow and the new week.
You can make any look seem like the thing you meant to do, just by staring intently enough into the camera.
Happy weekend, happy 4th of July!