Grow Up
Today, while returning six bathing suits to a store nearby - yes, I said six, I wandered on into Anthropologie. I was in there for about fifteen minutes, and when I left, I was a completely different person.
Or could have been. I wanted everything in the joint. Except for jeans made for people with normal, not stunted, leg length and anything sleeveless, which, truth be told, eliminated about 80% of the items in there...even the ones made of wool. I don't understand why everything cute is sleeveless. But that's for another day.
Today I wanted everything (minus jeans and sleeveless goods) in the store. I wanted the clothes, I wanted the jewelry, I wanted the housewares, I wanted the perfume, I wanted the shoes, I wanted the whole freaking vibe. I am fond, to say the least, of Anthropologie. And as I pondered the wisdom of purchasing all new linens in a gentle sage green woven from the odd numbered hairs from the underbellies of Himalayan jackelopes, and as I equivocated over vintage (old looking?) aprons with matching dishtowels, and as I contemplated the appropriate scented candles for the living room - $30 fig? Perhaps $27 french lavender and something called "cade" that I've never heard of and let's face it, I've heard of a lot of shit-, I also stumbled upon another collection of goodies available for thecrazed eager shopper.
BOOKS
Hmmm....what have we here?! My mind drifted away from vintage (old looking?) fixtures, dreams of waif-like upper arms, and a house that smells like at least one of the people living there has a clue about what she's doing, and I became mesmerized by the piles of books. The answers to life's great questions, you see, are all neatly and oh so prettily tucked away in stylish stacks at Anthropologie. Forget new clothes, new shoes, new scent, new home decor, here lay the potential for a New Me.
I began innocently enough: dream interpretation. I can even claim a prior legitimate interest in this...when I learn Greek or figure out how to make clocks run backwards so I have the time to actually read it, I'm going to invest in the Oneirocritica, the ancient Greek book of dream interpretation. It even had a shiny blue cover.
The Green Book. I like this! I can understand my whacked out dreams AND learn little tips and tricks to protect the earth for my children and my children's children.
And on and on it went...The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters, Manners Can Be Fun, Anything But Chardonnay - a wine buying and drinking guide, Audrey Style - how to look, act, and project Audrey Hepburn, about ten different organizers, each more slick and cool than the one before. I could learn what to cook, what to eat, what to drink what to wear, how to talk, how to interpret my deepest desires, and how to organize them JUST SO as to be prepared when opportunity presented itself and, voilà, I could spin my own brand of wonderfulness into whatever fulfulling and rewarding magic form I so wished.
It was then I came upon Simon Doonan's Eccentric Glamour: Creating an Insanely More Fabulous You, prominently featured in a huge row of "How to be Stylish and Wonderful in Every Way" books on a long farmhouse table made of distressed wood from Maple trees exclusively harvested from the Putney, Vermont, region. And as my hand reached out to pick it up, I froze.
I have no beef with Simon Doonan. I'm pretty sure he was the Barney's window designer who became haute shit and I begrudge him absolutely nothing. Maybe it was the cover, maybe his book happened to be the straw on the back of the camel-load of "Be THIS Way" books towering on the (beautiful) table. Maybe it was the fact that, while I will own up to "sometimes funny" and "knows some stuff" and "pretty nice" and "sorta weird," "insanely fabulous" does not now and never will describe me. No matter how many books I buy.
I didn't buy anything in Anthropologie todaythough I reserve the right to return on Monday especially if my arms somehow miraculously look like they might not appear ham-hock-like in something sleeveless.
My whole drive home I couldn't stop thinking about teenagers and how all the adolescent girls at the pool this summer look like clones of one another. Same straight, lanky hair. Same bathing suit. Same manicured hand on same canted and pointy hip. Same GD cell phone glued to their faces. Isn't it my jobthank you Jesus not during summer vacation just the other ten months of the year to help them see the value of being an individual...well, that and comma use?
I don't think that I am supposed to figure out how to dress and how to feed people and how to make a bed and how to smell by doing what someone else tells me to do.
Right?
That it's an accepted norm for adolescent girls to be parroting the behavior and the look of 40 year old women is scary enough. Shouldn't 40 year old women be running, screaming into the hills if need be, in order to NOT return to adolescence by seeking step by step instructions for how to be? I'm not going to read a book and figure out how to be Insanely Fabulous, nor am I going to learn how to be Audrey Hepburn-esque. And wouldn't it be weird if I suddenly were? My children would be bewildered and wonder who the hell was going to produce the mac and cheese - bright orange thank you very much and without any weird spices in it - and my husband would be at a complete loss. He still hasn't quite figured out what to do with the actual original version of ME and he's known me since I was 8.
