A Diamond in the Rough

I am a pain in the ass to shop with.

First, I'm thrifty. Even when I got paid a rather decent amount of money, I have a really, really hard time spending money on most things (as I've written about before, so I won't go into it much here). But I noticed yesterday that I tend to like something, look at the price, and then decide that something is wrong with it or it isn't worth the listed amount and put it back.

Second, there's a lot of stuff I don't like/can't wear. I don't like small floral prints, animal prints, ruffles, bows, things that tie, jazzy MC Escher looking prints, (most prints, actually, though I do like large florals, stripes, and some polka dots) or colors like olive green, beige and lavender. That's good, because I can't wear those colors, just like I can't wear any other shade of green, all yellows, pure white, or cool-toned purples and blues. I tend to shy away from red because I feel that it brings out the I-just-came-in-from-the-cold red nose I seem to have at all times. I also can't wear a lot of necklines or cuts on top because my barely-A cup size makes it impossible. I don't like blue with denim or purple with black. (And I own a lot of denim and black--who doesn't?)

Third, I have a hard time finding things that fit. Now, I realize this could be a problem compounded by the above money issues and large number of things that I dismiss out of the gate. Shirts are usually too big, even the XS, and end up making me look like a box with no shape. I know that a belt is a girl's best friend, but enough already. The only jeans that seem to fit are from the Levi's "Curve ID" line, because otherwise they gap in the waist if they fit in the thigh or look painted on if they fit in the waist. Dresses are hard, because my top and bottom aren't exactly the same size, and I don't have the wherewithal (or money) to hunt down a tailor right now. I don't really do the blazer/jacket look anyway, but jackets tend to pull across the shoulders or jab me in the armpits. Because I'm so small and petite (yeah, yeah, an obnoxious problem to have), I get lost in things that have a lot of fabric. I am also very sensitive to changes in temperature (thanks, thyroid!), so I'm usually either freezing or sweating in my clothes.

So I have a hard time finding things that I love. Off hand, I can think of maybe ten things I currently own that I absolutely adore: a grey one-shoulder dress, my straight leg jeans, a sleeveless white ruffled shirt (ok, I know I said I can't wear pure white, but I always wear a necklace), and black pencil skirt come to mind, along with three pairs of shoes. I have a fashion magazine addiction, admittedly, but I'm not ever going to be a slave to trends and find most of them ridiculous, anyway; but, like, am I really supposed to get excited about tees and cardigans? I see things on other people and try to emulate their look to no avail, or see cute things and either have them be too expensive or ill-fitting. Since I can't walk around naked, I end up just making do and hope that I at least don't have to spend too much in the process.

Which is why I am beyond excited to have found a new store.

My friend Kate told me about this place called MJR Sales. It's a warehouse for the parent company that owns Victoria's Secret, The Limited, Lane Bryant, and some other brand I've never heard of. It's a little hard to get to, since it's tucked in the back of a corporate park that involves driving through no fewer than two round-a-bouts, but worth it. It's very bare bones--cement flooring, industrial lights, no salespeople to help, and dressing rooms that have curtains instead of doors. Outlets tend to have past-seasons goods, or the factory versions of the current styles, and this place does, too, though with a larger selection and fewer guarantees. I found a wool skirt I would have killed for, and the only sizes they had were 8 and 14. I tried on a great embellished tank I liked, but all three XS had damage of some kind. As the one saleslady remarked to me when I told her it was my first time there, "you have to kiss a lot of frogs." Pucker up.

But there are far more upsides, at least for me. First, the prices are Too Die For. I didn't see one thing over $20 except the wool winter coats. Second, the main part is organized first by item--pants, skirts, short sleeve tops, long sleeve/sweaters, dresses--then by size, then by color. So for green/yellow/cool-toned challenged me, I can just skip that entire portion of the rack. You're only allowed 6 items in the dressing "room" at a time, but they have a nifty system set up so you can switch stuff out without having to travel. I tend to dislike unctuous salespeople, so their absence is actually pleasant. In addition, they have shoes, bags, accessories, jewelry and undergarments/lingerie from Vicki's. (They also have clothes from Vicki's, like in the catalog but that generally isn't available in their stores.) If you're handy with a sewing needle, the damages rack will also be fantastic; I'm not, but some of the things had such negligible problems--a teeny, tiny hole in the back--that it wouldn't bother me anyway, just like the surface gash at the back of my old refrigerator purchased at the scratch-and-dent appliance store.

