Vanity

Yesterday we went to our local video store & rented two DVDs. For the first time in my life, it was easy to choose a movie because we have seen 1 (one) movie in the past 12 (twelve) months and it was Snakes on a Plane.

Me: Did you know there was a movie called Babel?
SA: Uh –
Me: Oooh! Almodovar!
SA: Oooh! Dukes of Hazzard prequel!

(Doncha wish your friends were as cool as us? Doncha?)

Anyway, as we prepared for the walk to the store, I got dressed as follows:

– Red tank top over polka-dot (black and white) nursing bra. Tank top covers tummy if tugged but is a pre-pregnancy item that also shrank in the dryer so much commitment to tugging is required. If you guessed the world gets to see a lot of my tummy, you guessed right.
– A grey zippered warm-up jacket.
– Black, baggy, drawstring cropped pants. My first post-pregnancy pants purchase. Covered in white splotches.
– Pink, grey and yellow striped ankle socks.
– Navy blue Holey Soles. Yes. Over socks.

(Thanks to Shelley, whose Holey Soles I tried on last spring, spurring an obsessive search for a pair of my own. Best Pregnant Shoes Ever. My sole (sole! har!) regret is that the fuschia ones didn’t fit & the only colour of the rainbow available to my pies gigantes was navy blue. Drat.)

I gave myself the once-over in the full-length mirror and part of me did recoil in horror, as you might expect, but the other part, the part that rules motivation, said “Pah! Who cares?” and we moved on without a backwards glance.

This sentence arrived fully formed in my head as I walked away from the mirror: Obviously I have fulfilled my biological imperative to reproduce if I am going out in public dressed like this.

My grasp on dressing appropriately has always been tenuous (see: 1986 – 1998). Unique, yes. Creative, definitely. Step-away-from-the-bargain-rack, for sure. But I have never been careless. In the past, if my bra strap or my tummy or my hairy knee was showing, it was on purpose; sort of like wearing a button that read Have questions about my belief system? Ask me! You might want to buy me a beer, too! But since motherhood, (not since pregnancy – during pregnancy I still cared what I looked like except for that last week) it seems I have become nonchalant about my appearance while simultaneously hitting upon a hidden cache of self-worth.

I can narrow it to the following statements: If the world wants to ignore me, it will, regardless of my attire. If anything has ever sparkled and been attractive about me, it’s not been my fashion sense. If I need someone’s attention, I can ask for it.

It’s very freeing. I like not caring.

Now, I still bought new shoes last week and the bloodlust that accompanied shoe-shopping for the first time in over a year was sufficiently blinding that I actually tried on a pair that cost $179 and then tried to convince myself that it was a good investment.

Me: They’ll go with everything
Saleswoman: These ones over here, though? Are half the price and more practical.

You know if the saleswoman is DOWNSELLING you that the shoes are a bad idea.

But oh! they are so dreamy-ballerina-beautiful. And they came in a size 11. And it was so comfortable.

Picture this shoe in silver leather with blue trim and elastic. I searched in vain for a lower-cost knock-off and purchased instead two pairs of Chinese slippers from Commercial drive for $7 apiece.

Buuuuut – well, way off track now and can’t find the caboose.

Me = less concerned with my own appearance but still appreciative of beauty in all its forms.

And now, my child is trying to climb the stairs using only his teeth so I have to go put his straitjacket on.