The Fashion World Must Be Insane

People who know me know that I expend an exorbitant amount of time trying stay in step with the fashion world. This is probably an overreaction to having spent the majority of my life being deprived of the opportunity to actually be "in style" having grown up in the Midwest where unless you live in Chicago, you are by definition, behind the times. In the modern area of Amazon.com, Zappos.com and the like, anyone with access to a computer can get pretty much anything they want, anywhere in the world. The result is one does not have to live in New York to look like one lives there. I have never even been to New York but will always aspire to cultivate this city's unique look. Despite my interest, there are some aspects of the fashion world that have me convinced that the people who run it are not fully reality based. I have always wanted the chance to vent these frustrations because those of us that support the system should have the right to have our views heard.


1)Refusing to put pockets in clothes. This is apparently based on the idea that putting things in your pockets makes you look fat. I am not sure how, but somehow a tube of lipstick and a pen have the capability of transforming a model thin woman to a candidate for bariatric surgery in seconds. It is not enough to simply not use the pockets for the "thin obsessed." I read in one magazine that rather than risk the danger of being helplessly compelled to put things in one's pockets a woman must take her clothing to a tailor and have them removed! Fortunately the fashion world has been thoughtful enough to save us a few dollars by making clothing with "faux pockets" to keep us safe from that risk. Okay, it is true, I am thin and do not worry about whether or not I look one pound heavier by carrying a pen in my pocket, but come on, I am a real woman, in the real world with a real job. I want and I need real pockets.


2)Cheeky underwear. What misogynist invented these? All the discomfort of a thong, all the visible panty lines (VPL for those not in the know) of standard panties. All in one package. Now widely available but originally produced by Victoria's Secret, the marketing geniuses who made the thong a household item. Not to rest on their laurels, they had to come up with an item even more uncomfortable and more impractical. Knowing that they are always on the hunt for new ways to make underwear uncomfortable, several women at work and I came up with the MOST ULTIMATELY UNCOMFORTABLE PANTY IN THE WORLD design. I will decline to describe it. We plan to sell it to Victoria's Secret and expect a healthy cut of the profits. Not that any of us would buy it. We will leave that to the 20 year olds in New York that seem to think this kind of thing is sexy.


3)Ridiculous clothing design. I was given a very nice pair of black pants with a short tab belt made out of leather in the center. Those two pieces that constitute the belt are no more than 2 inches each, but since they are leather, the entire pair of pants must be dry cleaned via leather process which runs around $50-$75. All for two 2 inch pieces of leather. Had those two pieces been mounted on snaps so they could be removed, I could have the pants dry cleaned for around $12. Is there any reason those two pieces could not be mounted that way? No. In fact, I took those pants to a local seamstress who did just that. I did that about four years ago and have not had a problem since, but I am paying a whole lot less to have those pants cleaned. The people in New York? Probably are paying $75. As far as to the age of those pants? Are they out of style? No, they are just black pants, they never go out of style. By the way, they do not have pockets, either.


4)$400 haircuts. Do I need to elaborate?


5)Miniskirts 2 inches below the crotch. Considering the popularity of "going commando" recently, these things are not a good idea to begin with. Not to mention, why would anyone want to wear something so short that she cannot bend over, sit down, walk, reach her arms over her head, etc without running the risk of flashing the whole room. Did these things not used to be reserved for strippers?


6)6 inch high spikes heels for work. Fashion magazines will show "work appropriate" outfits that are as on the mark as Lady Gaga is conservative. They invariably feature a pair of shoes that are so high one needs an oxygen tank to breathe. I wear heels at work, more so than most of my cohorts and get teased for doing so by some. My husband is probably my biggest critic in regards to my excesses. But my obsession is shoes in general, be they flat, medium or high heeled and the majority of the time, my heel height is a moderate height which is the most comfortable level for me. One thing is for certain, if they hurt, they do not get worn. I am on my feet all day and the idea of wearing something so toweringly high that I am limping by mid-morning is ridiculous. Any serious career woman knows what I am talking about.


7)Size 12 is a "plus size". In the 80's the average woman weighed 120 pounds and wore a size 12. Since that time, the weight of the average woman has grown as has the average size. It is also true that as years have gone by, what an article of clothing that is considered a size 12 is larger than it was 25 years ago. That said, plus sizes start at size 14 at the smallest, and to hire models that are smaller than that is just an insult.


8)5'4" is short for a woman. Actually it is the average height of the American woman. It is the models that are freakishly tall. So why are average height clothes cut for woman the height of models?


9)Ultra low rider jeans. There is a reason women's waists are thinner than their hips- so their pants do not fall down. Up until a few years ago, that is where we wore our jeans- at our waists. If we wanted jeans that rode low, we borrowed our boyfriend's. Then they gave us our own low rider jeans. Then to really ramp up the refrigerator repairman effect, they gave us ultra low rider jeans. This way, it was impossible to find a pair of uncomfortable Victoria's Secret panties that did not pop out over the top in back and a rising moon was certain to be sighted several times a day.



10) Saying anything so ultra-trendy that it will only be in style for one season, yet still costs $5,000 is a "good investment". Unless you have the money of Oprah Winfrey, this is more money than most women can pay for an outfit they will use for the rest of their life, save three months.



It is a shame that all of the people behind the scenes in the fashion world not be required to have a psychiatric consultation before embarking on their careers. If they were more reality based to begin with, a lot of us would suffer a lot less in the end.

