Jean Genie
I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering if I have become tedious or shallow. I review my blog posts and worry that I only write about buying things. I worry that I no longer have deep thoughts -- not unless you count that time that I compared the heightened emotional states of the characters in Werther to Scott Pilgrim. In the interest of preventing myself from calcifying completely, I make some small effort to push myself out of my comfort zone: I bike around the baseball stadium, or go see a band I've never heard of, or go to some work event and talk to a stranger.
This is why, when one of my former co-workers declared that she required girlie shopping support while she purchased a new pair of jeans, I said yes. Okay, it came out as "Are you kidding? I haven't purchased a pair of jeans since 1996. Are you inviting me along as comic relief?" but I meant "Yes, I will embrace this new experience and meet you in front of the Levi's store in Union Square."
I do not wear jeans. Indeed, I rarely wear pants. The Eastern European Squid-Crested Never is a small mammal with disproportionately short, stubby legs and a very small waist. It clothes itself in dresses and skirts, usually from the late 50's and early 60's, when its cartoonish waist-to-hip ratio was considered normal. It clings to the belief that the shirtwaist dress is the platonically ideal garment, constructed by benevolent fashion gods as proof of their love. It worries about the effect its Hulk-like expanding shoulders may have on its sartorial options. The Eastern European Squid-Crested Never does not wear tee-shirts unless it is exercising. Its former co-worker laughs and charitably describes this as "having a point of view."
The Levi's store has an entire floor dedicated to women's jeans. If you are a woman interested in jeans at this time, you may buy "skinny jeans" "straight-leg jeans" "boot-cut jeans" or some kind of jean/legging thing. Levi's promises a variety of "curvy" or "demi-curvy" cuts, which seem like they might solve the primary problem I have with all pants: if they fit my hips and thighs, pants are inevitably much too large in the waist. I pick a pair of jeans according to my waist size, which ends in tragedy. Going up to a pair of 29's results in jeans which are merely unflattering. There are no boot-cut black jeans to be found, which means that if I want black pants, I must settle for a pair that makes my legs look like ice- cream cones. My partners in crime are similarly displeased. We flee.
Our fallback position is The Gap. I have not entered a Gap store in more than a decade. It has been many years since I have seen anything in a Gap display window that did not threaten to send me into a coma of boredom. The downtown Gap in ess eff is also perilously close to Anthropologie, where my paycheck goes to die. The Gap does not appear to believe that jeans were meant to be black. I am forced to settle for a variety of dark blues. I avoid skinny and straight-legged jeans altogether and seek out the widest-legged boot-cut jean in the store. All of the sizes that worked at the Levi's store are too big here -- 28's are tight across the thighs, but at least they aren't threatening to fall off of my hips. The sales girl insist that you should just barely be able to button your jeans: they stretch! She taunts my co-worker into trying on smaller and smaller sizes until she feels like she is wearing a denim sausage casing. I cycle through a variety of cuts until I find the Gap's equivalent of "curvy" jeans in a dark wash, treated in some way that makes the denim feel especially soft. The jeans are part of the 1969 collection. Presumably, one is supposed to wear them and feel like Janice Joplin. I do not feel like Janice Joplin, but my legs do not look stubby and my butt is not entirely objectionable. I suspect that this is as good as I am ever going to look in jeans. I buy them. I think I could pull of some sort of early hippie retro thing. Mona would wear denim, even if Mrs. Madrigal wouldn't.
To make up for this bizarre departure from character, I pull the former co-worker into the makeup store, where I taunt her with false eyelashes and we make ourselves up like drag queens. The balance of girliness is restored. All is well with the world.
This is why, when one of my former co-workers declared that she required girlie shopping support while she purchased a new pair of jeans, I said yes. Okay, it came out as "Are you kidding? I haven't purchased a pair of jeans since 1996. Are you inviting me along as comic relief?" but I meant "Yes, I will embrace this new experience and meet you in front of the Levi's store in Union Square."
I do not wear jeans. Indeed, I rarely wear pants. The Eastern European Squid-Crested Never is a small mammal with disproportionately short, stubby legs and a very small waist. It clothes itself in dresses and skirts, usually from the late 50's and early 60's, when its cartoonish waist-to-hip ratio was considered normal. It clings to the belief that the shirtwaist dress is the platonically ideal garment, constructed by benevolent fashion gods as proof of their love. It worries about the effect its Hulk-like expanding shoulders may have on its sartorial options. The Eastern European Squid-Crested Never does not wear tee-shirts unless it is exercising. Its former co-worker laughs and charitably describes this as "having a point of view."
The Levi's store has an entire floor dedicated to women's jeans. If you are a woman interested in jeans at this time, you may buy "skinny jeans" "straight-leg jeans" "boot-cut jeans" or some kind of jean/legging thing. Levi's promises a variety of "curvy" or "demi-curvy" cuts, which seem like they might solve the primary problem I have with all pants: if they fit my hips and thighs, pants are inevitably much too large in the waist. I pick a pair of jeans according to my waist size, which ends in tragedy. Going up to a pair of 29's results in jeans which are merely unflattering. There are no boot-cut black jeans to be found, which means that if I want black pants, I must settle for a pair that makes my legs look like ice- cream cones. My partners in crime are similarly displeased. We flee.
Our fallback position is The Gap. I have not entered a Gap store in more than a decade. It has been many years since I have seen anything in a Gap display window that did not threaten to send me into a coma of boredom. The downtown Gap in ess eff is also perilously close to Anthropologie, where my paycheck goes to die. The Gap does not appear to believe that jeans were meant to be black. I am forced to settle for a variety of dark blues. I avoid skinny and straight-legged jeans altogether and seek out the widest-legged boot-cut jean in the store. All of the sizes that worked at the Levi's store are too big here -- 28's are tight across the thighs, but at least they aren't threatening to fall off of my hips. The sales girl insist that you should just barely be able to button your jeans: they stretch! She taunts my co-worker into trying on smaller and smaller sizes until she feels like she is wearing a denim sausage casing. I cycle through a variety of cuts until I find the Gap's equivalent of "curvy" jeans in a dark wash, treated in some way that makes the denim feel especially soft. The jeans are part of the 1969 collection. Presumably, one is supposed to wear them and feel like Janice Joplin. I do not feel like Janice Joplin, but my legs do not look stubby and my butt is not entirely objectionable. I suspect that this is as good as I am ever going to look in jeans. I buy them. I think I could pull of some sort of early hippie retro thing. Mona would wear denim, even if Mrs. Madrigal wouldn't.
To make up for this bizarre departure from character, I pull the former co-worker into the makeup store, where I taunt her with false eyelashes and we make ourselves up like drag queens. The balance of girliness is restored. All is well with the world.