Mid-morning view: the first chapter of my novel, which I'm polishing over again, now that my other projects are done for the time being, with the kitchen window giving onto the bright day outside.
Today's agenda:
*Grocery shop, and find something suitable for a Martinmas dinner. I obviously haven't planned ahead enough to cook a goose, which is traditional (though I've never done one for Martinmas myself), and in any event, that's a bit much for two people on a Thursday night, to be followed by a meatless Friday. But I'll think of something.
*Have the phone conversation, postponed from yesterday, with my high-school friend. We had actually been best friends –– there was a little triumvirate of us –– in elementary school, then not run in the same circles in junior high and high school. But our school was small, and our class was small, and a number of us have connected and made reconnections over the years. More and more as I get older I value my relationships with people who have known me since childhood, and value the very fact of those long relationships, which I think are becoming increasingly rare, the more mobile our culture continues to become.
*Go for a walk, and start to prepare for our new dog, who I think –– God willing –– will be coming home with us on Sunday.
Today's highs are supposed to be near 80F –– so much for the fall weather. This is good weather, though, for wearing my weird-fabric jumpsuit, bought on clearance from Old Navy last fall. It's a good travel fabric, non-wrinkling and quick-drying, but it's hot in very hot weather, and not warm or temperature-regulating in very cold weather, without a thermal base layer underneath, which I have done. But for this kind of transitional weather, it's perfect.
I appreciate the chance to give the wool dresses a little rest. And it's nice to wear pants, although . . . gosh, I really don't like to wear pants, qua pants, so much anymore. I feel a lot dumpier in them than I do in a dress. There's something so disconnected-feeling sometimes about a top-and-bottom outfit –– keeping the top tucked or arranged right, putting it all together again every time you to go the bathroom, and so on. Of course, today I've chosen an outfit that has to be taken off in its entirety and put back on again, but once it's on, it's on. The pieces go together and stay together. As long as it's on, nothing about it can really get disarranged. I'm not sure I'd ever thought about that before, especially as a definite value, but wearing dresses virtually every day has made me realize that this is a value for me. I don't mind taking it apart. But when it's together, I want it to be together, seamlessly and without further care. Does that make sense at all?
Anyway, I like this jumpsuit –– despite the universal problem of having to take it off in the bathroom –– largely for that reason. Put it on, and it's a whole put-together outfit, but it's pants. I've already related the tale of removing the waist elastic, so that it's now a totally shapeless garment. Today I've opted to wear a pale-pink belt with it for some waist definition, and paired it with my dark-green thrifted J.Crew cotton cardigan. The colors are nice and deep and fallish, and with my closed-toe thrifted Birk Madeiras it feels like a good seasonal ensemble for a very warm late-autumn day.
I've also spent a little birthday money on a secondhand purchase, my first from Poshmark: a purple organic-cotton shift dress from Pact. It was $22; dresses from Pact generally run in the $60-$80 range, or sometimes higher, bought new.
This is a bit of a gamble; it's a large, but on the bottom, at least, depending on how a given brand's sizes run, I can be a large. If it absolutely doesn't fit I'll re-sell it, but given that it's a straight, unstructured dress, I thought it was worth trying out, for that price. The armholes seem a bit deep, but we'll see how they work –– much of the time that I'd be wearing a dress like this, I'd be wearing something over or under it, so that might not matter too much. As I plan for my coming no-buy year, I have been trying to fill in gaps, and a purple dress has been one of the things I've had in my sights. I like purple and look good in many shades of it, and I wear a lot of it especially in Advent and Lent. While I keep having my eye on more Wool& dresses, it's hard to justify quite that much spending. If they made a purple Sierra, I'd want it, and my eye does keep returning to the plum-heather Camellia, especially since I already have a Camellia and like it . . . BUT. Anyway, I've been wanting to try something from Pact, and this seemed like a good opportunity to feel their fabric and try on, as well as to add a color I've been halfway looking out for.
As always, I can think of plenty that I have that I could wear with this dress, assuming it fits. I could do layered purple looks with cardigans in this color range. I could wear gray cardigans, blue cardigans, green cardigans. Any number of scarves that I own would winterize things. Gray tights, green tights, navy tights, even mustard tights could work. Boots, Birk Madeiras, open-toed sandals in summer, or my fisherman's sandal wedges if I wanted heels. Moss-green blazer, unstructured soft gray blazer, any number of shirts tied over or possibly worn under, if it's heavy enough to work as a jumper. Virtually any t-shirt I have . . . IF it fits, and I think it would REALLY have to not fit, this could be an extremely versatile addition, from a good brand, that I would wear a lot year-round.
I will probably be doing some more thinning of my own closet soon. Already, a couple of weeks out of my 100-day challenge, I'm starting to see, in my regular wardrobe, what I reach for and what I don't, what is truly indispensable to me and what I don't think I'd miss if I didn't have it. I'm chary of doing too much purging, because that can start to be its own form of wastefulness (I forget what percentage of donated clothing ends up in the landfill, but a disturbing amount apparently does). And I don't want to get rid of things that still hold possiblities for me, even if I'm waiting to see clearly what those possibilities are. On the other hand, I do not want to hang onto things that still have a perfectly good life ahead of them, and that somebody else could benefit from having. Fortunately at this point most of what's in my closet, whether I wear it or not, is in good shape and within the realm of fashionable. As I continue to make judicious additions, I need to make some equally judicious deductions.
Anyway. I like what I'm wearing today. It makes a nice change. I like having a uniform, but I like being able to choose not to wear the uniform if I don't feel like it. I also like that this variation from the uniform is not that different from the uniform, in that it's one core piece lending itself to some accessories. It's still extremely simple and free of decision fatigue. It's still comfortable.
And I like the colors.
The green makes me feel very green-eyed, in a good way.
Earrings courtesy of my children on my last birthday, I think. Or maybe it was two years ago. Some recent birthday that wasn't this last one, I know.
Hair twisted up in a claw clip again. Just really feeling updo hair right now. Last night when I took it down it was still damp, but the waves from being twisted up were great. Looked like I'd styled it when I hadn't. I'm not sold on the soap-shampoo bar I've used the last couple of times, another SheaMoisture bar: Black African Soap this time, which is a formulation for eczema. My scalp likes it fine, but it seems to leave a little funkier residue on my hair than the last soap/shampoo bar I tried. That's one more good reason to wear it up again, I guess. The funky feeling might or might not dissipate –– often my hair will feel weird and product-y on the day I wash it, but then whatever it is will seem to absorb overnight and not be there the next day, so we'll see.
This pink claw clip feels like . . . a lot of pink. But these are good claw clips, from the same Planet Goody line as my bamboo-fiber stretch headbands. I can't remember what the composition of these actually is, but they feel different from other plastic claw clips I have, more like recycled material, which maybe they are. Again, I'd love to get some artisan-made silver claw clips.
These hold my hair really well, though, without being too big and bulky. They came in a pack of three: pink, black, and a natural/off-white that's very nice. A lot of outfits seem to call for restrained hair, and it's good to find restraints that work reliably all day.
Well, the novel calls, as does the grocery store.
ALSO: I'm going to have to delete/block things like Poshmark and Ebay come January, and leave B/S/T groups, because otherwise . . .