Clothes

Or, clothe, as Dr. Koppel used to call them. But I digress.

This is not about what size I take, or will take, or want to take. This is also not about complaining about the lack of nice clothes for women of size, which is what one of the threads on the WW board was about. I don't know where those women live, where they shop, or what their budgets are, but I never owned a flowered muumuu in my life and have no intention of starting. The closest I ever came to that was a black flowered dress, and that came from April Cornell, was not by any stretch of the imagination a muumuu, and I might even wear it again, you can never tell.

No, this is about the fact that while I'm losing weight, I have no clothes, or more or less none, and no hope of building a wardrobe until I'm done.

One of the great pleasures of my life is dressing up. I love making up outfits. I love looking nice. I love finding bargains--my Jones New York polka dot skirt, for example, that should have cost more than $100 that I got for $20 at the end of the season and that I've probably worn nearly once a week since then. My tuxedo coat...that I tracked and tracked, as it got cheaper and cheaper, and that makes M's eyes light up when I wear it. Other things. I never, or almost never buy anything full price. I save things forever. I have no problem wearing something from five years ago with something new. I had a wardrobe. It looked good on me. I got compliments. I have good taste, I dress well, and I never kow-towed to being a plus size. My sense of style never changed, and frankly, while we don't have as much choice as our smaller sisters, plus-size women have never had it so good.

So now...my clothes don't fit. My tuxedo jacket has had its last outing. It's sliding off me. (So is my nightgown, but that's in bed, and a little bit of bare shoulder there isn't necessarily the worst thing, even if the nightgown has Scotty dogs on it). My skirts are all falling off. The only thing that keeps half of them up is my Caesarean pooch. They make me look fatter than I am, though, by being too big and sort of amorphous. Since this is an on-going process, there's no point in buying a lot of new clothes. (And I'd like to meet these women who lose weight and say that they loved buying a new wardrobe once a month).

I've decided I'm going to try to do this: buy a black skirt, a denim skirt and a pair of jeans for each size. Tops, especially knit ones, can go longer. (I am damned if I'm taking the WW website's advice and buying cargo pants, tight, and wearing them till they're loose. Not me. Someone else might want to do that, but not me). This makes for an exceedingly boring wardrobe, but one that will keep me covered, literally and figuratively, and not cost too much money.

My bedroom is a sea of clothes, but they're gradually migrating from the active piles to the give-away piles. My sister-in-law can go through the give-away piles--she's engaged in losing weight, too--and the rest can go to the Salvation army.

I have some things that I put away, that I couldn't bear to part with. So, my yellow double-breasted jacket with the shawl collar will get quite a bit of action, if it ever decides to be spring. My olive and red blouse, again with a shawl collar (do I sense a trend?) is waiting for me and will fit me before too much longer. However, by then the red skirt won't fit, but the skirt I made to wear with it might. This is so confusing. Everything made of cloth is in a state of perpetual flux for me.

I have one favorite that I actually bought in two sizes. I can get into the smaller one now, so that's fun, and gives me an option. I ordered a skirt that will hopefully go for a couple of months. My jeans jackets (I have three, one red, one white, one denim) will fit for quite a while, and if I get desperate, there are always outlets.

But I hate this. I hate not knowning what to wear when I get up in the morning. It's complicated by not remembering where I was when I left off losing weight the last time, so I can't predict when this or that will fit.

Also what I have ahead of me, though I have no idea when, is the great womens/misses issue. There is a point where you make the transition from womens sizes to misses, which is lovely, but it involves a period of time where absolutely nothing fits. The smallest womens, usually 14, is too big, or looks funny. The largest misses, usually 16, is too small, or looks funny. It has to do with distribution, of course. And while you're losing, you're not redistributing. There will be a period of time where I will be able to have no new clothes.

I'm not interested in size as a value judgement. All I want is to have clothes that make me happy and flatter me. I had them, probably after I lost 10 pounds. I don't really have them any more. And, it could be as long as a year till I can work on building a new wardrobe. Of coures, the consolation prize will be that I will be able to choose from a much larger selection. For some reason, I'm really, really looking forward to shopping at Anthropoligie, even though I think it's insanely overpriced and pretentious. That's a goal, at the moment. I want to hit the sales racks. And... I have to be honest...Adrienne Vitadinni, but that's for an entirely different reason, and one that can be dealt with in another blog. The reason is not all that good, and to indulge it might be a little crazy, but I've long since given up pretending to be governed solely by logic.

Shoes, usually my refuge, are not, at least not right now. Your feet change size, too. I seem to be between an 8 and an 8 1/2, with, you guessed it, nothing fitting. I'm sliding out of some shoes, don't fit in others.

Pantyhose is more or less the only good thing, really! I can take unalloyed pleasure in being able to pull them right the way up, and having them not slide down. Somehow, that seems like something very unimportant to be taking pleasure in.