Familiar sun in familiar trees.
Up today:
*Dog walks
*Mass at noon
*Writing of various kinds
*Dinner plan
Also, what am I going to wear this week? Here at least is a list of dresses, even if I don't know what I'm going to wear with them.
*NPL Leila dress in Chocolate Brown + some cardigan for Mass + Earth Shoe Mary Janes (today's plan, I think))
*Wool& Audrey + some cardigan or button shirt + some shoes
*NPL Leila dress in Cinnamon Rose (for Thursday, I think, so I can wear it for date night) + Earth Shoe Mary Janes + some top layer
*For a funeral on Friday: black linen Eileen Fisher dress, champagne cardigan, silk scarf with roses, black Mary Janes
*Wool& Marine Blue Maggie with Earth Shoe Mary Janes (post-funeral on Friday, probably)
*Wool& Fiona + Earth Shoe Mary Janes (or the floral ones?)
*Sunday Mass: April Cornell rayon floral maxi skirt, Flax navy tunic, champagne cardigan, Birk Papillios (a hot outfit I have worn before and will repeat)
This was the post on "finding your style," and the possible overconsumption ramifications of that quest, that I was referencing last night. She's not wrong, but again I say: be gentle with yourself, and don't be afraid to experiment a little, and to move something along if it's a miss.
I look with some question marks at my floral Mary Janes, for example --- I loved the idea, I could imagine outfits with them, but every time I've worn them so far, I've felt a little . . . not right. I'm going to hang onto them through the winter and into the spring, because I bought them for the cold seasons, and I haven't worn them in combinations yet that I had imagined (with tights, for example). What I'm feeling now might not be what I'm feeling nine months from now. But they are a good example of a gamble. Does my style go . . . here? To this point? Only one way to find out, really.
And I might be wrong. Sometimes I am wrong. That's just the way it goes. There's always a catch-and-release element in secondhand buying, which is why it can become an addiction and really shouldn't. That's a lot of time and energy, for the buyer, for the seller, for the buyer who becomes the seller, for the whole supply-chain mechanism. The health of the supply-chain mechanism doesn't keep me up nights, I will admit. Planes are going to fly whether I buy something or not. Trucks are going to ply the highways. Deliverypersons gonna deliver. That whole ship has sailed, and my fastidious habits are not going to change the basic economic infrastructure of an entire world.
But I don't have to ride that ship all the time. I can choose. My focus can be on my (valid) needs and wants, and I'm not going to feel guilty either for buying something or for reselling it or otherwise moving it out of my closet. I'm not going to become a hoarder just to practice zero-waste. I'm not going to do things or not do them, just to stick it to the Fast Fashion Man. If I do stick it to the Fast Fashion Man, then good, because the Fast Fashion Man deserves every stick he gets.
But as I've said before, I have a religion, thanks. It's not minimalism. It's neither consumerism nor underconsumptioncore (really? are we taking that word seriously?). Those things can be --- and everything I do should be --- functions or outgrowths or fruits of my religion, but they are not the religion. Note to self.
Wearing today:
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Leila dress (M/L) in Chocolate Brown, bought December 2023, last worn August 25. Wears to date in 2024: 13
*Thrifted, very old Eddie Bauer cotton plum cardigan. Bought for $.25, I don't even remember when. Last worn in Lent sometime. For obvious reasons, I tend to wear this cardigan frequently in Advent and Lent, but I'm trying to branch out here. I don't love the length of the cardigan with this dress, but I do like the colors together.
*Secondhand Kalso Earth Shoe Mary Janes, bought August 2024.
See how nicely these muted autumnal colors go together. My own coloring isn't really "autumnal" --- I don't wear golds and oranges very happily --- but I can still pick up hues of the season in a dustier, softer palette that works all right with my pink skin and gray-green eyes.
The morning sun when it's in my face really shows my age. In two months and three days, I'll turn the corner into my seventh decade. But no makeup, no filter: it's me, and I'm all right.
Hair still wet, but I will pull it back in front once it's dry. This outfit, like so many I wear, really calls for more restrained hair. I wore claw-clip updos Sunday and yesterday, so I want to wear it mostly down today to give it a break, but a half-updo with a little claw clip will be all right, and will look better than loose hair.
Fairly pleased with this all-secondhand outfit. I will, over the course of the month, wear clothes that were new to me. But it's nice to accord with the theme today.
And now to do the things.
POST-DOG-WALK/POST-MASS:
Finished hair. I chose that word deliberately, because I think that finished is the effect. Finish the hair (whatever that might mean in your case): finish the outfit.
Went to Mass (v. nice), talked to my friend Kelly afterward, signed a book for her, came home. Had a blueberry smoothie bowl for lunch (read: thick smoothie that I decanted into a bowl instead of a cup and ate with a spoon). Planning to do something with the remains of the rotisserie chicken for supper.
Found that my dishwasher, with last night's unwashed dishes (not many of them) was full of ants, so now we're running the dishwasher with the heat-dry setting on, because as much as I respect the right of ants to exist, I do not respect their right to exist in my dishwasher.
Went out with the dog again, since she'd been crated for a little over an hour. It's bright and sunny, and in the sun you feel hot, but in the shade you feel that autumn is real and present. Really, it's a beautiful day. As much as I loved the coastal river country this past weekend, I'm glad to be back in the land of marginally lower humidity.
Working now on conference registration and accommodation stuff for the CIC at the end of October. That will leave me just to work out my travel and my accommodations for Milwaukee, which will be covered by the Archdiocese there. Logistical planning makes me want to shut right now, but it must be done. So much easier just to hyperfocus on clothes instead (and yes, you bet I'm planning my outfits, friends, because that is fun and also comforting, involving elements readily under my control).
Still grooving on my current outfit. I'm warm in the cardigan when I go out, but then I can take it off and still feel fallish in my brown dress. I did not expect to love this brown dress this much. I expected to want to redye it, actually. But I don't want that at all. I think it looks better with a cropped cardigan, such as my blue rayon one, and I'm looking forward to the cream cashmere version that's on its way now. But I like this just fine.
Noodling around with some poems, putting off the moment when I pull the trigger and send them out.