On the Issue of Bath Salts

I am embarrassed to admit that I fell for the ruse (briefly) like many others that the drug that so many kids were getting high from that was said to be a bath salt is not a bath salt. The same product is marketed as a plant food as well. This was a ruse to cover its real active ingredient. It is a highly addictive amphetamine known as MDPV for short. It has been banned in England and many members of the European Union already. Louisiana and Florida have banned it, and it will not be long before Pennsylvania does. We have had many rather tragic stories and at least two direct overdose deaths end up at the hospital here. I have not posted in a while as my time has been occupied working on a presentation relating to some of the results of this drug and have not been doing much on my blog.

Well, maybe I have a bit of writer's block.

But putting in work on the Blizzard, Powdered Rush, Vanilla Sky, call it what you will, epidemic has taken up a lot of time and certainly has interfered with the time I might have spent farting around coming up with ideas to write (more accurately, type) about.

Desperately Seeking Spring

If you are a follower of the woolly worm form of winter weather forecasting you have probably noticed that they were way off last fall. The ones we saw had a black front band that was moderately wide. The middle was mostly brown and the back tip was black. Instead, the entire winter has been cold and snowy. We live in a valley and were spared the depth of snow that nearby communities have endured, but we had snow nonetheless. And it was very cold and windy. The entire winter. According to the woolly worms, the early winter would have severe weather and snow for a while then a mild middle followed by a brief blizzard at the end of the winter. So much for the woolly worms.

Punxsatawuny, PA is about one hour away from where I live so I hear all about the Groundhog Day festivities. Since the woolly worms blew it my hope was maybe Punxsatawuny Phil would be right. It is certainly my I hope now since he saw his shadow and ran back in. An early Spring is predicted. We actually had a few days above freezing over the weekend and that was the first time in weeks. I was almost disappointed that is was not going to snow having gotten so used to this particular weather pattern.. I wanted to take my son sledding one more time, anyways.

But all things considered, I would welcome a respite from my car being covered with salt, the biting wind and being stuck inside. I notice the Sun rising a little earlier each morning and the days getting longer in the evening. I really miss dinner on the back deck after work and playing ball with my son in the yard. The melancholic mood that develops over time during winter grows old and it is getting time for this season to move on.

I am rooting for you Punxsatawuny Phil. I need a dose of Spring euphoria.

To Stop or Not to Stop

"So how do you stop?"

That is a question that should never have been asked about a sledding hill. Sledding is not about stopping, it is about adrenaline. The goal is to find a good hill that provides the ultimate excitement with plenty of opportunity to get injured in all sorts of unpleasant ways. One with lots of jumps, twists and snow banks offering cushioning from sledders sent airborne. Messy details like how to stop can be worked out later, but anyone who insisted stopping in some form of "safe" manner is likely to get written off as a woos. When I was a child, our favored means of stopping usually involved trees or for the more daring, rusty barbed wire.

My husband knows this, but parenthood does weird things to people's brains. So when we stood at the base of "Double Dips", a local sledding haunt, he had the audacity to ask this question. We had only that day been made aware of this hill and had driven by to check it out. Our son is five now and it was time to initiate him into the world of real sledding. He had gone down small slopes in our yard but these were the equivalent of sledding bunny slopes. He was not ready for the hard core X Games version of sledding yet, but it was time for more than this. The Double Dips were actually not that dangerous at all. If they were, the city would not have gone to the length of actually blocking off the two city blocks that comprised the slope to traffic every year with saw horses. This was a decent place to take a kid sledding but how to stop should not have been a concern in my eyes.

This hill was set up with a long stretch at the end of the hill for one's sled to slow down. We took our son sledding and his plastic saucer just drifted to a stop. Fine for young children. But I still long for the days of my youth when we were always in pursuit of "extreme sledding". This was far before the X Games were conceived and no one used any trendy terms like "airs" or "gnarly" to describe our self destructive behaviors. We never knew there was anything that could be viewed as a sport to our activities. We just knew that if we could find the biggest, most dangerous, scariest hill to go sledding on, we had succeeded in our quest.

For us the kind of sled that was used was almost as important as the hill. The old fashioned wooden sled had the advantage of control so it could be used on the more tortuous slopes or on the more treacherous side paths that a simple toboggan could not navigate. Of course having a total lack of control had its own attraction as it significantly increases the danger element. Toboggans lack control, but inner tubes are far superior as they raise the center of gravity making the fall off the sled more dramatic. The best ones are the real ones intended for use in a tire, especially an old one with a bulge on the side that guarantees it will not go straight and one will end up running into a tree or other obstacle

Which goes back to the question of "How do you stop?" Easy, roll off the sled before you hit the barbed wire fence at the bottom of the hill. Run head on into a tree. Steer into the snow bank at the bottom of the hill and hope that you do not get buried. Take your chances with the barbed wire. Sure, you can do the spin out maneuver with a wooden sled if you know how, but the above options are scarier, riskier and far more gratifying. The goal is to get a thrill and scare the Hell out of Mom, not be safe. Safe is for dorks.

Which brings us back to the hill where we brought our five year old son. My husband is not a wimp when it comes to sledding. He knows all about sledding into barbed wire and hairpin turns with a wooden sled. It is just that he is the worried parent now and is not ready to face his son sledding straight into a snow bank. At least not yet.