The Working Girl Blog #36: Casting about for something to write, or How I found out about booty cleavage To see all of Bobbie's "Working Girl" blogs, click on this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/19261/working-girl-blogs

Sorry for the delay in posts. And though it's an easy excuse to just say, I've been busy, the fact of the matter was was that, yes, that time has come - that moment that I've been dreading - that moment when there isn't anything that's even remotely interesting to blog about.

So, instead of talking about the slow couple of days at the office, where in fact exactly ZERO interesting things have happened, I guess I'll talk a bit about last Sunday. At least that's less boring than the stuff that's been happening at the office. (And if you should decide to tune out before finishing this reeeally long, rambling and very un-interesting blogpost, that's okay. lol)

This weekend just past was a payday weekend, when people succumb to Payday Fever, where wage earners such as yours truly find the urgent need to spend the little pittance that they get every fifteenth and thirtieth of the month instead of yielding to the voice of reason and putting away a little, or at least make it last until next payday.

But I am a girl possessed; I who have been trapped in a financial gulag for nigh on forever am set free... Spend! Spend I shall until my wallet and my purse cry, "yield!" (So. How's my version of slam poetry? Lol)

Now. As I was, ahem, saying...

Prior to parting ways last Saturday, the girls that I was with convinced me to go shopping with them. (Remember? Payday Fever?) But, instead of doing it on that Saturday itself, because of that Komen Run thing, we couldn't. So we were doing it on Sunday, instead.

Anyway, after my Sunday mass, I went and met up with them in what I read somewhere was appropriate clothes-shopping attire: loose clothing that was easy to get in and out of (preferably a one-piece), sandals or even flip-flops, and no jewelry, or at least cheap pieces that you won't hurt if they get lost or something.

So I had picked a fairly old, blousy empire-waist flowery sundress with a pretty short hemline (but for lil' petite me, it was comfortably above-the-knee), no jewelry except a necklace of big plastic beads I got from some novelty store during my Sarah McLachlan phase about five years ago, a couple of plastic bangles, my old Steve Madden slip on sandals (and, you need not ask, it had high-heel wedges), and my Abbi NY messenger-bag purse.

Anyway, we met up at Mazza Gallerie and proceeded to "case the joint." But in the end, the girls decided to shift malls - Pat said the place was a little too rich. I, totally clueless, nodded and agreed.

In truth, not having any innate fashion sense, I have always relied on two principles in "replicating" a fashion sense: first - not to rely on my not-yet-existing tastes and not risk putting together outfits myself but copy, instead, the outfits of people around me, or, at the very least, pictures I see in magazines, etc.; and, second, buy complete outfits (as opposed to individual pieces) from signature or couture brands (the theory being, because they're signature brands, they should look good). The overriding thing here was to not rely on what I thought looked good.

Since I started living full time in my current form, I learned that dressing is not easy. Not the mechanics of the dressing, although I had a lot to learn on that score as well. As to the first "principle" - I have learned to not just pick a nice looking outfit, but to make sure that the person wearing the outfit is of a certain type. I could dream about wearing outfits that a Beyonce, a Gwyneth Paltrow, or a Claudia Schiffer would wear, and look as fabulous as they did, but try as I might, I'd probably just look laughable. I learned a little trick - I'm thin, I'm short, and have an ethnic cast to my features (due to my south Italian roots on my mom's side). So, over the years, I've sort of picked celebrities that seem to match my general "look." I'm not so egotistical that I think I look like these celebrities - far from it. But I think we are of a certain general "cast." Off the top of my head, those who seem to work for me include the things that Brittany Murphy, Eva Longoria, Mila Kunis, Lacey Chabert, Salma Hayek and (don't ask why as she's as Caucasian as can be) Natalie Portman wear. Lately though, I've had a lot of good luck with the outfits that Carla Gugino, Rachel Bilson and Vanessa Hudgens come out in.

