More Bad Clothing, But That's Not Important Right Now

Weekend Assignment #185: What's the worst clothing ensemble you can recall wearing? I expect we'll get a lot of bridesmaid and prom night nightmares in this one, but anything's up for grabs, and in deed, if it was something you thought was fashionable at the time and now have come to regret, so much the better. Confess! You'll feel better.

Extra Credit: Are you kidding? Pictures, people!

As many of you know, I'm in crisis mode at the moment, and this Weekend Assignment isn't quite eliciting my best efforts tonight. Aside from Tuffy's health crisis, there's the fact that it's a near-rerun. I previously wrote an entry called My Mom Dressed Me Funny in response to a Weekend Assignment about teenage fashion disasters. Yes, I've worn bad clothing before and since my teenage years, but I don't have much by way of pictures to prove it. So here are some photographic reruns from that older assignment - but yes, I will tell you of some other glaring instances of, well, less than successful clothing worn by me.


I previously complained online about the blue polyester pants and the textured turquoise pantsuit, the black and white houndstooth slacks and the polka dot culottes (above). My mom was big on polyester, and on Lane Bryant mail order. I'm not saying that Lane Bryant didn't have any decent clothes in the 1970s, but if they did, my Mom ignored them in favor of stuff that made me that much more of a pariah in a school full of denim-wearing students.


Here's the second best of the many capes and caftans, shawls and ponchos I had over the years, most of them purchased by my mom.

The very worst clothing disaster, though, was in I think fifth or sixth grade. Maybe fourth. Don't ask me how or why, but one or both of my parents brought me back a sarong from someplace or other. Actually, I don't know it was a sarong, but it was something of the sort. Basically it was an almost-skirt with a bunch of extra fabric at the top for wrapping around the upper body and tying closed. There was hardly anything sewn on this large piece of red cloth. It was exotic and pretty, and way too daring for an elementary school student to wear in a white bread suburb, especially a socially inept kid with glasses, braces, and only a vague idea how to keep the sarong on her body. Having been tortured all day for wearing the thing, I got stubborn and wore it AGAIN a year later, with the exact same result. It was an experiment, but I no longer remember the reasoning behind it.

In the mix-and-match department, a la Athena, the oddest combination of clothes was on my wedding day. My friend d had made me an off-white wedding dress with a hood, based on a medieval pattern I selected. I arrived at the reception with my new, waist-length denim jacket over it. Here I am in that same jacket (but not the wedding dress) on the honeymoon.

*****

I copied down the info from the voicemail, and talked to two vets' offices today. The consultation with the animal oncologist is Monday morning at 11:30. Tuffy has something called a squamous cell carcinoma. From everything I read and heard, the treatment is surgery, period - as in do it quick, and hope it hasn't spread yet. This kind of cancer is associated with ultraviolet light from excessive sunshine, something Tucson has in abundance. I don't know that Tuffy's tongue tip has been specifically exposed to a lot of sun, but I suppose it has, given all the panting dogs have to do in Tucson summers. John is at least as freaked out as I am, probably more. Mostly I'm just depressed, and consequently wasting hours on mindless stuff to try to distract myself.

Today was my official first day as an employee of Famous Vehicle Dealer instead of a temp, now that the screening is over with. I worked an extra hour in anticipation of time lost on Monday due to Tuffy. My boss was very supportive, and made a point of saying she's glad I'm there. Aww. It helps.

Tonight I went out to get gas, deposit a paycheck and buy the 2008 Novel and Short Story Writer's Market, this time mostly for the literary agent listings. I'm not prepared at the moment to get serious about that, but when things ease up a bit I'll send out some queries. and I'm still thinking of possible ways to market myself and my work, to improve my standing with people who don't want to take a chance on an unknown writer. One thing I need to do is get serious again about posting fiction on a regular basis, probably both in Messages and on Ficlets. But again, I need a little time to get over the news about Tuffy before I'm likely to want to work on such things again.

Karen


Update, Monday night: on Sunday afternoon I went to Lane Bryant, not for the kinds of clothes my mom used to be but for something decent for the office. Unfortunately, this is one of those "earth tones" seasons, full of dull greens and browns. There was very little in the store that I'd be willing to wear, even if they had it in my size.

The photo above is of one shirt I tried on. I liked the silver fabric and the shirt was in my size. But when I tried it on, I noticed those horrible, awful, grotesque tie straps on the sleeves. Yuck! Just what I need: some bizarre embellishment to draw attention to my scarred and flabby arms. Now, that would have been a fashion disaster! Needless to say, I didn't buy it. I did find a nice blue top, though. - KFB