My Enabler, My Friend

You know how sometimes you know people, but you don’t really know them – I mean, not well – and you’d like to get to know them, because you feel like maybe y’all could be really good friends, if only you could find time to catch up and hang out and chat that didn’t involve meeting in passing at a friend’s party when you’re surrounded by tons of people with whom you have to catch up, and so since you’d like to get to know them, you finally decide to hang out, and while hanging out you realize that you were totally right, because this person is actually just as cool as – if not cooler than – you’d imagined, and you’re all excited to be finally spending time together, only to discover that this person is a horrible enabler of your clothes-whore tendencies?

No? Am I the only one this has happened to?

Well, it happened to me recently. Reda and I have been saying for… oh, maybe six months or more that it would be great if we could see each other and chat somewhere other than housewarming parties, dance events, and other random social events. Finally, we decided to go ahead and make it happen, particularly since I’m trying to get out and be more social these days anyway. So Thursday night, she invited me to “Ye Olde Clothing Swap,” a small event she was throwing with some other girlfriends of hers. For those of you unfamiliar with the clothing swap idea, I’ll explain:

The concept is simple. You have clothes you don’t really wear anymore, but they’re still nice, so you haven’t quite convinced yourself to give them to Goodwill yet. You would like to get some new clothes, but you’re not quite up to spending a lot of money on them. The solution is the clothing swap. You bring your wardrobe pieces that you never wear, as do other girls, and then you all try each other’s stuff on. You leave without your old unwanted things, and go home with other people’s old unwanted things. You know what they say – “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Clothing swaps can also be casually referred to as “Naked Lady Parties,” because, well, there’s basically just a whole bunch of women hanging out in someone’s living room stripping constantly to try on each other’s stuff.

So yeah, this is totally my kind of event. I had actually donated a bunch of stuff to Goodwill when I moved, so I didn’t have nearly as much stuff as I might have otherwise. But knowing they would be going to good homes, I gathered about 10-15 items of clothing that I haven’t worn in a long time and packed them up to bring. Two of them ended up coming back with me, ‘cause they found no homes – sad! – and they came home with about 35 new friends. That’s right, new shirts, sweaters, skirts, pants, and even a new pair of shoes (shoes that are so ugly, btw, but I am completely in love with them and their ugliness). Check out this awesome 1930’s-esque outfit I put together from a new shirt and skirt I got:

Oh, and can we say SCORE! for the fact that someone gave away a brand-new Hooters shirt? SCORE!

So, um, yeah, clearly a clothing swap was exactly what my crowded closet needed. Thanks, Reda! Oh, and big thanks to Tali for accompanying me, because I get very insecure going to small social events alone when I know I won’t know many people. Thanks Tali!

Last night, Reda and I made plans to grab some dinner together and go to the mall. Our purpose at the mall was fairly straightforward – Reda needed brown boots and a miniskirt. Mall shopping is much easier when you have specific missions in mind, so we headed out with our eyes on the prize(s). Great, except that more than half the stores we stopped in were shoe stores (because we were looking for the boots), and you know me and shoes. I would like to give myself a major pat on the back for only walking out with one new pair of shoes (well, and plans to order two pairs online because they didn’t have them in my size). I also walked out with two new shirts (seen here with pants I got from Reda at the swap):

And this fabulous new hat:

And there were some headbands and a new purse, too. I think I’m just lucky I didn’t let her talk me into the adorably bright orange ballet flats with the gold bow, because where the hell would I have worn those? Seriously – the enabling? It’s so not helpful.

But soooo awesome for my wardrobe.

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Day 20 of SaBloBoMo: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I read this during the summer after my sophomore year of college. I was staying with a nice lady from the Catholic community for six weeks while doing an internship on campus. She had a fabulous book collection. And I don’t just mean which titles she had – I mean the books themselves were really great. They were all leather-bound with gold embossing, and boy did they look classy in their glass covered bookshelves. She told me to help myself to anything I might want to read, so I did. Those kinds of books just make me want to be intellectual like you wouldn’t believe. It’s my goal to someday have a collection like that.

At any rate, Brave New World was the first book I picked up that summer to read, and it was excellent. I was entranced by the dystopian future it presented, and the social commentary not-so-thinly veiled in the plot. The characters were vivid and genuine, and I found myself simultaneously disapproving and understanding of them. I think it only took me a couple nights to read through it, and I was eager to pick out my next book. Unfortunately, my next choice – Robinson Crusoe – was a major letdown after this one.