Not quite an “it bag”

We’ve all heard about the “it bag” — the gaudy, blingy, overpriced-but-I’ve-got-to-have-it bag of the moment.

Your attitude toward the “it bag” may depend on your value system, budget, and/or personal political philosophy. To you, “it bags” may be odious symbols of excess and greed. Or, they may be shameful temptations, awakening deeply hidden desires. They might be valued wardrobe basics or temporary flings. Quite possibly, they are all of the above.  You may own one, several, or none.

For the record, I’ve never owned an “it bag.”  I am way, way, WAY too cheap.  And even if I weren’t, I’d be too worried about damaging an expensive status handbag.  Coffee spillage happens, you know, to say nothing of the toxic layer of lint, paper clips, cough drops and gum wrappers that always seems to spring up at the bottom of my handbags. However, I do love bags.  All kinds of bags.  I am always looking at new bags — floppy totes, classy satchels, you name it.

Fortunately, when it comes to bags, it takes very little to please me. There is absolutely no other explanation for this bag.

Yes, it’s a cheap cotton tote bag.  Yes, it’s from a bookstore.  We know that because it has a nerdy, book-centric slogan on the back:

That’s right: Books you don’t need, in a place you can’t find. This bag comes from a wonderful bookstore, hidden deep in the woods of Western Massachusetts.  Perversely, though, I rarely carry it in Massachusetts.

When do I carry it? Why, when I visit relatives in Southwest Florida, of course. How is it possible that, in a fairly tony beach town filled with sophisticated, well-dressed people, I feel impossibly chic carrying this bag?

I know this bag is not impossibly chic. I mean, OK, it’s black. But the chic-itude ends there. Yet I love, love, LOVE to carry this bag in South Florida resort towns.

Maybe there’s some part of me that wants to wear a big, glowing sign that says, “Yes, I love it here, but I am not from here. I am from the great frozen North, where we get lost in the woods looking for bookstores because it gets dark at 4:30!  So yes, I have white, pasty skin, but I am very well-read!  Do not judge me!”

Maybe I love it because it’s the anti-beach bag. It’s not made of straw. It’s not in a stereotypical, bright, beachy color. It’s black and white! Plain cotton! Unexpected! And it folds down to nothing, to be packed in a suitcase!

Maybe I love it because it’s so lightweight and easy to carry, while also having room for everything you need.  And I DO mean everything. In this bag, I have carried the following:

• 1 water bottle,
• 2 cans of sunscreen spray (because one always runs out, and you get no advance warning),
• one novel, suited to beachside reading,
• my wallet, because I might want to do some post-beach shopping,
• one ziplock bag filled with essential beauty items (lip gloss, hair ties, and eye drops, among them),
• not one, but TWO beach towels,
• an assortment of beach-munching snacks,
• a hat to block the sun,
• a skirt to change into after leaving the beach, and
• any incidental items that I happen to purchase while strolling through quaint, trendy beachside town.

Honest to God, the bag expands to fit whatever I want to put in it. And it never seems to get too heavy!  When I take items out, the bag seems to shrink, so it never seems too large to carry, even with few items.

I love this bag. And carrying it to the beach — followed by post-beach cute town strolling, shopping, and iced-coffee sipping–just makes me happier than words can express.

Yes, I know, it might not just be the bag.  It might be my location.  It might be the fact that I am, miraculously, spending time in a place where palm trees grow in January.  It might be the fact that I am, even more miraculously, not at work.  It might be the fact that, when I carry this bag, I have the freedom and flexibility to walk from beach to town, moving from sunbathing to shopping to restaurant dining, simply adding and subtracting items from the bag as I go.

But I think it’s also the bag.

Maybe I should try carrying the bag to work, just to see if it puts me in a relaxed frame of mind.

Nah.  I don’t want to break the spell of the uniquely joyful, beach-strolling vacation bag. I need to save this bag for occasions worthy of it. I need to make sure that, whenever I grab this bag, I immediately associate it with the feeling of shuffling along in flip-flops, fresh from the beach, sun and breeze tickling my bare shoulders, hair flying everywhere, and still feeling pretty enough to waltz into a cute cafe or restaurant and linger awhile. Pretty enough because the sun gives me a warm, glowing-from-within, free-spirited feeling that cannot be replicated by any cosmetic product known to humanity.

It’s a magic bag.  That must be it.

Do you have any truly special bags?  What powers do they have?  Do they change how you feel?  What do they say about you and your life?

Visible Monday: Rocking a fake pashmina

Once you start wearing a big old shawl everyday, you’re on the express train to old ladyhood, right? Well, that’s what I’ve always thought.

So it was with mixed feelings that I fell in love with this cozy, oversized scarf the other day. We were sightseeing in a small town that we like to visit. It’s the perfect browsing town — quaint but not too sleepy, bustling but not harried, and very, very stylish, without being intimidating. It’s full of unique shops and galleries, brimming with items that we just don’t find at home.

And yes, there is money in this here town. So of course I wanted to hit the local consignment shop.

The shop was a bit unusual — small, with an odd mix of things. For clothing, I didn’t see much. There was some gorgeous amber jewelry, but that seemed a bit extravagant — I just wasn’t in the zone.

But there were a number of scarves.

As I tried them on, the store owner heard me voicing my old-lady fears. “I just sold a couple of these to some teenage girls, and they loved them,” she assured me. (And I must confess, the catty part of me briefly pictured hordes of teenage girls wearing the scarves with pajama pants and Uggs).

