Friday Funday

I should, by rights, be at Happy Hour, right now. But I am not allowed to drink alcohol for several days prior to the medical procedure Dr. Pain will perform on Monday. Anyways, I'm broke.

Two strikes, and I'm already out. What the hell kind of baseball is this?

Instead of imbibing, I'm at my apartment, having picked up an enormous armload of dry cleaning from the love of my life (a.k.a. my Korean dry cleaner... who has a leggy blonde girlfriend... who probably has phenomenally clean clothes in addition to her BMW). I began unshelling my clothes, removing their plastic wrappers and mentally counting the dolphins the dry cleaning industry strangles every year, and I saw the first one: a dead sweater.

It's not the dry cleaner's fault. The sweater is - or rather, was - five years old, purchased as part of my inaugural professional wardrobe. It's been a good run. But now, alas, the elastic threads in the knit are separating from the soft merino, and they create shiny little loops as they swirl out from the black fabric. It's not attractive.

I put the sweater on, comforting myself somewhat with the fact that my anatomy has changed shape, so the sweater no longer fits properly anyways.

It's cold comfort. Especially once the sweater is off, because my apartment is freezing.

Another sweater has fallen prey to the same malady. And then, I find that the oatmeal sweater I bought last year, faithfully de-pilling as my purse rubbed its woolly threads into nubbies, has nubbed itself up again. Perhaps beyond redemption. I worked on de-pilling for a good ten minutes, giving my grandmother's old embroidery scissors and my electric pill-remover a good workout, and then called it quits for a time.

The electric pill-remover was getting a wee bit warm for comfort. Nothing like trying to salvage your clothes and setting them afire by mistake, eh?

A tan wool sweaterdress - which once garnered me a date request from a client, which was entirely inappropriate but still flattering - is also incredibly pilled. And snagged. The snag is in the bum region, and it pulled the threads of one row taut across the tush. I worked at that for a time until the one particular thread that seemed to be the worst offender snapped. Whether or not the dress is a lost cause has yet to be seen.

It might take an exploratory wearing for a few hours to find out. Anyways, the turtleneck I had to wear under it to keep from breaking out in a not-so-attrractive rash bit the dust last year, so I have to find a replacement before I can wear it again.

Millionaire clients do not (inappropriately) ask you on dates if you have a rash on your neck, or so I assume.

It appears that I'm now down to a four black turtlenecks, two cream-colored ones, a soft pink one that doesn't stay where it's supposed to because clothing designers don't account for the fact that women have hips (this shirt will sit above the waist, but we will only design pants that ride below the hips! I imagine them cackling fiendishly) and a couple of thin-ish cardigans that I bought because I could wear them during the spring and summer over a shell/camisole without burning up (outside) or freezing (in the office). I have one grey sweater/blazer and an olive green cardigan (that's pilling where my purse brushes against my hip - it will also encounter the electric de-piller tonight) and a multitude of shells and camisoles to wear under the cardigan and blazer.

I used to be a total clotheshorse, but that was in the days before my spate of unemployment, before I began economizing, before 1/4 of my gross income went to medical bills (yeesh). Now I get excited at the prospect of buying a couple of T-shirts at the Gap, whereas before I wouldn't have deigned to do so. It would have been silk blouses from Neimans or nothing.

Well, almost nothing. I've always been something of a champion of high/low dressing.

It just seems like there's considerably more low, of late.