Things About Clothes, Part II

I finally managed to get some laundry detergent and after minimal procrastinating, got all of my laundry caught up. And by caught up I mean washed, mostly dried and piled so high in the one empty basket in the laundry room that I couldn't successfully relocate it without making 18 trips. "Catching up" laundry has absolutely nothing to do with folding it, I realized about 16 years ago when I had two small children and finding something that had been washed was nothing short of a miracle: folding and putting away be damned. Since the kids were almost as excited as I was to have detergent, their "caught up" laundry started to encroach upon mine, so I was forced to move the mountain to the next most logical place: my bed. Dirty clothes go on the floor, clean on the bed. This is a well established ritual in the life of Single Girl Liv. I like to sleep next to the pile and imagine it's a large man cuddling with me. A large, cold and unaffectionate man made up of jeans and t-shirts and socks. Someone once suggested that I put my clothes away where they "actually" go, and after a few moments of confusion when I finally figured out that they weren't talking about the floor, I told them how lonely my bed would be without my clean laundry on it. And if I didn't keep my dirty clothes on the floor, there would be nowhere for the wiener dogs to build a fort to sleep in. This is how I adult.

But after the other day and a ruthless conversation with my closet,  I have this pile of clothes that I want to get rid of. In the past I have done quite well selling my old clothes on eBay or the classifieds or wherever, but lately I have spent so much time judging the crappy clothes that other people sell in such a manner, that I am terrified to list my junk for the same public ridicule. And I am so busy hating all of my clothes that I am fairly certain everyone else will too. So the pile stares at me from a corner of my room and lures the wiener dogs into it's depths. And the longer it sits, the greater the chance that I will remember that one sweater that I put in there, and dig it out for an outfit. First world problems, you guys. I need to just swallow my materialistic pride and get rid of this crap, yo.

More importantly, and speaking of materialistic - my new boots showed up. This means the beginning of a whole new Liv, the cultivation of the Bohemian Tomboy, the end of black hoodies and Uggs - or at least the occasional reprieve. Right off the bat my daughter and a couple friends were jealous, so I will take that as a win for Liv's Fashion Sensibility. I wore them around the house for awhile and they definitely made me feel cooler. Which is saying a lot since cool has not been my middle name lately. But who doesn't feel awesome wearing Frye Boots and making chicken enchiladas for dinner? Best of all - they are SUPER comfortable - I can't wait to try them out for an entire day and see how my back does. I am sure these are the cure all I have been looking for. Now that I have clean clothes to wear them with I am golden.

Things That Flatter Me

Really this title is somewhat inappropriate, since I have only one "thing" to write about that can be in any way considered flattering. I have several unflattering things I would like to comment on, including intelligent husbands who are still as dense as rocks, sewing and menstruation. Let's begin with the flattery though.

 Back when I was a tiny young mother and still gleaning a sense of fashion, which by now is as well rounded as my seamstress skills, I bought very few items of clothing in which I would be caught dead today. This is partially due to the fact that I couldn't squeeze one calf into a size two now, and also because they are just not that cool. Maybe for 1997, but not 2012. I did buy one thing, back in the olden days, that I still have. One of the reasons I have kept it is because my little sister has hounded me for years to give it to her, which equals cool status regardless of current trends. This stand alone item is also still cool because Robin Wright wore it in Unbreakable with Bruce Willis, and as we all know, there is nothing in an M Knight Shyamalan movie, or that the Princess Bride would wear, that goes out of style. Ever. Anyway, this specific article of clothing is a tan leather jacket from the Gap, and just yesterday, I received this picture from my sister, of the identical jacket that she bought off of eBay. 

Buttercup, er, Robin Wright in my jacket

And I was flattered. Slightly deflated since I no longer have that One Thing that she wants, as I already gave her the smaller size (loathe) of my favorite belt, and she adopted her own collection of (also smaller, also loathe) Liv Jeans and we even have the same Frye boots (ok, these I copied from her, but I still feel like I should get credit for her over all sense of style). We could be twins on pretty much any given day, as these items are pretty much the only things we both wear constantly, except I would be the ginormous twin and she would be the little cute one that makes all my favorite clothes look good. (super loathe). How did I turn the ONE flattering thing into a non-flattery. The heck. Maybe the unflattering things will also reverse on me. Let's try:

About super-smart husbands that say really dumb things: I have an amazing husband. Like, bring me coffee at work, take the puppy potty in the middle of the night, rub one foot while we watch zombie shows, awesome husband that every girl should be jealous of. One of his rare flaws is his aptitude for saying EXACTLY the worst thing ever to a girl. Like this for instance: "Don't give that jacket to your sister. It will fit you again eventually." What the poor man doesn't understand is that the jacket still DOES fit me, and I can even squeeze a hoodie under it if I don't want to bend my arms at all. Which I frequently don't. Just because I can't button it doesn't mean it doesn't fit. It's a jacket after all. Meant to be left open all carelessly with a scarf and sleeveless shirt that allows at least some movement. Doesn't this man realize that I have lost 13 pounds this year? Collectively of course, over the last 12 months or so. And I may or may not have gained a few back, but that doesn't take away the loosing part. Really.