But I just fell in love with the scarf, so I bought it, for $13. I’m very happy with it, even though I know the whole thing may be a bit of a sham.

In the store display, the scarf was identified as a “silk pashmina.” The label says “55% pashmina, 45% silk.”

But the label is also glued in. It doesn’t say where it was made. And the “brand” name is, I kid you not, “Pashmina.”

Now, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know that glued-in labels are not a sign of top quality. I’m pretty sure that “Pashmina” is not a brand, and I also know that real pashminas are expensive. True, I didn’t know what “pashmina” meant until I looked it up online.  (It’s a cashmere-like fabric, for the record.  And apparently it’s so fragile, it could never stand up to a glued-in label).

Not surprisingly, my Internet search also revealed that there are a lot of fake pashminas out there. A veritable black market! Picture it, if you will:  furtive clusters of chilly, shawl-deprived women scurry into a dingy side street, seeking the hidden, forbidden, counterfeit pashmina shop.  (“Knock three times!  Tell ‘em Joe sent you!”)

Now, the store owner told me that this scarf was consigned, but she had a whole bunch of them. Was she being untruthful? Is her “source” a fake pashmina mill, rather than a wealthy dowager with shawls to spare?

Or — and I think this is more likely — did somebody in this small but stylish town order a bunch of pashminas online, only to be cruelly disillusioned when she realized they weren’t real?

Well, her disappointment is my gain. Because I love this scarf! It’s warm and cozy. The colors are rich and vibrant, the fabric soft yet substantial. And no, I’m not a fabric expert, but my current scarf collection includes some synthetics that feel lush as well as some natural fibers that feel skimpy or scratchy. The bottom line is: if it looks and feels nice, I don’t really care what it’s made of.

And at $13, I consider it a bargain, no matter how fake it may be. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve browsed scarves in chain stores — scarves in serviceable but unremarkable fabrics and patterns, repeated dozens of times over, scarf after identical scarf — priced at $30 and upwards.

In contrast, this scarf seems unique and striking. When I wear it, a certain kind of sumptuous, Old World glamour creeps in, and I start to feel very 19th-century Russian novel. It’s just the thing to feature for Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style!  (Be sure to visit the site to see what all the other stylish women are wearing to feel visible today).

So now I’m ready to rock my fake pashmina all over town.  Now, if only I could figure out how to remove the label without ruining it…

 How about you?  Do you love something that you know is “fake?”  

As a postscript, two of my favorite bloggers — Debbie at She Accessorizes Well and Serene at The Elegant Bohemian – recently awarded me with the “Liebster blog award.” They both have such wonderful blogs, and I’m so touched that they thought of me!

To be honest, kind bloggers have sent me awards once or twice before, but I’ve been reluctant to participate for various neurotic reasons. I worry, for example, that I’ll insult some great bloggers by leaving them out.  Or, I hesitate to break with my blog’s theme — such as it is — by tailoring a post to the blog awards.

But we small bloggers have to stick together, so I am participating in this one. Liebster means “dearest” in German, and this award is given to bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. Each recipient is asked to choose five other blogs to award. It was hard to choose which blogs to feature because there are so many good ones, and with the WordPress blogs, it can be hard to determine the number of followers.  But enough obsessing:  I had to choose, so here is my list.

1. A Curious Girl’s Guide to Life - Gail is a British blogger who writes about a broad range of topics with a keen eye and playful sense of humor.  Plus, her David Bowie obsession is simply charming.
2. Average in Suburbia - Very, very funny posts, as the title would suggest.
3. Fashion Me Blog - Angie blogs from Greece, and I just love how she documents her process of creating interesting, low-cost outfits during troubled times.
4. Hagfest - I can’t resist blogs with ironic titles spoofing our misconceptions about aging. Very funny.
5. The Chronicles of Lady K - Kari and I joke about having been separated at birth.  I love her funny, self-effacing style as she documents the struggle to get oneself out of the house looking presentable.  I can relate!

These are all great blogs — check them out!

And to these five excellent bloggers:  if you choose to participate, the stipulations of the award are as follows:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your 5 blogger picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Hope that the people you have sent the award to will forward it to their favorite bloggers.

Have fun!

The other gold

Mr. Frump and I recently got together with two old friends.   They started out as Mr. Frump’s coworkers, but they soon became friends in earnest.  But things changed, as they often do: first the job, then our residence.  Even though we all still live within an hour’s drive, Mr. Frump and I are now firmly over the state line in what feels like a different world.

We’ve known these women since we were in our twenties, just establishing ourselves as independent adults. So my memories of our friendship are inextricably linked with my memories of being young and newly launched.  These women were both models, in a way, of the kinds of women that I might grow up to be.  They were full-fledged, real-life grownups, with jobs and kids and houses. I think they were just barely 40, but to me they fell into that blurred category of adult that started at age 34 and ended just shy of 50.  At the time, I probably perceived little difference between those two extremes.

Back then, we shared various social events — movies, dinners out, parties — with one or both of these friends.  One of the two even attended our wedding, with her 10-year old daughter (who, I’m shocked to realize, is now older than we were).  We were also frequent guests in her home, enjoying the happy chaos of her family’s life.

The years passed, and though we didn’t quite lose touch, we all became busy with our own lives.  Both women lost their husbands — one to divorce, the other to illness.  Their kids grew up and moved away.  We saw each other a few times, but not many.  Until last week, that is, when we sat together for a holiday lunch.

