Rant About Pants

How annoying.

Okay, so I've lost a bunch of weight in the past year.  I currently have an obsession.  A clothing obsession.  A shallow clothing obsession:  skinny jeans.

shoes are good too

Ever since I walked into Old Navy about a month ago, and wondered "hrm...I wonder if I should even try these skinny jeans on...oh, what the hell," and tried on a pair, and admitted to the young sales girl that I'd never tried on a pair, and she said; "really?!! You look GREAT in those!"...yes, ever since then, something short-circuited in my brain, and now I'm obsessed.

Yes, I crammed the swaying, jelly wreckage of my mummy tummy into those jeans, and it looked pretty darn good.

There was only one problem--

no--actually, there were two:  ONE, my stupid legs are about as long as my arms, and they didn't have my size in SHORT.  Nothing like the sales girls calling across to each other, asking if they have your size in SHORT, even though, clearly, I am not short.  Meh.  Whatevs.  TWO:  if the waist band actually fits properly, and doesn't fall down, there is way, way, waaaaay too much muffin toppage.

ermahgerd...delicious..

and you know, if you're young enough, and you've got that nice smooth skin, I don't even think a muffin top over your pants is that big a deal.

BUT

If your stomach, thanks to squeezing forth some children, now looks like a BEFORE picture in an ABDOMINOPLASTY ad, therein lies the problem.

So, to recap, you can either wear skinny jeans that are in constant danger of falling down, or you can have your lower half spilling over like so much unbaked bread dough.

I have been online googling.

For days I've been googling! I've been looking for "high waisted skinny jeans."  Or, "high rise skinny jeans, " or even 'hi rise skinny jeans.  Oh my god, I've even been looking for JEGGINGS.  F*CKING JEGGINGS. And not just any jeggings--no--HIGH WAIST JEGGINGS.  And this is all because I stumbled across an article saying that if you have a post baby body, you will fare better with HIGH WAIST GODDAMN SKINNY JEANS.

BUT GOOD LUCK.  GOOD FREAKING LUCK.  YOU CAN GO INTO EVERY STORE YOU WANT THAT SELLS THESE TRENDY SKINNY JEANS AND THE 20 YEAR OLD GIRL HELPING YOU, WILL VAGUELY COMPREHEND YOUR PROBLEM, BUT NOT REALLY.   She will,  however, tell you that they DID have high rise skinny jeans and high rise jeggings but they FLEW off the shelves.

Wait....you're not feeling me on this one.  You're thinking, karen, have you turned totally lame and shallow and stoopid?  The answer is kinda not.  But I do have the same problem I've always had: when I get a clothing VISION for an event, it NAGS at me until that vision is fulfilled.  So, that means, if I picture a certain pair of earrings with a certain shirt, I will hunt EVERYWHERE for that pair of earrings.

Yes, enormous first world problems.

So, what is my vision with the stupid skinny jeans?  First, I had this fantasy, before I went to Florida in March, of getting off the plane, wearing SKINNY JEANS and a sexy tank top, and maybe even a flower in my hair.  No skinny jeans.  But, in reality, I got off the fart-choked plane, and stepped into 100% humidity, my hair turned into a broom IMMEDIATELY, and I probably had some substantial pit stains happening.

I shelved the skinny jean dream.

That is, until I bought tickets for the

look at her! Glowing with sexy, angry gorgeousness. I didn't go on the 26th, but I AM going VERY SOON! SQUEE!!!!

THE JILLIAN MICHAELS MAXIMIZE YOUR LIFE TOUR!!

And I, probs like every other Jillian-ite who will be in the audience, who has suffered through her workout vids, want to be there at that show looking BADASS in skinny jeans.  BADASS in skinny jeans, and not shlumpy in the only pair of  faded wash bullshit jeans I wear every single day.  Jeans which actually only fit properly now when I wash them and run them through the drier.  Jeans that have distinctive bling on the ass, so that anyone who walks behind me each day, as I walk my kids to school, will be able to say; "hey, there's those saggy ass jeans again, snicker, snicker."

