I have this sense that sometimes I come off as a competent professional, and this post is proof that I’m faking it, just like most people on the web.
This is a photo of me in an outfit I particularly liked last spring, but, if it looks on your screen like it looks on mine, it looks warped. And I don’t know why. I have Photoshop, and mad Photoshop skills (if mad Photoshop skills means I pay for it, and noodle around and do my best, and really have no idea what I’m doing). I don’t know why I look freaking warped, but I can’t be bothered to care, mostly because I love this outfit, and I so badly want it to be chilly, even a little bit for a few hours. So, yes, I am faking any confidence (and proficiency at Photoshop) that you may feel that you see.
It’s times like these that I realize that while I absolutely consider air conditioning to be both a privilege and a blessing, what I consider even more of a privilege and a blessing is some outdoor space to call your own, and nice enough weather to enjoy it. I’m in that awkward phase of life where I am really not too good in The Heat, with capital letters, and also not too good when the temps go below freezing. I was a winter-over-summer fan from birth almost (and aren’t most very pale-skinned people?) and I still am, but not quite as cold as I age. Blech. Aging.
In any case: I bought that green blouse, I don’t remember from where, but it is long-sleeved, a bit cropped, and I love it. Over my (presumably, at the time) chilly shoulders I have an inexpensive sweater shawl/wrap I treated myself to (I think it came from Quince) when we first moved back to CA, which was insane because I probably would have gotten more use out of it on the East Coast, but maybe had less reasons to go out looking dressy enough for a shawl. Are shawls dressy? It seems to me they are. East Coast or West, hot-as-blazes or nicely cold, I have never gotten over my love of corduroy.
When I was going into sixth grade my mother gave me some money, and let me take the trolly to our local mall to buy some school clothes on my own. My mother was a very clothing-controlling mother who “knew” how children were supposed to be dressed, and that often meant clothes I didn’t especially like, like pink or pale peach, and Keds (sorry Keds) and lots of white, and no dark colors. If you got an Easter purse made of some sort of wicker every spring along with your white sweater and a hat with fake flowers on it, your mom may have been like mine. That year I don’t know what had come over her, as she also really liked seeing me try clothes on, and deciding which stores to go into, but she sent me off on my own. I went to the Levi’s store that had floor-to-ceiling bins full of denim and corduroy arranged by waist, and length, and also leg type. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was to hear that they only had straight legs, skinny, and boot cut; bell bottoms had been discontinued the prior fall, they told me. I mean I adored bell bottoms. So sad for me. But they had corduroy, and I had never had corduroy before, so I bought three pairs: one in green and one in a dark rust color, and I think the other pair was deep brown. Needless to say my mother was nonplussed. I remember feeling like middle school, where, for the first time, I would have a different teacher for each class, and move from classroom to classroom like a college student, was the big time. I was ready to learn, baby! (Of course I was. I read the encyclopedia and the atlas. I was a positively thrilling child with my consumption of plays and gothic horror romances. What sixth-grader doesn’t like gothic horror romance?) So I wanted to go to middle school looking collegiate, and for me that was corduroy and fall colors. Flash forward to this spring, and I have been lugging those green corduroy pants (from Gap or Old Navy) around for at least five years!
And, lastly, to finish off this particular ensemble, on my feet was the birthday gift I requested from Sophie and her dad for 2024: green Doc Martens. I had Doc Martens boots in college, but they have gotten so much more comfortable now. I love them. I replaced Doc’s laces with some pretty green ribbon laces, and that completed the look, in my mind.
Here’s to fall colors. I bought Dave a pumpkin spice latte the other day!
You know, one last thought, when I was a K-12 kid, all I thought about and longed for was going to college. I know I was a teensy bit of a dork, but I just cannot stand what it happening to colleges now: Cutting down on diversity (which I loved. I requested a non-white roommate on my college form because I was leaving Wonder-Bread-white Springfield, and wanted to meet some people who were not like me), cutting down on international students, controlling what teachers can teach and what books can be made available. But the most horrible thing is the absolute lie that college is neither good nor necessary. I had teachers with different morals and beliefs and ideas than me, and I liked them just as much as the ones who were more similar to me in my thinking, and I loved them all (except for that one Irish poet who refused to pass women, which I’m sure is here somewhere in a past post). And learning new things is important. You cannot do it all on your own, and you have to read to do it, and you have to care about knowing things. I tend to be a very trusting person, but I also always wanted to check the source before I changed or confirmed my thinking on a topic. I wished, so much, that I could have had time in my program to learn more languages, and to take subjects that weren’t related to my degree, and that were tough for me, like physics, which continues to fascinate me, and automotive repair (I wanted to learn how to fix car engines). September is the month of school, and fall, and new things to learn, and the circus of idiots in leadership of the federal government at the moment should have their brains washed out with soap for their absolute hatred of college. College is not easy, but it is a wonderful experience that every American child should be encouraged to pursue, and supported to pursue (use my tax dollars to pay for college please, and not to give Tesla a tax break!).
So, in the spirit of fall, and going back to school, and wishing, in vain, that it was cool enough for corduroy, and that I was young enough to be a college student all over again, here is my head-to-toe green outfit. If only the pants were bell-bottoms! If only college were life-long and free. If only we had time, and resources, to do it all. I would stay busy.
What was a class that you took in K-12 or college that you still remember fondly? I loved choir, geometry, home ec (cooking) in middle school, and still remember some of the recipes, and literary criticism, the Vietnam War (which went with a PBS series), and black and white photography in college.
Dianne Pearce Writes 