Another unflattering thing is sewing. At least for me. I can work with words. I kind of like to mess with them and bend them around to say something that at least somewhat resembles the abstract mess that is my head. But fabric? Especially dollar-a-yard, laugh-in-your-face, deny-your-dreams fabric. That's the thing about dollar-a-yard fabric that I found out. It's soul purpose in existing is to make an utter fool out of you when you try to translate some totally awesome thing in your head into a totally awesome thing out of your head. Today I was mocked repeatedly by some pretty vintagey fabric that worked well as table cloths for my wedding party, largely because my sister was the one handling it. But I put one finger to the stuff and it's like it wanted to punish me for thinking I could sew. So today, since my bean soup turned out ok and I am still feeling domesticish, I tackled this vision of a bed skirt I have had in my head for the last several nights as I lie awake missing my Tylenol PM. It only took me 6 hours to find out that I have not the slightest idea how to make a bed skirt, but by then I had resorted to using safety pins to FORCE the stupid cloth, in assorted pieces, to do what I wanted. I ended up with this:

It is still mocking me. But to make sure it didn't think it had won the battle, I also made a cover for an ugly couch pillow and patched a queen size fitted sheet. Which is no small feat, especially when the hole is dead center and you have to feed like 100,000 feet of flannel under the pressure foot on the sewing machine to find the spot. I won the battle, and if mom and dad complain about a ferocious amount of thick stitches that I used to attach the patch, I will  probably just pull the bed apart and point out the safety pins in the bed skirt. Sewing is definitely not my most flattering skill.

Perhaps all of these things are particularly unflattering today because it's That Time of The Month, and pretty much everything in the world is ungracious right now. Except sweatpants. It's that glorious moment in time when sweatpants become the Sexiest Thing Ever. And if you say they aren't, you know that you have taken a huge gamble with your life and will probably find yourself categorized with the smart but dumber-than-poop husband. Today was probably not the best day to decide to sew away all of my hopes and dreams. It was probably a terrible day to try on the new skinny slacks I bought at Old Navy yesterday. I found myself chuckling sardonically that I had actually been concerned that a 10 would be too big as I forced my enormous rear end into them. Refusing to admit defeat, I got them on. And since I had worked up a sweat to get into them I decided to wear them for awhile, until I lost feeling in both of my legs and nearly passed out trying to get them off. I'm thinking they run small. After I had escaped the skinny pants, I was so exhausted that I just put on the pair of jeans on top of the pile, which turned out to be another bad idea since they were the smaller size that fit me for like 5 minutes last week, before I re found some of that 13 pounds. I guess it was a really good time to sit down in my super hott sweatpants for a good cry. Another thing to NOT do at this time of the month is clean the kids bathroom, or even consider it, for that matter. All I did was think about it, and I got so irritated that I actually looked up reform schools on the internet.

The salvation of this unflattering day came in the unexpected form of a text from my little brother, asking for my fashion input on a pair of golf shorts. Obviously my first advice was just don't. Golf shorts are rarely a good idea, unless you're putting together a geek costume for Halloween, or you need a gift for an effeminate cousin that you hate. But if he MUST wear golf shorts, I helped him select between the lesser of two evil plaids. Gabe is lucky that he's cute enough to pull off golf shorts and a psycho-stalker mustache. If he stays in his room. But it was flattering that he reached out to ME for my opinion, unless he was inferring that I was the only one un-cool enough to speak golf short etiquette. That concerns me greatly.

Things That Don't Get Enough Attention

Recently, through the grapevine, I heard the jealous murmur of a child who was bemoaning the lack of mention in her mother's blog. While I am sure that Natalee was elated to have her anger issues showcased on a public forum, and Aspen never gets tired of having her cuteness promoted, and Halle is just weird enough to be mentioned at least monthly, poor MacKenzie, the upper middle child, is all but lost and forgotten. So Kizzie, this is for you:

Dear MacKenzie:

