Feeling: constricted
Listening to: Seether - Take Me Away
Reading/Watching: Return of the King

When I was a kid, I loved dressing up.

At my grandmother's house, there was a huge box full of old clothes in the big closet of the middle bedroom (11 kids, 4 bedrooms. I shudder to imagine), and my cousins and I would pounce on that sucker and fight over who got to wear the hot pink nightgown and who got to wear the black-and-yellow-polka-dotted cheerleader skirts. We'd change a dozen times and parade our formalwear in front of all the aunts and uncles, play princesses and superheroes in funky '70s outfits (they had handmade beaded jewelry in there, but last time I checked it had all been broken by dozens of careless hands), and basically feel like we'd discovered buried treasure every time we found a new, weird, pretty thing on top of the box (although now I strongly suspect my grandmother dug them out of the other closets for us to find when we visited).

Thus, I thought I would like dressing up when I got older. The thought of getting to wear fancy things every day instead of being told "No, you can't play in the rain in that, you'll get it muddy" was downright enticing.

Now I'm a boring grown-up, and I sing for a living, which requires nice clothing. I got a call yesterday asking if I'd be available for a funeral this morning, and so after the service I went to class still wearing the long black skirt, button-down shirt, pantyhose and fancy flats. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, since I can wear them for two or three hours without discomfort. Surely six or seven won't be much worse, right?

Wrong. First thing I did when I got up to work study this afternoon was lock up the office door behind me, turn the fan on full-blast, and strip down to underwear so that my skin could breathe (perhaps August is not the best time to wear black wrist-to-ankle).

I spent the rest of the day slouching, lounging, without a care as to whether my knees were together, whether my buttons were gapping, whether my hose were gathering around my ankles.

Perhaps fancy clothes are designed to make us grateful for the invention of sweatpants and t-shirts. I'd like to kiss the person who dreamed up elastic waistbands.

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