Confession No. 372 – I am a What Not to Wear addict.
I think I have talked about my predilection for home shows, but it shades next to my passion for What Not to Wear. I am..
A fiend.
A zealot.
A devotee.
This is not to say that I necessarily remember to tune in on Friday nights. My delight in certain shows and my ability to tune in at the appropriate time are most definitely not in synch. Last year one of Sean’s favorite activities was watching my face on Wednesday nights in the three minutes between American Idol ending and The Biggest Loser beginning. I forgot without fail each week, and each week I would sit on the sofa watching the screen like a caveman realizing just how much fire was going to change his way of life
Can this be real? You mean I won’t have to eat the meat raw anymore?
Are Bob and Jillian really on the screen? Is it really on?
I’d turn to Sean as if to say,
“Honey, can you believe it’s on?”
And he’d snort and say,
“Every week. Every week this show is on after American Idol. And every week you react like it’s out of the ordinary.”(Insert pathetic, wounded face.)
“It’s awesome. I love that you forget.”
But getting back to the title, “The Jacket.” Any What Not to Wear watcher worth their salt knows it’s all in the jacket.
Stacey: What a jacket does is complete the look.
Clinton: A jacket can really take a great pair of jeans and make them spectacular.
Stacey: Do you see how incredibly tiny your waist looks with the way it’s nipping in right here under the girls.
Clinton: We want to see you in a jacket.
Stacey: Shut up! That jacket makes you look gorgeous.
If you don’t know Stacey and Clinton you owe it to your self to tune in, but for the love of god TLC:
I apologize for the ridiculous, president of the fan club, bosom beating scene you are about to wirness…Don’t split them up! Stacey and Clinton do not work alone, just witness the Macy’s ads. As Perez Hilton would say “Whoreanus!” Stop these trashtastic episodes with them apart. And no more couples. Blech! Bring on the new moms, the newly single and newly thin. Help the heavy and unattractive, the poor and the clueless. Do not, I repeat do not ever waste another episode on a vain wife or middle aged beauty queens. Stick with the formula. Please, I beg you.
Back to the jacket. After watching the show many times and trying to imagine what Stacey and Clinton might say to me,
Stacey: Would it kill ya to style your hair?
Clinton: A diaper bag. To work. Change a lot of diapers there do ya?
Stacey: Do you have a thing against pants that fit or are you trying to fit in with the hip hop set?
Clinton: Do you even own a leather belt?
Stacey: Do you often go for hikes during the week, or are the boots a statement?
Ugh. I decided that between Briar calling my tennis shoes and hiking boots “Daddy shoes” and the Stacey and Clinton comments (and yes I realize that by invoking their names so often I begin to sound sort of like the woman who stalked David Letterman for all those years. No stalking here, just cheap, slightly vain musings.) perhaps I should consider wearing a jacket from time to time. So for the last few days I have worn jackets to work. You’d think I’d been coming to work smeared in my own feces.
“Wow. You look incredible.”
“Hey Amanda. You look…amazing.”
“Oh my. You look so nice.”
Now, don’t misunderstand, I love a good compliment like any self-respecting woman who has the occasional moment of “Oh my god, I can look kind of hot from time to time.” Sometimes you just get to feeling a little weirded out when everyone from the construction worker outside your office to the teller at the bank tells you how great you look with the inflection more on the “you” than the “great.” Like it’s so far out of the normal way things are that you would look good, let alone great. But I guess that was the intention, right? To get out of a rut. I have to admit, I performed differently. The jacket, the response, my posture, they all came together to infuse me with an enormous amount of confidence.
There is definitely something about looking down past a jacket that nipps in at thewaist and seeing pert little amber leather toes peeking out from beneath killer slacks that seemed to have slid on, assessed my shape and said “Let us hug, caress, and cling as best suits your body” made me feel like a milllion bucks. In a jacket I am no longer Charlie to anyone’s Lucy. There will be no kissing ass in a jacket, because in a jacket, it’s your ass that gets kissed. Put me in a jacket and I am nearly 6 feet of pure, sassy tomboy sparkle. Stacey and Clinton would be so proud.