pants

Will Work for Pants (+ OOTD)

That Asian-Looking Chick 3 Comments

Pants.

May I just rant about pants for a second? I have two pairs of pants – one brown, one beige – that I wear to work, neither of which are particularly flattering or nice. I mean, they’re okay, I guess. In terms of the workplace, they’re only a step above jeans by virtue of the fact that they’re not jeans. I’m always relieved when Friday arrives, because I feel justified in wearing jeans to work on Fridays, though I’ll sometimes wear them to work during the week, too. In addition to the brown and beige pants, I also have two pairs of black pants that I consider to be “work” pants. They aren’t great-looking, either (one is a pair of cords, and the other is a weird pair of black jeans, which I consider to be nice enough to qualify as not-jeans). All four pairs of pants are uncomfortable in one way or another. I’m most comfortable wearing regular jeans or leggings; I’ll actually put on leggings once a week more often than I will the black jeans. During an average five-day work week, I’ll rotate through them… the brown, beige, black, leggings or weird black jeans, and regular jeans on Fridays.

My ridiculous angst over pants is due to the fact that I HATE SHOPPING FOR PANTS. I know that it wouldn’t hurt to invest a little in my work wardrobe, but it’s hard to muster the enthusiasm when I’d rather go to the dentist than go shopping for pants. If my work attire could be anything I wanted, I’d go in work-out/athletic clothing. I do, in fact, have one pair of flowy black athletic pants in some kind of stretchy spandex-blend that I can get away with wearing to work. Unfortunately, they’re old and worn-out to the point where they’ve developed a pill issue.

You can understand, then, that when my eyeballs wandered over an ad for “yoga-style pants for the office” the other day, I clicked on the link with high hopes:

 

thatasianlookingchick.com-dresspantyogapants

 

I immediately honed in on the pair I would order. I know what I like. I would get the boot-flare cut in black:

 

thatasianlookingchick.com-dresspantyogapantsbootflare

 

And look at that! They’re beautiful, and they’re only $79.20, because they’re 10% off! WHAT A STEAL.

 

thatasianlookingchick.com-dresspantyogapantstwo

 

I partially went through the process of ordering them, just to see. Ground shipping, the least expensive shipping option, is $6.95, bringing the pre-tax subtotal to $86.15. Add an additional $5.60 for (California) sales tax, and these pants cost $91.75.

In my view, it’s a cruel joke to make comfy, work-appropriate yoga pants and advertise them for $80.00. I mean, I just can’t. And this is one of my issues with shopping for work clothing: I’m willing to throw eighty bucks down for some things, but pants aren’t one of them.

I don’t like to spend money on clothing. I’m guilty of spending more than I should on things like skin care products, perfumes, concert tickets and food (on high-quality groceries, and on eating out), and I’ll splurge on a pedicure every once in a while, mainly to get the lower leg and foot massage. I’m not a clothes-shopping person. I’m not a jewelry person or a shoe person, either. I do like bags, but not expensive ones. I like Target, the Goodwill, Ross, Marshall’s, and it’s just painful shopping for pants in those places. The very idea of flipping through a hundred pairs of pants that all look the same (except that they’re not) leaves me cold.

There are other, random places, sure. One store in the mall I venture into every once in a while is Charlotte Russe, because I usually find things there that I like, and often, those things that I find are on the clearance rack. And I like to get jeans at Old Navy (when they’re having a sale)… Old Navy and Target.

I still have many of the dresses and skirts I habitually wore to work a decade ago, but I’m not into wearing them anymore, for some reason. Not only that, but there’d be a strategic issue with wearing skirts to work now: I sit on a physio/balance ball instead of on a chair, and my desk doesn’t have a “modesty panel.” My desk is out in the open, facing people walking into that area. Are you getting a visual here? You know how I’m prone to embarrassing incidents at work? Yeah. That would totally happen to me. So, pants. No crotch shots. PANTS.