My first thought was: how wonderful they both look!  Older, maybe, but exactly like themselves.  Now I’m the woman in her 40′s, so it follows that they must be women in their 60′s.  But these are not the 60+ women of my grandma’s era!  Or perhaps my perspective has just shifted.

The community in which we all met looked like a quintessential small town — Bedford Falls, if you will, or perhaps Grover’s Corners (or Peyton Place, at times!).  It was surrounded by mountains and seemed in the middle of nowhere, but the area boasted a famous artist’s colony, several music festivals, and a theater company or two.  You could find many artistic, creative people — people from other places.

Seeing our two friends brought it all back.  They are both so cultured, yet so down to earth.  They talk of theater and opera, yet they both spend much of “mud season” mucking around in rubber boots.  Both have dealt with loss and pain and money struggles — being suddenly single is never easy — but they find ways to work for a living and still pursue life.  They’re both smart and funny as hell, quick to laugh at the absurdity of life, rolling their eyes at the latest idiocy from the mouths of their supervisors, co-workers, and elected politicians.  Neither woman is living through her children.  Both are active and engaged, loving life and art and beauty, wherever they find it.

And did I mention that they both look fabulous?  They don’t talk themselves down, or bemoan aging.  One did tell a funny story, though, about a family member who had given all the relatives a curious gag gift — photos of themselves, altered to look older.  ”They photoshopped in jowls, and wrinkles, and everything,” our friend laughed.  Apparently, one of the recipients didn’t recognize herself in the picture.  ”Who is that?” she said.

It’s probably a good thing that we don’t have to see our own aging in such a sudden, jarring fashion.  When it happens gradually, we don’t even notice it in quite the same way.  It seems like nothing more than a slight, day-to-day alteration.  Something not at all scary, and perfectly natural.  Which of course it is.

Sure, looking at old photos can be a shock, when we see several years of changes all at once.  But I’m so relieved to know that it’s possible to see friends after several years and be struck not by the aging, but rather, by their essential sameness.   “Yes!  They are still themselves! “

So we laughed, and lunched, and visited.  At the end, we vowed to get together more often.  I hope this isn’t just one of those empty promises that people make.  I don’t think it is.  We’ve identified several promising meeting places — a music club, an old movie theater — that are convenient to all of us.

I’m looking forward to watching our friends move through this new stage in their lives, and on into the next one, whatever that is.

Happy Holidays.  Enjoy your families but also your friends, both new and old.

Glasses half full

So I finally did it.  I finally gave in and picked up some reading glasses.

I’d been thinking about it for over a year. Maybe I resisted because it’s a sign of aging.  The first time you start moving a prescription bottle away from you, in order to read the (ridiculously!) fine print on the label, you know some sort of line has been crossed.

For me, the trouble started during chorus rehearsals. At first I chalked it up to poor lighting in the church where we rehearse.  It doesn’t help that, in choral singing, you are forced to read musical notes and words at the same time.  And some of these words are in other languages!  Latin or French or, God help us, German!  I mean, come on, people.  Really?  All those notes and German, too?

But it didn’t escape my attention that, most of the time, I was the only one throwing her hands up  in surrender.  I looked around at my fellow singers, most of whom are older than I am.  In their reading glasses, they were all doing just fine.

So I started thinking about buying a pair.  I discussed it with my eye doctor.  He helped me figure out which degree of magnification to get (the minimum, I hasten to point out).

And then I delayed a little longer.

Maybe it’s because eyeglasses were the bane of my childhood.  I had them from the ages of 8-16.  Do any of you remember what glasses looked like in the late 1970′s?  They were garish, oversized, plastic monstrosities, with lenses so thick, they reflected all light and made your eyes all but invisible to others.

Sure, now I think the little girl in Little Miss Sunshine was adorable in her glasses.

When it was me?  Not so much.

Back then, little had changed since the days when Dorothy Parker insisted that men “seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”  Though we didn’t have makeover shows at the time, we did have mini-makeovers occurring on programs like The Brady Bunch.  If the script called for an unattractive girl or woman, the solution was to find a drop-dead gorgeous actress and throw a pair of comically oversized glasses on her.  Bingo!  She’s ugly now!

But glasses have undergone a transformation since the 1970s.  It may have begun in the 1980s, when celebrities started wearing glasses when they wanted to look smart.  I remember reading an article at the time that discussed this phenomenon, using some bespectacled, politically active Brat Packers as examples.  Smug in my newly acquired contact lenses, I didn’t pay much attention.

But glasses are accessories now.  Women change them like handbags.  My office mate has the cutest, trendiest glasses I’ve ever seen.  They actually make her look younger and more stylish, for reasons that I can’t quite fathom.  In the culture at large, glasses have become — dare I say it? — sexy.

For ages, I’ve been meaning to get myself a stylish pair of glasses.  I still have an old pair that I wear, at home, at night, when the contacts are out.  They are not cute, or trendy.  They’re not terrible, but the instant I put them on, I feel like I can’t be seen in public.

Is the problem the glasses themselves, or my adolescent baggage?  How does just adding a pair of glasses instantly make me feel like my appearance has been permanently altered?  How do I immediately become The Ugly Girl?

In any event, I’ve continued to procrastinate on the great glasses search.  But I thought to myself — might reading glasses be a baby step in that direction? The idea began to have some appeal.