I came home with two dresses, two sweaters, tights and earrings for $58. The one sweater was originally priced $60 itself! It's the perfect kind of place to stock up on basics; I'm not spending a ton of money on cotton tees, plain cardigans, or simple silver jewelry. I tried on a whole bunch of stuff that didn't work, of course, but that's going to happen anywhere, and I was smart enough to wear an easy on/off outfit and sandals (and ate a good snack prior to departure). I was bummed about that one skirt and the pair of Anne Klein peep-toe slingback heels that fit but had one broken strap, but I really like what I walked away with.

Much to my mother's chagrin, everything ended up being grey or black, but, like, one thing at a time.

"Outside of a dog"

"a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.” (Ba dum bum.)

This witty one-liner is generally attributed to the late comedian Groucho Marx, and, punch line aside, he may have been on to something.

In a recent issue of the journal Psychological Science, a team of researchers found that readers can feel a “true sense of belonging” to the people in fiction. The novels used for this study in particular were Harry Potter (yay) and Twilight (ugh), and after just thirty minutes of being absorbed in the plot, subjects reported feeling the same positive effects as they did after spending time with actual people. One of the authors of the study is quick to point out that reading should not be a replacement for living, breathing people with whom one can have a relationship, but that some of that need to feel like we belong to something can be achieved with books.

Well, yeah.

I know that not everyone is a voracious reader, or, perhaps more fairly, not everyone is a voracious reader of fiction. (I would argue that narrative nonfiction, like memoirs, would probably garner the same results, but I think it’s safe to say that analytical/informational nonfiction probably doesn’t.) But my closest friends and I are big readers, even if our taste differs. And anyone who has ever been swept up in a book can relate to that feeling of wanting to be immersed in the storyworld, wishing a character were your friend/mother/husband, even pet. (The canine narrator, Enzo, of The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein might be one of the most wonderful dogs in fiction. Ever.*)

Maybe we would give a character advice—yes, make him breakfast tomorrow, Molly! Maybe we’d like to just hang out—the Weasley twins would be an exhausting amount of fun, as would Tiny Cooper. We might want to date a character—Nick Carraway seems nice; Mr. Darcy is generally popular—be their adoptive daughter (the Boatwright sisters), go on their adventures (Lyra), etc. There are so many characters I would love to have in my classroom as a student—Delly, Holling Hoodhood, maybe even Holden—and I would of course have loved to gone to Hogwarts. (I mean, seriously.) I don’t want to get into the Arena during the Hunger Games, but hanging with Jace, Clary and Simon at the Institute? Yes, please.

Even if the characters are pathetic, heinous or wacko—I’m about a tenth of the way through Infinite Jest and, quite frankly, I don’t want to be friends with any of them, yet—if the author has done his/her job well, it should take a moment for me to re-register myself in place and time after placing that bookmark. I should put the book down, get up from my couch/pool chair/bed and have to actively remember that I live alone with my cat who, despite my desperate wishes, does not talk back to me. I should be able to take mindless sips of my chai latte and be deaf to the buzz of my local bookstore or coffee shop. I should almost miss my bus stop. When I find those books that suck me in, I don’t feel alone or lonely. I feel like I just spent some quality time with people that matter to me.

Of course, TV shows can do this, too. (Movies, well, less so, because the total amount of time required is far less than a series, but still, not impossible, obviously. Weren’t there cases of depression recorded after Avatar came out and people were so sad Pandora wasn’t real?) I’ve developed actual crushes on tv characters—McGee from NCIS, Dr. Reid from Criminal Minds—and felt distraught after a summer of intense serial DVD watching—Gilmore Girls circa 2003, Freaks and Geeks earlier this summer—ended.

