I have nothing to wear.

I have a room full of clothes, but I am missing some important items.

I have more than five vintage prom gowns. I have saddle shoes. I have two pairs of cowboy boots. I have two fur coats and three fur hats. I have a sequined tube top and a studded bra.  I have two leather skirts. I have a girdle, and piles of seamed stockings to attach to it. I have bracelets from Kenya and t-shirts from Brazil and shoes from India and some pretty awesome legwarmers from Canada. I have two purses shaped like watering cans and two purses with working clocks on the front. I have a drawer full of vintage silk scarves, and another drawer overflowing with slips and aprons. I have three capes: one is attached to a minidress, one is attached to a Sherlock Holmes-worthy wool coat, and one is made of orange leather.

Here’s what I don’t have:

• Sandals. Tara asked to borrow some the other day, and I didn’t have any. I hate how most sandals look, and my feet hate how most sandals feel, and my wallet hates how much most sandals cost, and I can’t wear sandals to work, but my feet are really hot right now.
• A plain black t-shirt.
• A plain white t-shirt.
• A sundress. It’s so hot today on the third floor, but I know it’s even hotter outside, and I’ll have to put on clothes before I leave the house. If I had a sundress, I’d be all set. I have short dresses and light dresses and flowy dresses, but I don’t have anything that’s really a sundress. A perfect sundress should have little straps or no straps or a halter top, and be just tight/opaque enough at the top to let you go braless if you can, with a skirt that magically floats around your legs without touching you, but is long enough so you won’t flash anybody. Maybe my sundress standards are high, but it seems like every other girl in the world has a dress or seven like this.
• Pants that aren’t jeans. How did this even happen?
• A real swimsuit. I have one mustard yellow suit from the 1940s, which was kinda cool looking until I actually went swimming in it. As soon as that thing gets wet, it weighs about fifty pounds. I also have a string bikini that falls off if I try to swim. This was funny at first, but I don’t want to get arrested. Finally, I have a pair of gold striped swim bottoms that I pair with a black halter bra. This fits better than any real bikini top I have found. Pathetic.
• A thong. My new rule is that if you are worried about visible panty lines, your clothes do not fit you. Also, I hate being constantly aware of my ass crack.
• Sweatpants. Fuck em.
• A computer. I have a blog and no computer. I use my boyfriend’s computer to write about clothes while he uses my iPod to play Angry Birds.

the Enduring Awesomeness of a Crappy Mall T-Shirt

that Gulf station has delicious samosas

This is my boyfriend, Mike, in the Calvin Klein parody t-shirt that he probably got at the Bangor Mall in 1997, when Seinfeld was nearing its end and Calvin Klein logos were proudly displayed across the chests of status-conscious high schoolers. Witty and topical then, this t-shirt has now outlasted the garments it parodied: recently I saw a man across the street wearing a CK logo tee, and immediately thought, “hey, that guy’s wearing Mike’s Cosmo Kramer shirt.”

Cosmo Kramer

Once ubiquitously emblazoned on perfume bottles, sweatshirts, and tees, the CK logo is no longer the suburban rich kid badge of honor it was when I was a teenager, but it is still familiar and iconic to anyone who shopped for clothing in the 1990s. Seinfeld is a beloved show, and Michael Richards still shows up sometimes in episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm (not to mention the insane racism he started spouting at a comedy club a few years back). Still, this shirt has a strange charisma that is more than the sum of its parts. I have not known Mike to wear it without getting several compliments from strangers. Maybe its lasting power has something to do with the way that even though it is parodying a status symbol of sorts, it doesn’t aim to make a statement about those who choose to wear designer logos. Also, as Mike pointed out, Kramer is rarely called “Cosmo” on the show, and he isn’t the lead actor, which maybe makes the joke just weird and silly enough to not get stale after over a decade.

this shirt is also great

Last night, as we walked home after First Friday, we passed a lady with great hair who looked effortlessly cool as she sat smoking on the steps of her apartment building. We were a few feet past her when she called after us,  “You know,  Michael Richards is in town.”

Who wears short shorts?

I need your help. I need your help finding shorts. I am five feet ten inches tall, so I have long legs and shorts look shorter on me. My shorts are old and falling apart, but stores seem to stock shorts for two kinds of people:

• Soccer moms who want to hide their cellulite under voluminous pleat-front knee length khaki monstrosities
• Sixteen-year-olds who want to look like truck stop hookers in skintight hot pants so short they require a bikini wax

I do not fit in either of these categories. If it’s hot out, I’m not going to worry about who sees my cellulite. Actually, I think maybe if we all stop caring about who sees our cellulite, we’ll see each other’s lumpy thighs and realize that we are all normal. That said, while I’m not interested in hiding my body, I’d rather not wear clothing that exaggerates the fact that the only exercise I get involves walking to the bodega to buy snacks. So, nothing super tight, because that’s not flattering or comfortable in the heat. Also, nothing weirdly short. If you have to worry about whether or not people can see your pubes, you’re not really wearing clothes, you’re wearing glorified underpants with pockets and beltloops, and people around you feel uncomfortable.

So I guess I’m looking for shorts that hit about mid-thigh, aren’t too tight or too baggy, and are stylish in a way that doesn’t make me look fourteen or fifty. If anybody knows where I should go, let me know.

I totally found a purse I liked after complaining about purses on here, so I’m optimistic about my future in shorts.

Etsy

I have a few new things on my rarely-updated Etsy, and I hope to add more over the next few days. I’m listing some vintage clothes I don’t wear very much, and some jewelry I made.

Found

I just wanted to note that vintage clothing store Find has a shiny new website. Find is one of my favorite local stores, and is located dangerously close to where I work. I’ve gotten some really cute stuff there, and sold some of my old cute stuff there as well.