FASHION AND THE FAT GIRL

One of the things that I really miss about my former self is dressing well. I haven’t bothered to dress up at all since I was about 20 or so; that is when I really started packing on the pounds and started to slack off on attending my religious meetings. Those were really the only opportunities I had to put on my great heels and feel pretty.

Since giving up on me, it’s pretty rare to see me in anything other than elastic waist jeans (horror) and t-shirts. If I do have to wear a dress for some sort of occasion, it is usually some formless sack that hangs from my shoulders; and since I am on the vertically-challenged side (that means short), the dress and or skirt usually hits about 2” above swollen ankles or it hits the floor. Not my best look.

My ankles swell up pretty bad if I am wearing any shoe without some type of arch support – this being because I have managed to flatten my arch into non-existence from carrying all this extra weight around. Walking on your tip-toes in stilettos is not the same thing as arch support. And now that my girls are so big from all the weight, when I slip into a pair of high heels I have a tendency to be top and front heavy and lead with my forehead. Need I reiterate, not really an attractive look for me.

On Friday I sent in an application for a job in Chehalis, WA. After sending it in and being all giddy about what might happen if they did hire me ($3.50 more per hour, great benefits, etc.), I suddenly had a panic attack – what if they have a dress code??? We have a dress code here that pretty much amounts to no flip-flops, no short-shorts, and no holes in your jeans. What if this place hires me and I have to wear a skirt everyday? Oh…help.

My closet consists of three different pairs of the afore mentioned elastic waist jeans (black, stonewash, and khaki), about 10 different t-shirts, one pair of LL Bean black mocs, one pair of tenny-runners, and one pair of black Ariat lace up boots – heavily scuffed. It also consists of about 5 pairs of very shiny black high heels that have never seen the light of day, and never will until I lose about 150 lbs to avoid embarrassing forehead leading accidents.

This leads me (finally) into the thought that brought up the title for today’s post: Where the heck does a 5’3” tall 325lb (give or take) potato of a mature woman with teen-age taste find clothes that fit and do not require a wholesaler’s license from Nieman Marcus and an address in NYC or LA to purchase? There are places to buy such items (but not in Montana, I can assure you), but I don’t have $325 to pay for a single skirt. Plus the fact that my bra bottom currently takes up the same piece of real estate around my mid-section that the waist band of said skirt would wish to occupy, along with the undergarments required to tuck, smooth and shape the rest of my body’s real estate into said skirt and keeping it from popping out at inopportune moments. Who needs to breathe anyway? I hear being comfortable is over-rated.

It almost makes me hope that they don’t hire me. Almost.

While watching an episode of What Not To Wear (from bed) this weekend, my heroes Clinton and Stacey once again pounded home the message YOU ARE WORTH IT. You are worth the effort of dressing well and looking nice; you are worth spending a little (or a lot of) money on; you are worth feeling confident, fashionable, and beautiful. By the end of the show the gal they were working on was believing it and living it.

How the hell do I get on that show? I could believe it too if I had $5000 to spend.

I also found the blog that my all-time favorite author, Jen Lancaster, writes. I love, love, love and adore this woman. Not in a creepy I-think-I’ll-start-stalking-her way (besides, she lives in Chicago – not very practical for me if I did decide to stalk her, which I won’t), but more in a I-want-to-imitate-practically-everything-this-woman-does way. She is the fantastic author of the books Bitter Is The New Black, Bright Lights Big Ass, Such A Pretty Fat, Pretty In Plaid, and the brand new soon to be released in May – My Fair Lazy. (And, NO, she did not pay me in any way, shape or form to list her books on my blog. I have read them all and will re-read them for the rest of my life!!!) I was reading a few past posts and she has an awesome one about plus-sized clothing websites. They. Are. Awesome. I won’t list them here as I feel that would be copying part of her post, but you can check it out at www.jennsylvania.com; check out her post on November 13, 2009 titled: You In The Size Zero Pants, Finish Your Carrot Sticks And Skip This Post. Be sure to read ALL of her stuff, because she. Is. Fabulous. Did I mention that I adore her? Yes? OK. Just checking.

So, anyway, I guess the point that I am very lamely trying to make is that: 1) I need to lose weight so I can buy awesome clothes and look awesome again, and 2) I need a job that pays well so that when I do lose weight and start buying awesome clothes, I can get some seriously kick-ass shoes to go with! ‘Nuff said.

TTFN.