As to the second "principle," well, besides being the quickest way to the poorhouse, my theory goes, if it's been designed by a good designer, there's a fifty-fifty chance that it's a good outfit, despite whatever my admittedly-off-kilter fashion radar would say. But the cost...

Early on, instead of buying stuff I clearly couldn't afford, I've tried to replicate this high couture stuff, instead. (I became a fan of the show "Look for Less" on cable's Style) But if I could afford the real thing, I'd buy the real thing. Yeah, it's difficult. I seem to have better luck with the first principle.

I'm sure you guys are saying, well, Bobbie isn't telling me anything new: isn't all that self evident? Ahhh! That's where you're wrong. Have you ever seen those people who want to go dressed make the mistake of dressing in that certain way that makes them look like bad-looking transvestites? (No value-judgments here nor any intention of casting aspersions at anyone, but I'm sure you know the stereotyped look that I'm referring to). The thing is, rather than trying to match the ideal in your mind, shoot for what is closer to what's real. Another thing - don't completely trust what your own tastes - as much as possible, follow the outfit you've settled on exactly as you saw it. Also - going for what feels safe usually means it's wrong - like I originally preferred wearing long skirts, high-neckline blouses with long sleeves, et cetera, because that's what felt safe. Let me say that the kindest comment I got was that I looked like a schoolmarm. So I took a leap of faith and copied an outfit I saw verbatim, and ended up wearing my first non-schoolmarmish dress - a simple dress with a hem just above the knee, square neck and short-short cap sleeves. I felt my knees strangely exposed and my exposed upper chest uncomfortably cold. I was preparing for negative reactions, but no one commented, and a couple of my workmates actually said I looked good. For almost a month, I fought my instincts and tried not to wear what felt comfortable and safe to me but tried for wearing what my co-workers around me seemed to prefer wearing. A most difficult month, but most instructive...

There was a former patient of my therapist that I got to know - She was also TS, and when I first met her, I took her to be a natural woman, albeit an older, matronly one. The only thing that gave her away was her voice. And for the couple of months that she was with my therapist, I got to know her a bit. She admitted to plastic surgery on her face, and that she did a variety of my first "principle," except with her, her celebrity was Carol Burnett... Now, that's not the most gorgeous of celebrities, but what floored me was that she said this woman was the closest to her look and build that was even halfway attractive (not that I didn't think Carol Burnett was attractive, but she wasn't the stereotypical image of beauty). She explained that she actually preferred an image like Ann-Margret, but she would rather shoot for someone less blatantly beautiful and therefore more realistic, preferring to pass as authentic instead of fool herself into thinking clothes and make-up can magically turn her into the redheaded bombshell of her dreams. It was my emulating her that allowed me to make up my own little gimmick.

Oh! I actually a third "principle," which goes, "dress simply, and, at all times, look clean, groomed and neat." True, if you can pull off a goth or a grunge look, then you have better fashion radar than I, and probably looked gorgeous to begin with. But it remains - you can't go wrong by looking clean-cut, groomed and neat. Even a plain girl can look attractive so long as she's groomed and neat.

Over the years, by practicing these "principles," I slowly developed a fashion sense of a sort. I liken it to math or algebra etc. Unlike those fortunate people that seem to innately understand the mathematic principles behind the formulas that school tries to ram down our throats, I memorized these formulas, and I was able to do math by following the formulas unquestioningly. In the same way, I learned a kind of fashion sense by rote. I don't really know why hems cut on a bias are "adventurous," or why silver jewelry matches black more than gold. I just follow them rules. And if you do 'em often enough, it becomes automatic. Just like memorizing multiplication tables.

Anyway, back to the shopping. As I was saying, I didn't have this innate fashion sense that born-women seem to have, and have relied on these little tricks. But, when you have someone else with you while you shop, you're able to ask things like, "what do you think of this outfit" and "does this look good on me," and the inevitable question, "does this make me look fat?"