I started noticing how many others wear reading glasses.  They were everywhere.  Not only were my colleagues and co-singers wearing them, but folks in the world of pop culture, too.   I was absolutely charmed when unlikely, “tough” characters wore them — like Mickey Rourke in the The Wrestler, or Katey Sagal’s biker matriarch on Sons of Anarchy.

Meanwhile, I continued garbling my words in chorus.  I contemplated ordering hamburgers in upscale restaurants because I couldn’t read the menu.  (Damned mood lighting!  Damned trendy restaurant menu fonts!)  I started worrying that I would accidentally overdose on over-the-counter medicines like Advil or cough syrup.    I had trouble finding textbook page numbers while teaching my class.

And finally, I was ready.  So off to Target I went.

The pair that I bought are not exactly high fashion.  I decided that I should look at the cheapest possible models, since these are just starter glasses.  I wasn’t even sure if they would work.  And when it comes to readers, most people have a million different pairs anyway, right?  Because they get lost all the time?

None of them transformed me, instantly, into that smart-yet-sexy, serious-yet-stylish look that I hoped for.  They certainly didn’t make me look younger!  But I found an acceptable pair, and got them.

At first I thought I would only wear them at chorus.  But my eye doctor had warned me that, once I started wearing them, I might want to wear them more.  He says this is not because glasses make your eyes weaker — a commonly believed myth — but because once you realize what it’s like to see well, you’re no longer content with seeing poorly.

He’s right.  I’m now reaching for them while reading newspapers, student papers, and yes, even medicine bottles.  Restaurant menus are no match for me now.  Caprese, capretto, capellini, go ahead.  Bring it on.

I’ve even reached for them a couple of times while teaching.  Passing back the wrong papers to the wrong students is not good.  Sure, it’s a pain rummaging in my bag to find them.  But maybe I could get one of those chains to hang them around my neck.

Or maybe not.  That might be just a little too schoolmarm for me.

As for how they look on me, who can say?  When I’m wearing them, I can’t see the mirror too well. I did catch Mr. Frump smirking at me the other day when I was using them.  But I don’t think it was a “You are ridiculous; what the hell is wrong with you?” smirk.  I’m pretty sure it was his “Oh, you look cute!” smirk.   He encouraged me to use them later, when I was squinting at a menu.  So maybe I am pulling off that smart/sexy thing.

And does it bother me that Mr. Frump still doesn’t need them?  Even though he’s over a year older than me?  Well, yeah.  Maybe a little.

But I think I just need to embrace this new stage.  With aging comes wisdom, right?  And authority?

Case in point:  there’s one schoolmarm stereotype that I look forward to trying.  I have often yearned to have the perfect expression for the student who didn’t do homework, or who says or does something inappropriate in class.  I can just picture myself pausing for a dramatic moment, peering sternly over the top of the frames, and not having to say a word.

Really?  You disappoint me, sir.  That is what my expression will say.  And it will be powerful.

Do you have any eyewear stories to tell?  Have you gone through any other style-related rites of passage?

All aboard the gratitude express!

This is the time of year when many of us pause to reflect, with gratitude, on all the good things in our lives.  But what about all the bad things that are finally gone from our lives?  Can’t we be grateful for those, too?  I will never have to sit through another Smokey and the Bandit or Porky’s movie for as long as I live.  Surely this is cause for celebration.

In that spirit, here is this year’s gratitude post.

I am grateful that the following things are out of my life forever:

Gym class.

The horrible uniforms we wore for gym class.  These were ugly, unitard type garments, but with shorts.  They were relics from the past even when we wore them.

Bifocals.  Why they were given to me as a child, I’ll never know.  I choose to believe that I will not be wearing them again, in my older years.  Indulge me on this one.

Control top panty hose.  I’m never going back, people.

Tab diet cola.  With saccharine.  Remember saccharine?  If you ever had any, the aftertaste probably still lingers.  If that’ s what skinny tastes like, I’ll be fat, thank you.

Student loans.

Manual typewriters.  And the obligatory white-out that went with them.  And the smudgy blots that always appeared all over anything I wrote.  Obsessive wordsmithing and last-minute edits are so much easier on a computer.

Old school maxipads.  You know what I’m talking about.  If you don’t, consider yourself lucky.

Record players that skipped every time you walked across the room.

Physics class.  Sure, it taught me how the Doppler Effect works, and that’s kind of cool.  But it wasn’t worth the year of torture. Besides, everything I need to know about physics can be summed up in one sentence, put forth by actor Steve Coogan in The Trip: “You only have momentum when you’re going downhill.”

Really bad restaurants.  Have you noticed that there just aren’t too many of these any more?  Even the most mediocre chain restaurants have upped their game considerably.  This is good news for those of us who use our cooking skills….. um…. sparingly.

Dot-matrix computer printers that required you to feed the paper manually.  Remember the paper with holes on the sides?  Or how easily it misfed, resulting in a pile of crumpled, unusable paper?  Remember how your coworkers used to come running because your profanity-laced hissy fit was alarming the whole office?  Or maybe that was just me.

Mandatory high school pep rallies.  No, really.  We had them.

Bridal and baby showers — the most deadly dull gatherings ever contrived.  Where else do you find a roomful of women oooh-ing and ah-ing over kitchen implements?  The gifts at baby showers are cute, at least, but there’s always one guest whose labor and delivery horror stories send me running for the bar.

Dieting.  Trying to eat healthier foods?  OK.  Reducing junk food?  Fine.  Skipping chips at lunch?  No problem.  But I WILL NOT DIET.

