Someone Else's Clothes

I haven’t worn a swimsuit in public since 2003. It was on a trip to a beach in Italy, while I was studying abroad. It was a one-piece, and I wore a skort over it (for any males reading this, shorts + skirt = skort. Basically, it’s a skirt with a leg divider built in. It’s the clothing equivalent to a spork). Before that, it had been a couple of years since I’d put on that swimsuit. I don’t even have it anymore. It’s not like I need it.

I’m just not very comfortable with my body. People keep saying that Britney Spears looked appallingly bad at the VMAs this year. I keep thinking, “Her body is more toned than mine. My God, what would they say about me if I wore a bikini?” That’s why I’ve never owned a bikini. I don’t want to be judged the way people who wear bikinis are judged. I’d rather just avoid the scrutiny altogether.

Another reason that I won’t be wearing a bathing suit any time soon is that I’m at an awkward weight right now. I’ve been wearing skirts and dresses a lot lately. This has nothing to do with wanting to dress up. My pants are tighter than they used to be. There have been a few days recently when I’ve tried on more than one pair of slacks before leaving for work in the morning, only to discover that they’re all uncomfortable. I don’t want to spend money to buy more pants, and I don’t feel like actively trying to change my weight. Therefore, I’m going to stick with empire-waist dresses and elastic-waist skirts. I also bought a shirt last week that’s two sizes larger than I normally wear from that store. That was a bit shocking. But I’d rather wear a shirt that fits than one that has the tag-marking I’m used to. After all, no one sees the size. They just see the shirt.

My weight fluctuates a great deal. I go through phases in which my pants are falling down and I have to resort to skirts for an entirely different reason. Most of my youth I was underweight (I remember calling up a friend to excitedly announce that I had finally hit 100 pounds about a month before I graduated from high school. Note: I’m about 5’6”). I didn’t start putting on meat until I got to college (and now I’ve been safely over 100 pounds for quite some time. I’ve been very far over that at points. I doubt it physically possible that I could ever be that low again, which I consider to be a good thing. I looked like an Auschwitz victim). These days, I yo-yo a bit, which I’ve grown accustomed to. Since I’m not willing to change my eating habits (mostly junk, and about 70% carbs) or my exercise habits (sedentary unless movement required and very against working out and/or running… In my mind, running is punishment for when you’ve done something wrong in gym class; it is not a pastime), I must accept that I have no say in what my weight will ultimately be. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from complaining any time I gain or lose more than I’d like. I’m very willing to whine about it.

My family thinks I complain too much. Not about weight, specifically. Just as a general statement.

I’m actually going to visit my family soon, which will be strange. They have recently moved from the house I grew up in to a house several states away. It’s incredibly odd to think that my family has moved without me. The house I’m going to see them in will never be my home (no matter how much my mother has tried to convince me otherwise). I was going through some strange abandonment issues because of the situation a few months ago. I think I’m over them, but we’ll see once I get to their house. I’m not imagining that it will be a fully comfortable experience.

I’m not even sure what I’m going to do once I’m there. Help them unpack, probably. I won’t be able to do the things I used to do when I visited them, such as hit up my old haunts and call up the friends I haven’t seen in ages. Aside from my family, I don’t know a soul in the whole state. My mother says she’s going to take me shopping for a Halloween costume. Maybe that’ll help pass the time.

I don’t have a good Halloween costume idea yet, although I have been trying my hardest. I’ve considered Alex Mack, Daria, and Beebe Bluff, among other options. For some reason, childhood memories seemed like a good inspiration this year. I was also considering being a competitor from Legends of the Hidden Temple, but after I suggested it to a friend, she quickly snatched up the idea and is now going as one half of The Red Jaguars, with another of our friends filling the spot of the other half. Drat.

Italians don’t celebrate Halloween, so when I studied abroad I was unable to dress in costume (we were in and out of museums that day… actually, that might have been the same day as the beach excursion… or I might just be lumping all my memories together). So my friends and I started deciding on what we could be without costumes (as Wednesday Addams explained in The Addams Family movie when she wore her standard ensemble on Halloween, “I’m a homicidal maniac. They look just like everyone else.”). Our costumes included Opus Dei member, pedophile, closet porn addict, Fascist, and other things that, for one reason or another, could be considered “scary.”

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I suppose that’s in part due to me being an actor (which is also why I love April Fools Day). It’s also because it’s great to be something you’re not. I’ve heard it said that we’re more honest when we’re wearing masks. I don’t know if that’s true. I just know it’s fun wearing someone else’s clothes.

I like having “clever” costumes, although I know that most people just roll their eyes at me. I have no desire to be something run-of-the-mill. I like the idea that when people tell their friends about the party the went to, the say “oh, and there was one chick dressed as _________.” It makes me feel a little bit special, which I like. Past costumes have included an alarm clock, a piece of gum, a magnet, a bag of jellybeans, a Macarena dancer, a rainbow, and a Von Trapp child.

I was talking to the fellow I’m seeing and his roommates about my possible costumes for this year. I found an adorable yellow and black dress while shopping the other day. I was considering wearing it with a pair of wings, a wizard’s hat, and a wand, and going as a Spelling Bee. I asked for their opinions. One of them turned to me and said, “Depends. How hot is the dress?”

When I asked for other ideas of what I should be, I kept getting answers about sexy female movie characters (and mostly from movies I haven’t seen), such as the chick in Underworld. I’m not doing that. Sorry.

