Tuesday, May 10, 2011

takeover makeover.

i'm not trying to be a debbie downer. god knows i have made huge shifts this year toward being a happy beam of bouncing light - which thanks to some adult acne medication - i totally am. thankful for my life. thankful for my job(s). thankful for all the money i don't have. thankful for steven tyler's open shirts and feather hair extensions competing against jlo's open shirts and hair extensions. but this week the light has fizzled and i am left listless, waiting around for the kneeling bus to take me home.

everywhere i turn. everywhere i look. everywhere i sit to pee. senior moments follow me.

in other words, i have been blindsided by the takeover.

the takeover infiltrates my dreams, reminding me to bend with my knees; mocks me in poorly lit bathroom mirrors, and wickedly taunts me through livingsocial deals to some caribbean paradise named 'burry me here'. you're probably desperate to throw me a congrats since you may have heard i obsess over the elderly. but let me clarify. while i do love old people - i didn't expect the takeover to lurk around the corner waiting to randomly pounce at the age of 29 3/4 on a monday.  physical ailments. early onset mental-pause. tripple checking for my purse, keys and heavy sweater. sudoku puzzles. my mind encased in some sort of mold growth build-up. i would clean it off, but last week i threw my back out again, reaching for the soap.

it all started after my 29th birthday, when i received a promo email from urban outfitters. inside the email, lived a black and white photo of a model in 4 different outfits. the words "Vintage 90s" in bold.

vintage 90s. the two words curdled as i said them out loud. i found myself offended, as if it were a personal attack. this was obviously the work of some paid intern-child. some gap baby who's parents didn't yell at them enough. some knit wit who thinks the dewey decimal is a new clothing line.

two things bothered me. one, how the hell are the 90s vintage. two, who in their right mind wants to relive them through fashion? classified personal photos from middle school shot out from my memory box. boxy crew neck tshirts. spaghetti strap flower patterned dresses. high wasted acid washed jeans. clogs. brushed frizzy hair. the egyptian pyramids. wait. let's bring up a visual.




6th grade social studies fair. here i am, looking unbathed and disheveled before it was cool to look unbathed and disheveled. i'm pretty sure the teacher gave me an A for pity effort. wearing the curtain from our living room as a toga - and belt of desperation around my head - who wouldn't want to probe this  furry child for trojan war factoids. or at least take a few sunflower seeds. it's a bit rhetorical, but i'll say it anyway - the parents didn't help with this one. like prostitution or recreational drug use, for me the 90s were a victimless crime. do not encouraged. do not repeat.

[side note
trojan horse : romans
6th grade : elizabeth]

while we're at it, what would happen if we brought back all of the 90s from this picture in particular? uni-brows. girl mustaches. shoddy shaved legs. babe, your mustache is so boss...no baby your mustache is so girly and truly ironic....wanna go back to my place and look through my encyclopedia britannicas? their vintage.


speaking of feeling nauseous, the takeover has branched out to my clothing choices of this decade.

[another side note i will share: i am crabby as i write this post. a bloated blogger. i just devoured six green tea mochi icreams, chased with a jar of dill pickles. all my ethnicities are satisfied.]

outside of pajamas, all things i wear seem to be tragically uncomfortable. at the end of the day my body screams to be released from the casing of convention. everything.must.come.off. no matter the cut or stretch, jeans are too restrictive and trigger my sciatica. i thought it was just me, until i caught some 60 minutes report on a study done of the correlation between low rise jeans and back problems in younger women. moving forward, i vote for the cropped palazzo. along with pants, belts = body torture. i use them sparingly. underwire bras and thongs are devil snacks. i would need to be getting paid a lot of money for a playboy spread to ever consider recreational thong use. we'll see where i land on that one. i thank god for my non existent chest, and double shirt it whenever possible. shoes must be semi-flat with pillows of arch support, making heels a big fat joke. but while still a joke, they are permissible under two specific circumstances. 1) to show and shave my legs for a wedding  2) to be a fo-hoe in a club, coming face to face with other real life hoes. in both cases heels stop being heels. they become twisted obligatory social armor, protecting my ego from other females.

i don't know why getting dressed is becoming such a chore. zipping and buttoning, a superfluous eff you. i thought maybe it was weight gain. but no. turns out i just hate buttoning my pants. lately i daydream of soft billowy coverage. linen blowing in the wind. elastic waste bands. jersey knit summers. relaxed tummies. damn you, eileen fischer. damn you and your twine pleated shorts. any chance those come in pants?

the final straw breaking this camels back was a moment last week in my bathroom. monday morning, 7am. (really quick. for anyone who hasn't yet experienced the takeover, let me give you a tip. only bad bad things happen in the bathroom at 7am. nothing ever good happens there, so don't take your time and hang out like you have nothing else to do. go into the kitchen. or into the bedroom. or for fucks sake watch some tv, but don't think you are in control once you enter into the lair of truth. it will end up owning you. sorry, i'll stop.) so, after turning on the shower, i pulled my hair back and waited for the room to get warm and cozy. kicking my clothes to the corner, i applied toothpaste to my toothbrush and turned to get in the bath. like a crack of lightening, i got a side shot of myself in the mirror and shockingly shuttered away in panic. steam billowed around me. i held my breath. was i hallucinating?? was it a day terror???? with magellan eyes.....i leaned in...... and stared at my ass in the mirror...

...my ass. the shar pei. stared back. (click the link.)

stunned. overnight subduction zones of distinct ugli fruit texture had managed to form. at long last, i was an impressionist. a bus ride of possibilities later, i convinced myself this condition was not a cocktail of laziness, stretchmarks and cellulite, but somehow related to extreme dehydration. figuring an iron would not generate prolonged remedy, and i've already had surgery once this year, i opted for drinking more water and avoiding the mirror entirely from this point on. so far, lighting hasn't struck twice.

enough kvetching for tonight.

my pajamas are calling.

6 comments:

  1. YOU ARE TOO FUNNY! I'm sitting here at 4 in the morning just LAUGHING...and editing, of course. The remedy for the 'shar pei' is the pilates machine. love you

    ReplyDelete
  2. I second that. Friggin hilarious. You just infused a great deal of laughter into an otherwise miserable day. <3 Amy

    ReplyDelete
  3. Elizabeth, you are the funniest thing in the world. Really. Even funnier than The Donald. Thank you for sharing what you say to yourself with us:) These posts are like a bouquet of flowers!! Love you lots! Jackie

    ReplyDelete
  4. YOU DON'T HAVE CELLULITE!!
    Also I agree with Cindy-- that pilates machine will do wonders for you :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. my mother recently told me i was the first child she'd ever seen with cellulite. at age 2. welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  6. loool, I can relate in so many ways. I grew up in the 90s, so whenever I hear vintage and the 90s in the same sentence, I laugh and wonder how old many of us are getting. Said goodbye to my 20s last year and looking forward to adulthood and all the awesome and not so pretty things it will bring.

    ReplyDelete

Take it, and Put it, and Tell me.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...