Having feedback gives you a way to confirm what you're thinking and, more importantly, counter what you think was okay but actually isn't. It was educational. And, more than that, it was fun. As I thought it would be, shopping with others is preferable to shopping alone. Another side benefit here - I can better do the second principle with this running feedback, and allowed me to replicate the signature fashion combos I had my eye on using stuff from Walmart or Target. Hopefully I can do more of these in the future, and build up my "posh" stuff with these high-fashion lookalikes.

You know, despite wearing girl stuff exclusively for sometime, I still like it, and though the novelty of it all has worn of just a tad, putting on clothes is still the highlight of my day. But there are moments that the differences sort of come back to me. Wearing skirts, for example, sometimes feels a little, well, off. Pants solidly hanging from your hips from the belt at your waist makes them feel, I don't know, secure. Wearing one-piece dresses, even if they're fitted, feel less secure, as the clothes seem to float around you, essentially just hanging from your shoulders. And one other thing that strikes me from time to time, as how... drafty wearing skirts are. These things become more normal-feeling after a while, but these odd feelings come back to me from time to time. And, changing in and out of clothes all day brought back these kinds of feelings.

As someone who tries to keep current whenever she can, I kept my ears open during the expected conversations about clothes as we trolled the shops or were looking through display windows. I learned a couple of new things, the two best eye-openers being about swimsuits and underwear.

In terms of swimsuits, two-piece swimsuits are always gonna be there, and will always be sexy, but right now, what seems to be in vogue are one-piece cutout suits called monokinis. To my untrained eye, they looked like traditional bikinis, except there's this little bit of fabric connecting the top to the bottom. I wanted to say, sure, they're one-piece suits, but just barely. But I didn't say anything. Anyway, though I did resolve to go swimming in public this year and wear my first swimsuit in public, I think I'm still too much of a scaredy-cat to try out a bikini or a monokini. Guess I'll have to look for a style I will have the balls (yes, pun intended) to wear.

The other one was about underwear. Since high school, or at least since I became aware of sexual politics, thongs and g-strings have always been the sexy underwear of choice. Still is, and I think will always be. But it seems that boyshorts were now the new "in" thing. Hearing "boyshorts" initially made me feel like I was on secure ground. I mean, aren't these what I wore when I was young? But as we looked at these boyshorts, seems I WASN'T on secure ground. These things had no connection with what I was thinking. Truthfully, I knew about these things - in fact, I had a few pairs, but I didn't know that they were called "boyshorts." In any case, I know no boy who would wear these shorts.

Anyway, for obvious reasons, we couldn't try any them on, but the saleslady was expert in sizing us up and we didn't need to. The others were easy sizes but given my... nonstandard measurements, she had some problems. Because of my less... prominent hips, the closest for me was either an XS or small (or size 4 or 5). The lady suggested the smaller one. Also, while the girls were preoccupied, the lady discretely suggested that I should take a look at padded panties. The store carried the Body Wrap and Nearly Me brands, but she said that the Nearly Me was better since it had hip pads and not just the rear pads. I said I'll think about it, In any case, I bought a couple ivory boyshorts, a couple pastel pinks, a pastel green and a pastel blue. One thing though, and I only noticed them when I got home, was that there was a vertical stitch on the backside, apparently to emphasize the curve and cleavage of your booty. Well, it's not as if someone will see me in it...

We continued on with the shopping, and I came out of it with bags of stuff. But all in all, I didn't spend as much as I feared I would, having bought most of our stuff at regular stores and not the high-end ones. After a bite, we went home, the others having to go in separate cabs as we all ended up with piles of stuff (Cricket's rear seats were piled high and no room for passengers) I hated being a cliché girl. Wait - what was I saying? Actually, I guess I liked being a cliché girl.

   

To see ALL of Bobbie's blogposts, click this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/bobbie-c
To see Bobbie's stories in BCTS, click this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/14775/roberta-j-cabot