I really did follow this Easter Tiger Swallowtail around for a long time, photographing her every pose, and they're kind of all favorites, which is why I keep posting them here.
Yesterday went down the drain of the DMV. I came home and was no good at all, and no work got done. Today I must gird myself. Of course, the more I think I must gird myself, the more I want to think about clothes, which don't make great demands on the intellect. Standing in front of my closet, admiring the palette of grays, blues, teals, and purples, with the occasional relieving pop of red --- it's a weirdly consoling form of procrastination. It's a little like rereading Ngaio Marsh --- which I am also currently doing (Death at the Bar, and I remember whodunnit, but it's good anyway) --- only less so.
I also want to go get some inches cut off my hair. I thought about it yesterday, and I'm thinking about it again today. Will I do it? Who can say --- except me, later, when I either will have or will not have done it today. The Great Clips opens at 9, and I have the app, so can sign in online and go when there's no wait time, in and out in fifteen minutes, tops. It might be nice to come out lighter-headed than I went in. I might find it easier to think. Or I might not. Again, who can say?
I did buy the Birkenstock boots, by the way. Yes, it was a violation of my purchasing pause, and I probably shouldn't even have been looking --- but then it's become apparent to me that I only make these rules for myself in order to break them. At any rate, there they were, in my size, exactly what I wanted, at many dollars off their original retail price . . . and I can't wear them until November, so at least I can tell myself it'll be like I didn't buy anything. They'll arrive, I'll try them on, and if they fit I'll go ahead and waterproof them really thoroughly, since they're suede, and set them in the closet to await the advent of cooler weather, while I go my merry way in my summer Birkenstocks.
It has occurred to me that once you've planned ten outfits in your head around a thing . . . mentally you've already bought it. The actual purchase is just the logical, external consequence of that whole interior process. By the time you hit purchase, you've already owned the thing in your mind for several days, at least, and the only real surprise is that it's not actually physically present in your closet at that moment.
Former-thrift-store me isn't quite sure what to make of this new iteration of me, who thinks she can just go out and drop a hundred dollars on a pair of boots or some other clothing item. Or sit at home in the air-conditioning and drop a hundred dollars on a pair of boots, or some other clothing item, as the case may be. Of course, former-thrift-store me didn't have any paying jobs. She also didn't know what she wanted and was flailing around a lot.
In the future I might look back at current-me and think the same thing --- she didn't know what she wanted --- but on the other hand, Birkenstocks seem like a safe bet. I know I like them. I wouldn't have . . . let's see . . . 1234567 . . . SEVEN pairs? or EIGHT? EIGHT? if I didn't like them. Mind you, most of the pairs I have cost nothing like what they would have cost new. The pair of Floridas on my feet at this moment were $10 on Ebay. That's my normal speed. The Balis I almost didn't take to Norway, then wore every day I was there --- those cost $15. And so on.
But I don't regret the rather more money I dropped on my hiking boots, because they fit, they feel good, and I can walk many miles in them. I expect the same to be true of the Melrose boots I've just bought, which I will hope to wear for many years. The pair pictured at that link, by the way, are not the ones I bought --- mine are size 40, and I paid less for them on Poshmark. But it's the same style and color.
The main reason that I don't wear a pair of shoes or boots for many years is, in fact, that they don't feel good on my feet. I'd be wearing my Doc Martens nonstop forever if they actually felt that good. But they don't. I get knee pain, which turns into hip pain, which turns into back pain. Everybody doesn't love Birkenstocks, I know, but for me there's something about them that seems to align my body correctly, so that whatever my feet are doing, it doesn't throw off my knees, hips, and spine, causing me pain. I like alternating them with barefoot shoes, but it's the Birks I always go back to with a sigh of relief. Nothing makes me feel old the way aches and pains do, especially aches and pains associated with standing or walking. I walked ten miles in Bergen in my Balis and felt tired at the end of the day, but nothing more. That's the goal for me --- not to be hindered in getting myself around on foot. I could have to stop driving at some point, but if I can walk a long way, then I don't have to be isolated (although in America this is always difficult, as I mentioned yesterday).
Anyway, all this is probably by way of rationalizing, but I really think that if I see a pair of footwear that I've determined I want, I'm going to get them if I possibly can. I spent too many years trying to wear shoes I'd bought at Goodwill, or at the cheapo Shoe Show store, and I've concluded that you need the most right shoes you can obtain, not simply the shoes that are there to be bought. I don't want to throw away any more shoes, or keep moving them to the donate pile. I want to buy a pair of shoes (or eight, as the case may be) and wear them until they need repair, then wear them some more.
And I want them to fill a real hole in my wardrobe. At this point, as much as I could go on buying up pairs of Birkenstock sandals, I really don't need them. Yes, yes, I still want a pair of Yaras someday, but today is not a day when I can talk myself into buying them. I have sandals I really love. Next year the $10 Floridas will probably be finished. They're not leather, but the "vegan" Birki-Flor material, which makes me feel that it's not worth having the entire bottom of the shoe replaced. At the end of this season, the cork footbed will have disintegrated pretty thoroughly, and that'll be that. I might burn them in a bonfire, actually, to avoid sending them to the landfill. Then I might well say to myself, time to buy those Yaras I've been wanting. But now? Can't justify it, however longingly I dwell on them.
But boots? Yeah, given, again, that I have some income, I can justify boots. That I won't wear them for another four or five months is immaterial. I've been looking at winter outfits past, trying to troubleshoot what I think has been wrong with them, and this is the answer. Or it's one answer, anyway, that I could do something about. So I did, and I'm happy with that. And again, I really think that this is instead of more dresses. My goal for the coming seasons is to wear the dresses I have --- at least into the new year, when I might relieve the winter doldrums with a new dress --- but to wear them better, with what I need to make them work effectively in the winter.
Did I mention that thinking about clothes is a peculiarly consoling form of procrastination? Because it is. But now I had better get dressed and take the dog out, if I'm going to go have these inches cut off my hair. IF!
Wearing today:
Thought I'd go ahead and post the absolute goobiest shot of the ones I took. I like having images of a dress from multiple angles, so that I really know what I'm wearing before I leave the house in it.
This is Willow, in her second July outing. Here in the middle of the summer, in our hottest, most humid weather, I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I'm continuing to wear my dresses with 3/4-length sleeves. Yesterday I wore Fiona and was perfectly happy, even in the sun. Willow, too, has turned out to be far more a summer dress than I had ever imagined. Partly it's the cool, cool color --- this periwinkle/lavender just feels like a breath of fresh air. But partly it's just that the fine knit fabric breathes and doesn't lie heavy on the skin.
I wasn't sure I wanted this much layering again, but . . . that seems to be the haircut I keep getting. I am kind of loth to let the layers grow out, because they take off a lot of weight, and my hair dries faster with them than without, though that's not saying much. If I add any product whatsoever, it's going to take a long time.