Noxema in the blue jar.  The tingling sensation meant that it was working!  Really!  The pain was in no way damaging my skin, and I’m sure the thick, paste-like texture did not block my pores.  What the hell was I thinking?

Beer in a can.  Life is just too short, people.

The school bus.  And waiting for it in single-digit temperatures.

Is it a pain getting stuck behind school busses, every day, on my way to work?  Why yes, it is.  Especially since — no joke — I’ve seen kids being transported half a block to school, on a street with sidewalks.  And I’ll bet the parent still waited with the kid, in an idling car with the heat on.  But I’m slipping into bitterness, aren’t I?  I’d rather wait behind a school bus than be stuck on one, any day of the week.

But it’s not just external things that I’m glad to leave behind.  We all have past versions of ourselves that we’ve cast aside because they just don’t work any more.

Over the years, I’ve been able to give up various habits, behaviors and beliefs.  And I’m happy to see them go. For example:

The belief that my basic personality type can or should be changed

I remember a pivotal moment in my teacher training.  I was talking with a mentor about my fear that my flexible, relaxed teaching style might be detrimental to those students who need a strict teacher.  ”But you can’t just change who you are,” she told me.  Since then, I’ve learned how to build structure and accountability into my classes without changing my essential self.

The belief that I can or should do everything that needs to be done, every day, or I am either lazy or incompetent (or both!)

How freeing it’s been to grow older and be forced to conserve my physical, mental, and emotional energy!  How wonderful to be able to prioritize and accept that, well, if it doesn’t get done today, it will get done tomorrow.  And if it doesn’t, maybe it wasn’t that important.

The belief that somebody is always either right or wrong, 100 percent

Oh, what painful cognitive dissonance I used to have in my younger years!  Any time two people who I cared about and respected disagreed vehemently on some subject, I freaked out because I didn’t want either one to be “wrong” and, therefore, flawed!  When this happens now, I think:  Well, maybe they’re both partially right.  Or maybe they’re both wrong.  They’re doing the best they can with the information they have available.

The belief that disappointment, adversity, weakness or failure are horrors to be avoided at all costs

It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing when life teaches you that you learn from setbacks, and that they can even make you stronger.  Do I still want everything to go smoothly, all the time?  Sure I do!  But it’s so liberating to appreciate where I’ve been and accept that our scars and imperfections help make us who we are.

Dare I say it?  I think I’m grateful for not being in my twenties any more.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

How about you?  What are you happy to have OUT of your life this year?  

Visible Monday: Authority & Authenticity

The phrase “fake it ’til you make it” has been on my mind a lot lately.

I’m facing some challenges at work, beyond the normal, everyday challenge of staying on top of the four classes that I teach.  I also have a part-time leadership role at work.  It’s not quite management because I don’t have any real authority, but I do have the responsibility to initiate some changes that affect people other than myself and my own students.

Just for the record, I don’t have this role because I was dying to take it on.  I have it because somebody has to do it, and right now, it’s my turn.

I have to work with others to actually implement anything, but getting the ball rolling requires that I take a bit of initiative and employ some political savvy to get things done. I also may need to convince others — and myself — that I know what to do and how to do it.

This does not come easily to me. Making big decisions has always been tough, especially if the consequences of those decisions will affect other people.  I’m easily overwhelmed by too many choices, too much information. I tend to think that reality is complex and multi-layered. I believe there is very little in this life that can be known with any certainty.

Maybe there are clear-cut answers in fields like math or in the hard sciences.  But if you’re talking about education, or politics, or anything involving human behavior, where causes and effects are less easily measured, I’m very suspicious of certainty. If somebody tells me that they know, unequivocally, what the problem is and how to fix it, I tend to think they are either 1) uninformed, 2) delusional, or 3) lying.  Or at least making it up.  Faking it, if you will.

Which brings me back to the phrase, “fake it ’til you make it.” The more I observe the world around me, the more I begin to think that everybody is faking it.

I’m not saying that nobody knows anything.  I’m just saying that people can’t really be as certain as they appear.  The fact that this phrase exists and all, and that I’m hearing it more and more often, would seem to indicate that faking it has become an essential life skill.

Our culture, especially our professional culture, values certainty.  Decisive action.  Problem-solving.  There’s often not a place for reflective types like myself, who mull things over at great length, consider all sides, and try to anticipate every possible consequence of their actions. We often wind up in academia, especially in the Humanities, which is probably appropriate.

My particular field — developing academic English skills among college students whose native language is not English — is extraordinarily complex.  When you add in the diverse educational and cultural backgrounds of our students, it’s even more so.  My “nothing is certain” belief system seems appropriate when I have learners with advanced degrees in their own countries sitting next to those whose native language reading skills are very low.  No one solution is going to work for everybody.

Unfortunately, we still have to make programmatic decisions.  And even in academia, thinking like an academic is not valued the way it once was. A business model has increasingly taken hold. There is much discussion of outcomes, and deliverables, and data-driven, value-added….. um, stuff.

As I struggle to navigate this environment, my own personality type certainly comes into play.  I have some weaknesses to address.  I’m the kind of person who has to stop herself from prefacing comments with disclaimers like, “Well, I don’t really know much about this, but…” or “This is probably a stupid question, but….”

I have always fallen into the trap of thinking that others know more than I do.  And I have often been surprised to discover, later, that I know just as much or more than they do.