After a certain age, Halloween for females stops being about dressing up to be scary or goofy, and becomes about being unabashedly slutty. To quote the movie Mean Girls, “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” It’s true. It’s the day that women can dress up as scantily, skimpily, or skankily as they would like, and not have to defend it. It's a costume. It’s a character. It’s acceptable.

I hate that I am expected to wear something that makes me look attractive. What’s the point? I spend most other days trying to look more attractive than I am. It feels like Halloween should be an opportunity to do otherwise.

At the same time, if I don’t take advantage of this annual free-pass-skank-day, then I feel like I can’t compete with all the females who do. I feel as though I’ll be invisible in some way. And I will have wasted this chance to focus on being pretty/sexy/hot. It’s like wearing khakis and a cardigan to the prom. It might seem like you’re making a statement at the time, but wouldn’t you end up regretting it? Maybe I would be missing out on some essential part of my life as a young adult. It almost seems like a rite of passage. And I hate that men don’t have to deal with this. No one is disappointed if a normally attractive male shows up at a party dressed as something that doesn’t make him seem more desirable.

For the record, I am against costumes that have words like “sexy” in the title. Sexy Librarian. Naughty Nurse. Dirty Girl Scout. These aren’t Halloween costumes. These are prototypes of characters in soft-core porn. It just isn’t right.

I accidentally watched part of a soft-corn porn flick on television once a couple of years ago. I was flipping channels and saw that there was a Lord of the Rings parody on. I didn’t know at the time that Cinemax turns into a completely different kind of channel at night. I wasn’t expecting Lord of the G-Strings. I was on the phone with a friend at the time, and only semi-paying attention to the television, which I had put on mute. A few minutes later, I screamed in horror as I noticed what was playing in the background. I yelled “Oh my God! I’m watching porn!” My male friend laughed so hard that it’s amazing his lungs remained in his chest.

I’m a relatively naïve person when it comes to things like pornography. I led a pretty sheltered childhood. I wasn’t allowed to watch PG-13 movies until I was 17. I learned the word “flirting” when I was a freshman in high school (a senior boy had to sit me down and explain it to me). I didn’t know what the other “f-word” meant until my senior year. Boys were never interested in me, so I didn’t know anything about the rituals of dating until college. Things were always going on around me that I was completely oblivious to, such as drug use, sex, and the like.

I’m not particularly bothered by my innocent nature. There are many things that I have not done, and I’m alright with that. The way I look at it, I’ve been like a Barbie doll, still in the box. At times, yes, it feels like I’m suffocating inside a plastic tomb and I wish someone would just take me out of my prison and play with me. But Barbie is far more valuable while she’s still in the box, in mint condition. She’s rare and desirable. I think I’d regret it if I were to rip the cardboard cage to shreds. I don’t plan to stay trapped in the box forever, but for now it feels like the right place to be. I’m happy, healthy, and safe from a world of things that I’m not quite ready to deal with.

As I was writing that last paragraph, I started hating that I was saying it. I make it sound like I’m some sort of object. A used car, whose value will decrease with mileage. I don’t actually think that. I do have self-worth, despite my damaged self-image. It also made it sound like I’m depriving myself of things because I feel should. That’s not it at all. If I’m staying unacquainted with anything, it’s because I want to. If I felt forced, I’d fight against it. Maybe that’s part of the reason I don’t hop out of the box… Because everyone else does.

I’m anti-lemming. I will be whatever it is I want to be, and will ignore the social trends. Occasionally, I will fight against them simply because I feel that someone should. Like in 5th grade when my mother couldn’t convince me to wear jeans because “all the other kids wear jeans.” I spent most of that year wearing leggings as pants. And then I entered into an overalls phase. And from there went to capris, clam-diggers, pedal-pushers, and flood pants (this was before these styles came back into fashion… I was inspired by the movie Dirty Dancing, and suffered through an unfair amount of teasing for wearing pants that were “too short”). I refused to be a conformist. Of course, I wear jeans now… when they fit.

Maybe the way we dress in daily life is a costume of sorts. Do we choose what we wear so people will know who we are? We can project an image of what we want to be, or who we think we should be. The clothes we choose are a form of self-expression, after all (that’s why Barbie was popular in the first place… put on a different outfit, and she’s a whole new toy). Perhaps on occasion we hide behind it (I suppose that by being clothed at all, we are hiding our bodies, but I was speaking figuratively... as though every person has the ability to put on sheep's clothing and pretend to be something that isn't a wolf).

Perhaps that’s part of why I take off my pants when I get back to my apartment. I don’t have to worry about what image I’m projecting once I’m alone. I’m the only person who sees me in my underwear (well, one of my former roommates did on more than one occasion… like the night she came home when she was supposed to be out watching a movie. I was sprawled out on the couch wearing underwear and a sports bra that read, “I Support the Belles”, a reference to my college mascot. I thought someone was breaking into my apartment and was terrified that I was about to be attacked. And there I was, utterly defenseless, and barely clothed. This is why you should never watch Law & Order: SVU by yourself in the dark). I don’t have to worry about anyone judging me in my underwear, which is good, because my bra and undies never match. Ever. I have exactly one set of matching undergarments, and I never remember to wear both components on the same day. Why should I have to? As my mother always says, “No one will see, no one will know, no one will care.”

My word, this has been a disjointed blog entry. But I suppose that’s par for the course with me. I hope you didn’t hate it.

May you always be comfortable, no matter what you’re wearing.

~A~