So, I have a renewed VISION and it included some dark rinse skinny jeans and this shirt:

www.rickis.com

this little bolero style cardi

also from ricki's dot comn

an arm full of sparkly gold bangles

hm.com

some fierce, gold dangly earrings which I can't find a freaking pic of

gold flip flops

Ardene.com

and a vintage gold bag I got at a second-hand store

nevermind the bracelet and necklace in this pic.  Vintage-savvy girlfriends: tell me how I would describe this little purse thingy in proper vintage-y terms!!

So you see, clearly there are so many important things going on in my life.  Everything was falling into place for my outfit vision...except the stupid freaking jeans.

I went out tonight and tried on a lot of jeans.  Twelve pairs of jeans in fact.  I went to two different stores, and then finally ended up at Wal-hell.

Wal-hell was actually the worst part.  I hate them.  I hate them so hard.  I hate them because they're SHIT, but I still always always always ALWAYS end up back there at some point.  I curse you Wal-hell!   So I was in there, trying on like, seven pairs of stupid jeans, and this is where I lost my love of skinny jeans pretty much entirely.  Why?  Well, because these mythical HIGH RISE SKINNY JEANS that will hide my mom junk are a UNICORN, okay??  They don't exist.  They are the Loch Ness Monster of denim.  So, I am left with all the other stupid skinny jeans, which are low slung, right down to the hair line.

Not only that, but I had two pairs of the same brand of jeans at Wal-hell, and they were supposed to be the same size, and one fit nicely, and the other one I couldn't even do up.  I want to rant, and complain, but at Wal-hell, there is NOBODY to complain to, because there is not a single person there who gives a shit.  In truth, you will never, ever ever be able to find a person within the entire corporation who gives a shit.  Maybe if you went to the third world country and found the sweat shop and the poor souls who have to stitch the freaking jeans, maybe then you could say; "hey guys, can you make sure there's some sort of quality control and that if two pairs of women's pants are supposed to be the same size, that they actually ARE?"  THANKS, I KNOW YOU ONLY GET PAID LIKE TWO DOLLARS A YEAR, BUT I NEED TO LOOK GOOD FOR THE JILLIAN MICHAELS SHOW.

As I was shuffling in and out of all these stupid, teenagerish pants, they kept trying to drag my baffed out underwear down with them.  And let me tell you something:  not only did I learn that shopping for jeans is STILL PURE HELL, I'm also completely sick of having a hole in nearly ever pair of gitch I own.  Because as my underpants kept getting dragged down, revealing my scrotum-esque Mummy tummy, they also revealed the stupid, faded pink, cotton underpants with the big RUN in the front, with all the bush poking through.  Yes, that's right.  I said it.  Bush poking through.  And it was then, that I got out of the change room, threw the ONE PAIR OF BOOTCUT GUT SUPPORTING WOMAN JEANS that actually made me look like the hawt babe I'm meant to be into the cart, and I wheeled over to the underwear section where I  bought two frigging packages of underpants, and MARK MY WORDS, I am going to throw out all the other holey ancient gitches I own tomorrow.

And then, because all that squeezing in and out of pants, and bush spillage and dough toppage, and battling against camel toes and all the other ridiculousness, my normally decent self esteem flushed itself down the toilet, and I found myself at home self-medicating with a handful of corn chips and some of that plastic Mexican-ish pourable cheese in a jar (I also have the PMS), and let me tell you, it's a damn good thing The Man ate 3/4 of the bag AND the plastic cheese, because that stuff is shit, and if you actually microwave it, as it says on the side of the jar, it tastes

MORE GROSSER.  MUCH, MUCH MORE GROSSER.

Disgusting.

And THAT, my friends, is all I have to say about THAT.

Sunday Inspiration: Up With The Birds

press play first, please



































































































































































Might have to go where they don't know my name





















But I won't show or feel any pain











Even though all my armor might rust in the rain













a simple plot, but I know one day










good things are coming my way.

Look Into The Face Of This Boy And See Your Future

I had a very interesting experience yesterday.

I don't know--does everyone know by now that I have an 8 year old son somewhere vaguely on the Autism Spectrum?  Okay, well now you do.  If you're interested in the Autism thang, you can always scroll down to the bottom of my blog and find the "labels" on the right side bar.  If you click on "Autism," or "Autism Spectrum," or "Jack", you'll find where a lot of my angst is stored here in this blog.