Hence the recent realization  that everybody may be faking it.  This is both intriguing and disturbing to me.  I still defer to those who appear more certain.  Because how can you forcefully argue a point if you’re not sure? But if I start to believe that these confident ones are faking it….. does this, perhaps, present new opportunities for me?

By now you may be wondering: what does this have to do with getting dressed in the morning?  Quite a lot, actually.  Because while I feel pretty comfortable with my personal style for teaching, I’m less sure about what to wear while sitting in a high-stakes meeting with administrators.  Some of my favorite wardrobe items — the knee-high boots, the loose, unstructured cardigans– just don’t feel authoritative enough.  Yet they are unequivocally “me.”  Does this mean I’m inherently un-authoritative?

For authority, I think I need a tailored jacket.  But for authenticity, to feel like I’m not wearing a disguise, tailored jackets can be problematic.  I mean, I own them.  I even like them!  But I feel most comfortable when they are paired with something softer.  When their rigid authority is balanced out by flexible creativity.  Just as I’m happiest when belief in one certain, correct answer is offset by an openness to different possibilities.

When I pair a conservative jackets with conservative trousers, I often feel overly rigid.  When I pair them with skirts, I feel torn in two directions. Interestingly, though, I also feel uncomfortable in an outfit that’s too un-tailored.  I’m happiest when my unstructured wraps are balanced out by more fitted, structured items.  So maybe there’s an authoritative side to me, after all?

Here you can see to jacketed outfits in which I feel both authentic and just authoritative enough.

I also mix and match these particular pieces.  You’ll often see the black jacket combo paired with the grey trousers, for example, or the plum jacket and ruffled blouse paired with a knee-length skirt (usually in brown rather than grey, though).  And there are many other possible combinations using other, similar pieces from my closet.

In all of these options, tailored conservatism is balanced out by something softer, more casual, or more creative.  It might be colorful stockings like you see on the right.  Sometimes it’s a more relaxed or feminine fabric (like the corduroy in the plum jacket, or the eyelet of the black jacket).  Often, I will throw in some creative jewelry, like the necklace on the left, handcrafted from recycled glass.

I’m linking to the Visible Monday blog event on Not Dead Yet Style, even though I’m not certain (irony alert!) that this post fits the theme.  Visible Monday is an opportunity for style bloggers over 40 (and often over 50) to showcase outfits that help them resist becoming invisible as they age.

Oddly enough, I think the issue I’m grappling with here does relate to visibility, along with voice.  How do I stand and be counted?  At midlife, many women strive to convince a youth-obsessed world that our experience makes us worth listening to. However, for whatever reason, experience hasn’t given me certainty.  If anything, it’s made me lose my belief in certainty.

But I can’t just give up on making any decisions, or taking any action at all.  I can’t allow myself to fade into the background. Sometimes, I may have to fake just enough certainty to be listened to.  I may have to fake it to myself, so that I’ll have the courage to act!

At the same time, dare I hope that, maybe, I can find a way to assert that reflection and uncertainty are worth embracing, too?  I can’t help thinking the world might be a better place if more people valued reflection, choosing actions more deliberately, and being open to the possibility of changing course if something doesn’t work out the first time.

When I’m involved in serious, scary negotiation and decision-making, I know I may have to fake a confidence that I don’t feel. But I don’t want to fake it all the way, any more than I want to wear a stiff, confining, conservative costume that doesn’t fit me.  I’ve got to come to the table feeling both authoritative and authentic.

The first step?  Getting dressed.

How do you balance authority and authenticity?  Do you ever have to “suit up for battle?”  How do you do this without losing yourself? Do you ever have to fake it?  

Be sure to visit Not Dead Yet Style, to see what the other strong, confident, authentic women are wearing for Visible Monday!

Still here! Almost.

In the outfit post you see here, I am on day two of no electricity or running water.

• Fleece vest by Columbia
• Pajama-style shirt, also by Columbia
• Sweatpants: Target (Champion diffusion line)
• Boots: Target (Merona)
• Goofy headband: Thrifted (just kidding)

This is clearly a no-makeup, no hairstyle look.  Even my fabulous fleet of stylists can’t do anything without warm water, so they called in sick.  But my loyal personal assistant, Charlie, is in it for the long haul, as you can see.  (I keep him on a short leash, just in case).

There’s not really much to say about a freak Halloween Weekend snowstorm.  If you’ve been watching the news, or if you live anywhere in the Northeast, you’re probably aware that this one dumped over a foot in some locations.  Even where accumulations were lighter, the wet, heavy snow brought down tree limbs and power lines everywhere, in large part because the trees still have leaves on them. There were over 600,000 homes without power in my state alone.

Three days later, that number is only slowly decreasing.

Thank God for hotels!  They have heat, lights, TV, flush toilets and, of course, Internet access.  Not many vacancies, but thanks to a little good fortune, I am sitting comfortably in one right now.

The only problem with hotels is that many of them, including this one, don’t accept personal assistants like Charlie.  (Though I suspect they might make an exception if I were Rachel Zoe, or JLo).  So Mr. Frump and I are using this as a base for showering, watching TV, and communicating with the outside world. We still sleep at home, with the woodstove fired up and Charlie sleeping comfortably near it.   It may sound crazy, but since there’s not even any cell phone service at home, it makes sense to us.

During the day, Charlie hangs out at home, waits in the car as we do errands (we check on him regularly), or — as is most often the case — drives around with us.

We’ve seen some interesting sights.  We survived the Great Ice Storm of 2008 (power out for 5 days), but this storm covered a much larger area.  It probably didn’t do as much damage, as it was mostly branches that came down, not whole trees.  But there are still plenty of reminders that this sort of thing is just not normal.

