Tuesday, February 27, 2018

All-dressed

There's a fine line between ripped jeans, and jeans that are ripped. I am familiar with this line because I can't seem to stop jamming my feet through my ripped jeans when I'm putting them on, and thus I own several pairs of jeans that are ripped.

I used to feel trendy and stylish in my ripped jeans, but now I just feel the accusatory gaze of the pasty blobs of thigh that sortof bulge out of the rips a little as if to say, Why don't you get out your sewing machine and patch this up, you slob? (Shut up, thigh. What do you know about my busy life?) You can classy up ripped jeans because the rips are intentional, and thus cool, but jeans that are ripped just drag everything down to their level. With jeans that are ripped, you might as well slap on the same holey grey sweatshirt every day and accept that you are now a person who has given up on their appearance. Thankfully, I work from home, that proud bastion of folks who have given up on their appearances, so it matters not whether my jeans are ripped or ripped.

Actually, that particular bastion might be a little too proud: I notice DH has started to compliment me every time I get dressed. It doesn't even matter what I'm wearing, just that I'm not wearing my de facto basement-office uniform (holey grey sweatshirt, jeans-that-are-ripped, and "comfy" [i.e., saggy old] bra). If I so much as put on a t-shirt and comb my hair he's like, "Wow, you look nice today, dear." One day last week I went as far as to wash my hair and put on a cardigan and he accused me of dressing up: "Did you have a lunch date or something?" I did, actually, but the fact that a shower and a cardigan seemed to bump me up several rungs of dressiness in his estimation really opened my eyes to just how far my standards have fallen since I left my old office job.

He even seemed slightly envious that I had "dressed up" for someone else, although he also gets a little envious that I turn on the heat in the house for guests and not for him so I wouldn't put much stock in that reaction. (Interesting note: I recently learned that normal room temperature is actually 21C, not 20C as I believed, so the lucky recipients of my house-heating beneficence have probably all still been chilly. Being a perpetually-warm person has its advantages I guess.) I admit I got a little defensive about my cardigan - dressed is clearly not the same as dressed up! - until I realized that his argument cut both ways: "Waaaait a minute - by that logic you come home after work every day and dress down for me!"

"But I don't want my work clothes to smell like cooking supper!"

"I don't want my cardigans to smell like that either!"

"Hm... okay, fair enough. Anyway, you look really nice today, dear. Hey, is it cold in here?"

"No. Go put on another sweater, you wuss."
  

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