While I love the idea of these “Black Dress Pant Yoga Pants (Boot-Flare) $79.20 $88 (10% Off),” there’s just no way I’m spending a total of $91.75 on ONE pair of pants when I could get several from any of the cheaper places for that same price. I guess I know what I’m doing one weekend in the near future.

Here’s what I’m wearing to work today:

 

FRIDAY!

FRIDAY!

 

Happy Friday!

 

 

her·mit

That Asian-Looking Chick 6 Comments

n.

1. A person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence; a recluse.

 

Yesterday, we went out. We had to. Our refrigerator contained the following:

Ketchup; mustard (2 kinds); pickles (2 kinds); mayonnaise; jam (2 kinds); butter; Omega-3 buttery spread; lemons (2); taco sauce (the last of my favorite kind, from the States); pure maple syrup (also from the States); soy milk; grapefruit juice; two open cans of cat food (2 kinds); and the requisite open container of baking soda stashed in the back.

As some wise person once said: “Man cannot live on condiments alone. Or on cat food. Or on baking soda.”

Honestly? Had we had a grain of coffee or a crust of bread, we wouldn’t have left the house. It was the lack of coffee and bread that did it. We had no choice.

We had to put on pants.

It might sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m really not. Isolation is a by-product of working from home in the wilderness, and being isolated makes us feel like who cares if we’re dressed or not.

Aside from the occasional appointment, we only emerge into society when we run out of food. It’s an event. We fire up the truck and lumber down through the woods to our gate and out onto the private road, stop to take the wheels off of 4 x 4 drive mode, then rumble by the mailboxes, wind around two pastures, wave as we pass the bee-keeper guy’s place, until we finally come to the clearing where the dumpsters sit clustered to the left with the “CAMPING” area across from them on the right. It’s there that the little road joins perpendicularly with the main road, which is still a nameless, no-sidewalk country road, but at least it appears on a map (I think) and it leads somewhere: small villages and Grenoble to the right, more small villages (including the one that’s our address) and Romans-sur-Isère to the left. We usually go left and do our shopping in Romans.

We make this excursion maybe once every 7-10 days. We load up the truck with our trash so we can drop it in the dumpsters when we get out to the “CAMPING” area at the main road.

When it’s cold, we put off going anywhere as long as we can because the fire doesn’t usually stay alive untended (except at night, when Callaghan banks it), and it’s kind of unpleasant to come home to a dead fire in a cold house.

This is what makes me cringe with shame: Ma Ingalls would absolutely not approve of our current habits. We have no excuse! The Ingalls family got dressed every day, even when they didn’t have plans to go to town. Ma Ingalls always changed into day-time clothes, and she made sure that her girls did, too, regardless of anything. If there was a violent blizzard outside continuously howling during the longest, hardest winter ever known to humankind, there they’d be, the Ingallses, ensconced in the house fully-dressed, functional and ready for unannounced guests. (If there was ever a day Ma said, to hell with it, I’ll hang out in my nightgown, I missed that part, even though I’ve read the entire “Little House” series – which I have in my possession – backwards and forwards like 20 times since I was seven years old.)

So I’ve been thinking that it might be a good idea to take a cue from Ma and start approaching each day as if there was a little civilization right here in our own house. We could behave as if there was a world humming with human life outside our door, instead of just the woods… as if there was a chance someone might come along and drop in for a visit. (When you finally find us and make it onto our land, you can only go so far before you have to stop and walk the rest of the way up to our house, because the wooded path is steep and muddy and rocky, and if your vehicle’s not a 4 x 4, it’s not going to make it.)

Yes! Sounds like a plan, and it’ll serve us well, I think. Because you know things have slipped out of control when you’re suddenly aware that “Do we need to put on pants?” is the operating question every morning. Thanks for the inspiration, Ma! We’ll try to do you proud. And we’ll hope that if someone does come to visit, it’s not Nellie Olsen.