But I digress...

So, yesterday after school, as always, I was letting the kids stick around to play, along with one of my mom friends, her daughter, and another classmate of Ella's whom she was babysitting after school.  There is now a good-sized snow hill on one side of the school, and kids LOVE a snow hill, so they were having a great time.

Not long after we had been out, a raucous snowball fight broke out nearby among a small group of older boys.  One boy in particular seemed to be extra aggressive, and kept whipping snowballs right at the head of the little sister of one of the boys, at close range.  One of the snowballs splattered right across the back of her head and fell down the back of her coat and everything.

What an obnoxious kid, I thought.

The mom I was with was really horrified by this kid's seemingly "bully-esh" behaviour, and decided she should teach him a lesson and throw a snow ball at HIS head.  It was a misguided idea, sure, but she was trying to make it more of a light-hearted, mischievous thing than a stern lecture.  So, she got a snow ball and lightly through it at him, but he turned his head just in time for the snow to hit him on his cheek near his ear.

And the look on his face???  He was STUNNED.  He couldn't believe it.  He had the widest eyes of disbelief.   He stopped and said; "YOU THREW A SNOW BALL AT MY HEAD!"

Well, things kind of escalated from there, and he got angrier, and mouthier and stood back so he could throw snowballs at the mom (who, by the way, felt mortified by the whole scene, because she really is a nice person, and isn't malevolent at all).

And the more belligerent and mouthy the kid became, and the more he threatened to get his CELL PHONE and CALL THE POLICE about the ICE BALL that had been WHIPPED at HIS FACE, it was like a combination lock suddenly clicked into place in my brain:

That boy was the 13 year old version of Jack.

It was all there before me:  the over-the-top outrage, the total lack of connecting the wrongness in HIS actions to the wrong that had been done to HIM, the mouthiness, the inability to let it go even as someone tried to mollify him.

As he was whipping snowballs in our direction, there was my boy, up on the snow hill calmly saying; "would ya please stop it?" to him.  At one point the kid said; "SHUT UP, JACK" and made a face at him.

And I stood there fascinated.  Taking it all in.  I had never met a kid who was basically like my son;  looked like any other kid, but had that social cluelessness, that mouthiness, that total inability to "learn a lesson."

By this point, the poor kid was on his way home, shouting anger at us from across the street, and I was pleading for him to come back so I could explain to him that I KNEW what he was; that I understood.  That nobody was angry anymore.

But he just kept shouting "WHY DON'T YA MAKE ME?!?"

And then all night long, I was haunted by the look on his face.  I can't explain it as well as I'd like.  It's a special Autism Spectrum kinda look.  It's the look Jack gets on his face when I do or say something to him that mimics the bad thing he has just done.  It's a look that says; "no matter how bad I am, you are never allowed to be angry at me because I need you to love me 100% of the time."

Not that I'm saying that kid wants me to love him no matter what.

I thought about that look all night long.  And I thought about that kid going home and saying that some kid's MOM threw a snowball at him, and I thought about how upsetting the whole confrontation would be to him, and I thought about how the parents would feel, because even though they'd probably know their kid had done something wrong in the first place, it would still be another one of those stories they'd have to hold on to in which nobody understood.

I sat on Jack's bed last night, and talked to him about what had happened, and how I regretted being a grouch to the kid at first.  Jack helpfully agreed that I was "too mean," and needed to be "more patient."  Thanks, Jack.

And then he remembered the face the boy had made at him, and he got all ticked off.  "He was a JERK for making that face at me!"  And this after we had this big discussion on tolerance, and sympathy, and how some people can't help what they do or say.  But just don't do these things to JACK personally.  Ha.

It was a very strange experience.  The only good thing I can say is that I am so thankful I recognised this poor kid for who he was, albeit a little too late.  How many other ignorant people simply conclude that he's an obnoxious kid?

I have no idea what the future has in store for us with this asshole Autism in our lives, and quite frankly, I try not to imagine, but yesterday I feel like I got a small glimpse into the future.

Don't know how I feel about that.