I was 15 once. When I was 15, I was aware of two things: boys, and how painfully unfashionable I was. At 15, I began an evolution of personality. Before I discovered the important things in life like The Avett Brothers and Frye Boots, I decided that I liked daisies and sunflowers and hippies that didn't smoke pot (because I didn't really know what pot was then). I liked poems, Shakespeare, beautiful language. I loved the stage, mostly because for a few brief minutes, the whole world was looking at me (including boys), and I was beautiful (or at least OK). I liked iced mochas with lots of whipped cream and rope licorice. I liked shopping at Goodwill for brand names I gleaned from my stylish cousin (BTW, Katey - I don't think The Limited was ever cool for 15 year olds). I liked my one brand new pair of Gap Jeans that Grandma Schiffman bought me for my birthday. I liked my big dog Frankie who looked like a black and tan Truck and was my best friend. I liked Jessa and Aimee and Muriel and Andy and Misti and Melissa, and pretty much every boy I knew. When I was 15, I thought I was fat. What I would give to be that fat now. When I was 15, my parents didn't understand the first thing about being 15, being in love, or being cool. How can a sophisticated 15 year old ever listen to parents who clearly had no clue, and no interest in getting a clue. At 15, I was grounded pretty much every other week. I was grounded for bad attitudes, for being unkind (hateful, mom always said) to my sister. I was grounded for writing notes to boys, for wearing clothes that were outside of the rules my parents had set (and for the record, their rules were IMMEASURABLY more strict that mine are for you, ask them). I was grounded for not taking care of my chores at home (which again, where IMMEASURABLY more than yours, but don't ask my parents about that one.), and for mouthing off, sort of like a certain 15 year old I know now does to her parents. When I was 15, I was in love with at least 4 different boys. There was Jake, there was Peter, there was Jim Miller, and oh my gosh - Forrest Greenough. All of these passionate love affairs occurred after I had experienced the wisening of love gone wrong with Jason Dotson, and Nate, and probably a few others that I can't remember now. None of these passionate love affairs included kissing. My first kiss was a few days after I turned 17. Lack of opportunity? I guess so. I guess I didn't have the opportunistic setting of an unsupervised school hallway, and truthfully, I am very thankful for that. I wish I could tell you that if I had the same opportunities that you have, I would have made only the best and wisest choices, but to be perfectly honest, I am not sure what I would have done in some of those settings. 

I know what I wanted. I remember fantasies of being swept off my feet and having my heart stolen by a dark haired class clown... I wanted to be the girl that every boy wanted but only one boy had. In many ways, I still do. Doesn't every girl want to be wanted like that? I guess what I am trying to tell you is that I understand. I  know you think I don't, that I am just a frumpy mom who doesn't Even Know How It Feels, but I do. I remember wishing with EVERY OUNCE OF WISH in me that a certain boy would happen to be downtown when I rode my bike there. We didn't have cell phones and Facebook then; just wishful telepathy and parents who liked to hang out at Goodwill. I know it feels hard to deal with sisters and parents and all of the pressures at school - I can only imagine the school part, except that I remember how it feels to be so very different and wish desperately to be The Same. Now I value being different. Being different is the only thing that makes me the girl that every boy wants (they totally do) but only Josh has. Being different is what makes it possible for me to say I have never been fired from a job and every boss I have had would still love to take me back. Being different means that I can CHOOSE what I do with my life, whom I share it with, and how I want it to look. Being different means that I can listen to The Avett Brothers and Eminem and Frank Sinatra all on the same playlist and Halle's friends think I am cool (ok, that's a little risky). I know right now the most important thing for you seems to be survival, but what survival means to you now will be vastly different from survival when you are 22, or 32, and beyond that, I can only imagine (since I am not that old yet). It wasn't until after Natalee was born that I truly gained an appreciation for my parents, and the fact that they did their absolute best to raise me the right way. There are no perfect parents, but I will give mine an A for effort, even if I choose to do some things differently. I trust, and hope, and pray that someday you will look at me with the same eyes. If you feel about me someday the way that I feel about my mom and dad, then I will feel like I did ok. I don't expect you to like me now. I don't expect to be your buddy, even when you steal my clothes and make me cookies. I expect to be your mom, imperfectly, and often very badly. I am an awkward mom. I don't hug well. If you need a hug, you might have to steal it from me. If you need a pat on the back, you might have to remind me. But if you need a kick in the butt bottom, I will probably remind you. It's ok if you hate me now. It's ok if you keep throwing fits for a few more years, or decades. I have faith that you will be just fine. You are beautiful, and talented and intelligent. You are different, and it will serve you well. I hope you will learn to place a high value on your heart and your love, because there are many unworthy people out there, and Josh and I can't stand to see you wasted, so you can plan on a fight until YOU see your worth. I remember 15, Kizzie. Like it was yesterday. I remember the clothes and the smells, the music and the hair and the boys. I remember looking for my space, my self, my soul. I remember how strong the feelings are, how intense the problems seem, and how alone you can feel. But there is another side to 15, and I know that you will arrive there beautiful and ready for 16. Because you are my girl. 

I love you.

Mom