But I like that this study focused on books. As an only child, I spent many, many, many hours reading when I was younger. Sure, I was a totally dorky kid with a 10 inch black and white tv who lived on a dead end street with exactly one other kid my age, but I enjoyed reading, even then. Like most kids, I tried my hardest to push back my bedtime, and could often read until “late” in the evening if my worn-out-from-working-and-raising-a-kid-alone mom fell asleep on the couch. One year when I was ten or so, I got through the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder series; those books were huge! And I read all of them! In two months! I would often sit in the car until I finished the latest installment of The BabySitters Club that I picked up at the library one mile up the road, and I once very narrowly avoided a horribly embarrassing encounter with aforementioned kid my own age when, in the dead of summer in our non air conditioned house, I was reading in my undies on the couch and he, uncharacteristically, biked up to our front porch instead of parking in the driveway and knocking on that door. Yipes.

I’m not such a bibliophile that I think books will alleviate all of my loneliness—then or now—nor am I delusional enough to believe characters are actual people that I can talk to or be around, even though I would almost always start novel discussions in my classroom with “let’s talk about our friend, [insert character’s name here].” And I admit that I am a bit of an over-feeler (not to be confused with an over-taster, which I also am guilty of being); I avoid some books because of the content (The Underneath), have stopped reading others because I was afraid of what would happen to a person or animal (Room and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle), and have been known to shamelessly cry in public or to talk aloud to the pages of my text. I get wrapped up in some stories at the expense of bathing, eating or, much to the above researcher’s chagrin, being around actual people. But as a single person with limited funds, it’s nice to know that a room full of friends awaits me at my public library.

Hey, it’s nice to feel popular.

*They’re making this into a movie to be released sometime in 2012. I’m dubious how this will be achieved since it’s focalized through a dog and that means they’ll likely alter it so completely the spirit of the story will be destroyed. I look forward to being proven wrong.

I wonder where I get it from...

Below is an essay of sorts written by my great-grandmother, Susan Brewster Wheelock, circa sometime around 1930ish. It's not dated like many of her other writings my mom found, but the biographical details mentioned it in set the date at least after my great-aunt was born, and likely a bit after, though my mom can't recall our family history well enough to place it any more precisely. Susan, or "Graud," as my mother and aunt called her--somewhat unflattering, though I called my grandmother "Gaga", and I'm not sure which is worse--graduated magna cum laude from Smith College in the 1920s and was "smart as a whip" as Gaga liked to say. While I have the body type and mannerisms of my mom, I have often been told I look more like Graud than any other family member; we have a very similar profile with our oddly acquired button nose, fair skin and dark, curly hair. Our personalities are (were?) quite alike as well, I'm told, as are our "brains." (Smart as a whip? Me? I guess I do okay.) Anyway, the following essay or diary entry, typed verbatim from the original--now on delicate yellowed paper with faded ink--indicates that we probably would have gotten along had we had the chance to know one another.

"Give Me Another Title"

My pride is reduced to smoldering embers when I am forced to write "housewife" on a legal document. I know I am a housewife and ever shall be, but it shrivels my soul. I want to break my back and ruin my hands in the attainment of beauty. I want to tire my brain over something beside the planning of three menus a day multiplied by three-hundred and sixty-five ad infinitum. The pseudonym "housewife" for a widow with two children and a dog is ridiculous and insipid. The eternal ordering of food to fill those gaping mouths, the fighting of dust and disorder, the stern desire to whip my children into a better mold that I have patterned, the necessity of a calm and judicial mind in the face of the countless exigencies of the day depresses me. Rather than read a delightful book, I dust. Rather than practice my adored Schubert, the spinach awaits my pleasure, the vacuum cleaner ties itself into electrical knots, the groceries are late, agents ring the bell, the Delineator desires my subscription. I have become engrossed in "Broome Stages"-the potatoes burn. My brain slowly atrophies in a seething mass of dust and spiders while a symphony plays to the clatter of dishes. I am and ever shall be a housewife, but that speck of dust will not get me down.