There’s tree devastation,

fallen leaves, branches, and sticks all over the place,

and other reminders of the storm’s untimely arrival.

There are also large groups of power outage refugees seeking sustenance.

This line actually extended outside the door!

You can spot the refugees because they are wearing head-to-toe fleece (or pajamas), the women have wild hair and no makeup, there are almost always children in tow, and everybody is frantically looking for a place to re-charge his or her portable electronic device of choice.

Everybody is quite convivial as they do their best to cope.  Humans are social animals, after all, so we love to swap stories and comparisons.  ”Westford is a mess!  Looks like a war zone!”  ”I heard there was power over in parts of Littleton.” “We drove over an hour to find coffee yesterday.”

Most estimates say it will be another 2-3 days before we get our electricity back.  This is the price we pay, I guess, for living in a beautiful, semi-rural area with lots of trees!  Fortunately, my workplace is closed for the moment — though I expect I’ll be back there at least a couple of days before the power returns at my house.  In preparation, I should be grading rather than blogging, but you know how it goes.

So there you have it.  Anything interesting happening in your life?  Do tell – I’m starved for input!

Dressing in the Dark (and other joys of fall)

Post-harvest hijinks at a local farm

We are entering the time, my friends, when leaving the house with one black shoe and one navy blue shoe is a very real danger.  While I’ve never done this myself, I’ve seen it happen.  Lack of natural light in the morning can make a difference.

The easy answer would be to assemble your outfits the day before, shortly after arriving home from work.  Oh, wait.  It’s dark then, too, isn’t it?

So that leaves the weekend for clothing experimentation and outfit planning.  Just fit that in between buying food for the week, catching up on laundry, and doing your weekly housecleaning and cooking, if you’re so inclined.  Oh, yeah, and any leisure activities that you might hope to do.  And did I mention that you’re squeezing all of this into a shorter day?

After all, some of us like to sleep until 9 or 10 on weekends.  Then it’s time to sit in bed drinking coffee and reading blogs for a couple of hours.   If all goes well, we might be ready to venture out by 2 pm.  Here in the upper quadrant of the Northern Hemisphere, that’s a mere 2-4 hours before it gets dark again.

Let’s just say this time of year can be challenging.

Personally, once the waning light sets in, I’m ready to crawl into bed with a 20 pound bag of Doritos and a nice Cabernet.  (Yes, I know this is a hideous food/wine pairing, but I don’t care).  I’d bring some suitable TV programming with me – something soothing and fashion-centric but not too intellectually challenging.  An endless loop of What Not to Wear might fit the bill, or perhaps the first season of  The Rachel Zoe Project (Pretty, shiny dresses!  No real-life issues, please).

But if you press me, I have to acknowledge that fall and winter do provide fashion joys of their own.  So what if I feel like fuzz is growing on my brain?  There is still Fashion Fun to be had by all.  In the spirit of replacing whining with gratitude, let’s itemize the Dark Season’s silver lining.

The Frump Factor’s Big List of Fall’s Simple Pleasures (Style Edition):

Boots.  (Cue heavenly chorus).  Boots are probably the only reason I don’t actively mourn the end of sandal season (and thus, summer pedicure season).  Ankle boots, knee-high boots, snow boots, rain boots, just-because boots.  Welcome home, my long-lost friends.

Cute tights.   Patterned and/or plain; neutral and/or brightly colored – I love them all.  Is it just me, or do they make my legs look 100 times slimmer, sleeker and more muscular?

No dreaded thigh-stick.  You know how, in the summer, your thighs stick together when you wear short skirts? Consider that a thing of the past. (See also cute tights, above).

Scarves.  Instant style!  Instant color!  Cheaper than jewelry!

My favorite suede jacket.  Come to mama, baby!  Oh, how I’ve yearned for you.

Colorful flannel pajama bottoms.  To be worn at home only, please.  Seriously, people.  If you abuse your pajama privileges, I’m going to revoke them.

Less hair frizz.  True, the reduction in curl is a drag for me.  But I sure don’t miss the frizz!  Now I only look 65% insane at the end of a workday, rather than 99%.

Three words:  leopard print gloves.  I’ve long mourned the loss of my last pair of these, along with their siblings, the zebra print gloves.  But guess what I just found at Target yesterday?  Leopard gloves live!  Whoo-eee!

Fuzzy warm socks.  Here are my two favorite pairs:

 Do you sense a theme developing here?  I guess fall is officially Season of the Leopard.  Rowr!

What are your favorite fall fashion pleasures?  

Style Goes to the Dogs

There have been some recent changes here at Frump Central. After years of enjoying the freewheeling lifestyle of people without children or pets, Monsieur Frump and I have been granted temporary custody of a dog.

Meet Charlie:

Absurdly cute, isn’t he?  A little blurry, maybe.  (And I thought fashion photos were hard to get in focus!)

Charlie’s humans are in a bit of a bind, so he’ll be bunking with us for another week or so.  The responsibility was a little intimidating at first, since we think nothing of leaving the house for twelve hours at a time.  I wasn’t at all sure that our house had been sufficiently dog-proofed.

But Charlie is at least twelve years old, so he’s pretty mellow.  He doesn’t get into things much.  (Unless you count that little incident with the heartworm medicine.  ”If you didn’t want me eating it, why did you put it in a tempting flavor-tab?”  That’s Charlie’s take on it, and he’s not exactly wrong).

