Suiting up

2008-05-15T18:21:39+00:00

So I have a confession: I love suits. I blame Scully, because it was with her in mind that I tried on a double-breasted Ralph Lauren pinstriped pantsuit at a friend’s Nordstrom birthday party in high school. It fitted me so well and flattered me so thoroughly that I stood in front of the mirrors trying to figure out a career that I would enjoy that would involve a wardrobe of suits. My imagination failed me in this matter.

However, the desire to be suited remains. Suits are comfortable, fairly practical, and exude an aura of competence. As I near graduation with a terminal degree, I imagine interview scenarios wherein a suit might be an advantage or necessity, and when I was at the mall yesterday I prolonged my stay in the air-conditioning by hitting the suit section of Macy’s.

This was, perhaps, a mistake. This time of year, the suits are apparently being liquidated to make room for more summer dresses, and masses of suits were on clearance. I sorted through a morasse of cutesy and faddish suits (the fashion industry really doesn’t want one suit to last a woman for twenty years or more, as it has tacitly accepted one suit doing for men) and found a classic charcoal grey number that fitted my hips and waist perfectly (fellow women will know how bizarre this is in a pair of pants) and looked both flattering and professional. For half off.

So I resigned myself to having this suit forever the One that Got Away, until I mentioned it on the phone to my mom. “What was the fabric?” quoth she (have I mentioned my mom is a textile artist?) and when I told her, she wailed, “Why didn’t you buy it? That’s a PERFECT SUIT!” So, in short, I had to edit this blogget to remove the forlornness, because I got an early graduation present and I am now fully ready to suit up at a moment’s notice.

Lake Oswego

2004-10-15T13:48:48+00:00

Lake Oswego is a beautiful, affluent community on the outskirts of Portland, centered around a man-made lake and bedecked with community improvements like thriving flower-baskets and pedestrian plazas. It is, without a doubt, a gorgeous place.

Chance brought me there once again on Wednesday and I putted down the avenues, admiring Mt. Hood, who seems to be in austere mourning for her sister peak‘s current distress, so dark are her flanks in the summer melt. I ducked into a Starbucks looking for an easy WiFi fix (note to fellow laptop users: Starbucks WiFi Big Pain. Lake Oswego Public Libary reportedly free wireless mecca) and found myself surrounded by the very contradictions that make me uncomfortable with Lake Oswego even as I enjoy its beauty, comfort, and artistic offerings. On the patio was a woman, under 30, who without a doubt was actually attempting to look like Paris Hilton, in her current overwhelmingly pink phase. She had the supercilious pinched look, the exact cloying shade on, the clothes, and several hair extensions to make herself look even more fake. Why is Paris Hilton a role model? Because she was born into money? If arbitrary accidents of birth confer idol status, maybe they should be lining up to emulate my corduroy and denim wardrobe—after all, I was born the day after Paris Hilton! That’s as good an accident of birth as any! I stifled a giggle as the woman sipped a Frappuccino in affected boredom, and went inside.

Inside, it was one of the nicest Starbuckses I’ve ever seen. The music was classical and unobtrusive, they had far more than the normal ratio of comfy to hard chairs, and the selection of pastries was almost dizzying. I sat down with my treats and started wrestling with the WiFi question, and was treated to two carefully chic teenagers filling out job applications. “Our parents WON’T BUY US OUR FIRST CAR,” they explained in great distress to the teen already employed by our caffeine-vending overlords. “They say we have to get a JOB.”

I sat typing away on my little Puckster, trying to suppress a smile as I listened to them seriously assure themselves their answers dovetailed to questions about which coins to give customers in change and other basic arithmetic.

I really like Lake Oswego, but Lake Oswegans scare me… perhaps this is what America looks like to less wealthy countries—children of privilege in a parade of folly and vanity….

Posts tagged with "clothes" - Faerye Net

Suiting up

Lake Oswego