So lately errbody in my life is telling me I should have a blog. My mom is telling me that I should have a blog and upload pictures of myself in the outfits I wear and then write amusing anecdotes about all the dudes I’m not dating, sort of like I did in college, minus the pictures, because all I wore in college was knitwear and leggings. She doesn't realize that if the outfits were really that cute, then maybe the second part of the subject would be unnecessary. She also doesn’t realize that just about every girl in a moderately sized city who’s read Marie Claire magazine and lives within a five mile radius of Urban Outfitters or Forever 21 has a blog like this now, thanks to the internets and iPhone cameras. After a while, it gets to be kind of like, okay whatever I have that same top. But I look way fatter in mine. Cool.
I don’t have an iPhone, I don’t have a tripod, and I certainly don’t have the budget to even think about buying either of those things. I’ve heard you can procure a tripod for about $20 on the internets, but that’s just about the price of a 12 pack. It never stood a chance, to be honest. I do have a digital camera that I recently popped back together after some douche at a bar stepped on it, a repertoire of facial expressions that rivals Stephen Colbert’s, a biting sense of humor that is often mistaken for self-loathing or confusion, and an ever-expanding closet because I’ve been the same size since eighth grade. (Evidently, I had few friends then, and probably fewer now!) Also, I don’t really look cute even twice a week. I hit the nail on the head about once a week, at most, when I wear all my best clothes and put on a belt. Then everyone (the secretary in my building) is all, “oh, what a cute outfit, you look beautiful, you’re so creative, what a great outfit, you look so nice!” and my mom’s all, “you should start a fashion blog because you always look so put together!” I mean I look okay sometimes, but everybody looks okay sometimes. She's also, like, my mom.
My boss suggested that I start a blog about my experiences on the bus, which are unbelievable, but that’s certainly not my doing, and it seems a little opportunistic to take credit for every insane person in the city of Milwaukee. I certainly didn’t put them all here! She also suggested that I include my struggles with my entrée into adulthood. I don’t quite know how I feel about this, as she is my boss, and has been the main observer and instigator of pretty much all of those struggles that don’t directly involve things that don’t work in my apartment or my inability to make men see me as any more than a novelty. But generally I complain about that stuff to her too, because usually she thinks it’s funny. But I’m also the only other person who works in our office consistently. On some days, I laugh at the copy machine voice. I laugh at things I would NEVER LAUGH AT ANYWHERE ELSE.
I was going to use my two great talents - looking okay sometimes and being sardonically humorous - to write a satire of the fashion blogs that are OMG everywhere, but I actually think a lot of those people who write them are well-intentioned and cute, and they are helpful. (They give good sizing advice sometimes. They all wear size 0's all the time, so it's really easy to tell what size I should wear. Not that one.) It's really too bad no one wants to look at a blog of drunk pictures of me making fun of other people in bars with my face while wearing mildly cute outfits, because I have about two blogs' worth of those.
So I haven’t really done it. I mean, what if everybody thinks my outfit sucks? A lot of times I think that. I like outfits with hoods or big necks that you can pull up over your face. In winter, which is most of my life, I wear this, three pairs of leggings or tights, and boots, almost exclusively, and almost always entirely in black, to reflect my frost-bitten soul. Mostly, I really don’t care what anyone else thinks of my outfits, because I’m more concerned about accounting for all my appendages underneath at least three layers and survival, unless you are Joseph Gordon-Levitt and then I really care. What if no one thinks I’m funny? That would be even worse. I have had little success with blogging in the past, Julie/Julia effect aside, and to be honest, I don’t think I’m the kind of person that appeals to a mass audience. I think I mostly appeal to a drunk, 19-25, male flannel-shirt-wearing audience. They couldn’t give a shit about where I bought this wrap cardigan. But I’m going to give it the old college try, mostly because I’m poor, and even the one in one zillion odds that someone will read this and give me my own advice column like they gave to Eliot Spitzer’s twenty-something embarrassment, are good enough for me. I could take a babe shot in that same outfit and ask Meredith in Queens why she’s writing to a call girl to ask for advice about her misbehaving teenage daughter, and wham - instant fame.