For that matter, neither have I. And not for lack of trying. I would probably enjoy perusing Doonan's book, or one of the others, and someday I might. I reckon, though, that I'm just going to have to keep working at being me the old fashioned way, one potentially unflattering yet totally wonderful sleeveless shirt and one Kraft macaroni and cheese masterpiece at a time.
Or could have been. I wanted everything in the joint. Except for jeans made for people with normal, not stunted, leg length and anything sleeveless, which, truth be told, eliminated about 80% of the items in there...even the ones made of wool. I don't understand why everything cute is sleeveless. But that's for another day.
Today I wanted everything (minus jeans and sleeveless goods) in the store. I wanted the clothes, I wanted the jewelry, I wanted the housewares, I wanted the perfume, I wanted the shoes, I wanted the whole freaking vibe. I am fond, to say the least, of Anthropologie. And as I pondered the wisdom of purchasing all new linens in a gentle sage green woven from the odd numbered hairs from the underbellies of Himalayan jackelopes, and as I equivocated over vintage (old looking?) aprons with matching dishtowels, and as I contemplated the appropriate scented candles for the living room - $30 fig? Perhaps $27 french lavender and something called "cade" that I've never heard of and let's face it, I've heard of a lot of shit-, I also stumbled upon another collection of goodies available for the
BOOKS
Hmmm....what have we here?! My mind drifted away from vintage (old looking?) fixtures, dreams of waif-like upper arms, and a house that smells like at least one of the people living there has a clue about what she's doing, and I became mesmerized by the piles of books. The answers to life's great questions, you see, are all neatly and oh so prettily tucked away in stylish stacks at Anthropologie. Forget new clothes, new shoes, new scent, new home decor, here lay the potential for a New Me.
I began innocently enough: dream interpretation. I can even claim a prior legitimate interest in this...when I learn Greek or figure out how to make clocks run backwards so I have the time to actually read it, I'm going to invest in the Oneirocritica, the ancient Greek book of dream interpretation. It even had a shiny blue cover.
The Green Book. I like this! I can understand my whacked out dreams AND learn little tips and tricks to protect the earth for my children and my children's children.
And on and on it went...The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters, Manners Can Be Fun, Anything But Chardonnay - a wine buying and drinking guide, Audrey Style - how to look, act, and project Audrey Hepburn, about ten different organizers, each more slick and cool than the one before. I could learn what to cook, what to eat, what to drink what to wear, how to talk, how to interpret my deepest desires, and how to organize them JUST SO as to be prepared when opportunity presented itself and, voilà, I could spin my own brand of wonderfulness into whatever fulfulling and rewarding magic form I so wished.
It was then I came upon Simon Doonan's Eccentric Glamour: Creating an Insanely More Fabulous You, prominently featured in a huge row of "How to be Stylish and Wonderful in Every Way" books on a long farmhouse table made of distressed wood from Maple trees exclusively harvested from the Putney, Vermont, region. And as my hand reached out to pick it up, I froze.
I have no beef with Simon Doonan. I'm pretty sure he was the Barney's window designer who became haute shit and I begrudge him absolutely nothing. Maybe it was the cover, maybe his book happened to be the straw on the back of the camel-load of "Be THIS Way" books towering on the (beautiful) table. Maybe it was the fact that, while I will own up to "sometimes funny" and "knows some stuff" and "pretty nice" and "sorta weird," "insanely fabulous" does not now and never will describe me. No matter how many books I buy.
I didn't buy anything in Anthropologie today
My whole drive home I couldn't stop thinking about teenagers and how all the adolescent girls at the pool this summer look like clones of one another. Same straight, lanky hair. Same bathing suit. Same manicured hand on same canted and pointy hip. Same GD cell phone glued to their faces. Isn't it my job
I don't think that I am supposed to figure out how to dress and how to feed people and how to make a bed and how to smell by doing what someone else tells me to do.
Right?
That it's an accepted norm for adolescent girls to be parroting the behavior and the look of 40 year old women is scary enough. Shouldn't 40 year old women be running, screaming into the hills if need be, in order to NOT return to adolescence by seeking step by step instructions for how to be? I'm not going to read a book and figure out how to be Insanely Fabulous, nor am I going to learn how to be Audrey Hepburn-esque. And wouldn't it be weird if I suddenly were? My children would be bewildered and wonder who the hell was going to produce the mac and cheese - bright orange thank you very much and without any weird spices in it - and my husband would be at a complete loss. He still hasn't quite figured out what to do with the actual original version of ME and he's known me since I was 8.
For that matter, neither have I. And not for lack of trying. I would probably enjoy perusing Doonan's book, or one of the others, and someday I might. I reckon, though, that I'm just going to have to keep working at being me the old fashioned way, one potentially unflattering yet totally wonderful sleeveless shirt and one Kraft macaroni and cheese masterpiece at a time.
Amen, Sister Hostess!
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