But I digress.  Mister Frump is now officially the alpha dog, and I am second in command. It’s nice, sometimes, to have a reason to leave the office at a reasonable hour and come home to take a dog outside.

True, I’ve had a little less free time for assembling new outfits, shopping for fall items, or tweaking my beauty routines.  Instead, I have been observing the life (and style) lessons that a dog can teach. For instance:

1. A black fur coat is very slimming!  So what if fleas and ticks can hide in it?  This is the price we pay for fashion.
2. Beauty sleep is important.  Even if you have to go outside first thing in the morning, 6 am is still too damn early.
3. Don’t fade into the background.  Stand right in the middle of the room and let the world admire you.
4. Treadmill, shmeadmill.  Walking outside will put a spring in your step and keep you young.  Plus, you can stick your nose into all kinds of wonderful, wonderful things.
5. How can you be bored when something as simple as a tennis ball provides hours of fun?
6. Being cool and aloof may be stylish, but where’s the fun in that?  It’s much better to show everybody how you feel.  There’s no shame in whimpering when your loved ones leave and quivering with excitement when they return.
7. It’s our creature comforts that separate us from the beasts.  Wolves may have slept on the forest floor, but that’s because they didn’t have access to fleece blankets.  Or sofas.
8. If you greet the world with a cheerful smile and a sunny disposition, nobody will mind your smelly breath.  Well, OK:  they won’t mind too much.
9. Don’t be afraid to age gracefully.  A little grey around the muzzle lends an air of sophistication.
10. Just because you slow down a little with age, don’t think you can’t still have fun.  With the right motivation, you can still break into an enthusiastic trot.
11. Listen to your doctor.  If the vet says you need arthritis medicine, don’t try to be a hero. Take the pill and continue to enjoy an active lifestyle! And a spoonful of peanut butter helps the medicine go down.
12. There’s nothing wrong with maintaining a simple style.  Leave the cute sweaters to the little Paris Hilton dogs.  Classic dogs look best unadorned.
13. You are awesome, just the way you are.

 Do you have pets?  (Or have you ever served as pet foster parents?) What do they add to your (life)style?

Progress Visible: Style tricks learned from blogging

If I were the type of organized style blogger who actually had themes, my current theme would be “Trying to Get the Most Possible Outfits out of the Fewest Possible Items of Clothing.”

It’s been especially challenging during the recent outbreak of Not Quite Fall/Not Quite Summer that we’ve been experiencing here in the Northeast.  Within the last week, temperatures have swung between the 40s and the 80s, with dewpoints nearly doubling almost overnight.

It hasn’t been good weather for my favorite layering technique — sleeveless top under jacket — because it’s too hot when the jacket is on but too cold, or inappropriate, or wrong for the season, somehow, when the jacket comes off.

Meanwhile, I have exactly two short-sleeved tops to my name.

This has been a wonderful opportunity for me to deploy just about everything that I’ve learned in a year of reading style blogs.  In the old days, when I didn’t have enough clothes, I would just throw something on and try to fade into the background.  Thanks to style blogging, though, I am learning to be visible!  Even when I’m totally faking it!

Here are a few techniques that are helping me to create more outfit variations with fewer pieces.  These include:

• Belting;
• Playing with hosiery in different colors;
• Using creative layering — especially vests and vest/belt combinations;
• Giving some extra thought to my accessories.

Here is one example:

Top by Pappagallo (Macy's); Vest by Talbots; Skirt by Sunny Leigh (Macy's); Shoes by Clark's Artisan line; Olive tights from Target

Loyal followers of the Frump Factor may recognize the vest, purchased during my episode of post-mammogram consignment shopping, and the shoes, which no longer squeak, thanks to the baby powder trick referenced in my last post.

And I must give thanks to Sally from Already Pretty, who taught me the technique of matching tights color to the color of my bottom layer (the top).  (They do match.  I promise.  The olive in the tights just isn’t showing up that well).

I’ve loved vests for years, finding them a lighter, less confining alternative to jackets, but I sometimes find them a little too masculine.  Here, I think the tailored shape of the vest is offset by the flippy shape of my new skirt:

and my accessories, which (I hope) play up the pretty/feminine factor:

Here we see a different look featuring the same skirt and shoes:

Top by Style & Co. (Macy's); Vest by Dana Buchman (purchased on consignment); Belt by Steve Madden (TJ Maxx)

Readers may recognize the belt, which has been featured in many of my outfit posts.  I purchased it while doing my Rut-Busters series, but I never devoted a post to it.  So let me now pay long overdue homage to this belt!  I love, love, love it, and I can’t believe how much adding a belt can do for an outfit.  Thanks again, other style bloggers, for showing me the light.

Of course, I could include any number of other photos, showing the multiple possible variations with these different items, mixed and matched:  belt with no vest, vest with no belt, etc.

And I haven’t even brought my ubiquitous pale blue denim skirt into the mix!  I feel a little under-dressed when I wear that one to work, but with the pink shirt/purple vest combo, sandals instead of pumps, it actually worked.

So one week into Not Quite Fall/Not Quite Summer, with only two short-sleeved shirts (and two knee-length skirts) to my name, I am hanging on.

And although it’s simply not possible to give credit to you all, thanks to the style bloggers who are teaching me, every day, how to fake it!  Many of my favorites will surely be participating in Visible Monday over at Not Dead Yet Style.  Be sure to check them out!