Back when I was in high-school, I couldn’t imagine what the hell people wore who couldn’t wear jeans every day. What other clothes are there besides jeans and tee-shirts, or maybe jeans and a sweater if it is cold out? Dresses? Eeeurgh! I remember one of my aunts being happy her office had instituted a jeans-Friday rule (this was early 1990s) and I thought she was just so deprived because she had to “dress up” every day.
Today I wore this top and that skirt, white “lace” tights, and black mary-jane flats, a pink rosette brooch, and a yellow Alice band and was utterly girly to the max. Back in high-school, I would never have believed that I would EVER wear something like this. Today, I felt quite chipper because I was wearing such a cute and colorful outfit. My, how the times have changed for me.
When I got my first office job when I got back from England, I had a hard time adjusting to midwestern office fashion. Basically, at the place where I worked, the culture was that of wearing khakis and polo shirts, and I don’t wear polo shirts. And I no longer wear khakis. Pants that are the same color as my legs are just a bad idea, is all I’m sayin’. My “personal style” was a lot too funky and occasionally a bit too revealing. I was still recovering from my Ginger Spice phase. I hadn’t yet figured out how to dress in a manner that is fit for work but is also still fun and personalized. I didn’t really start to hit my stride in office-friendly fashion until I sailed past my 26th birthday and realized that there might be a sell-by date for dressing like a slutty Pippi Longstocking on the regular.
As the years have passed, I have been wearing jeans less and less and less. For most of the jobs I have had post-college, jeans were unacceptable in the office, except (in some cases) on Friday. When you can’t wear jeans on the regular, there’s no incentive to have very nice ones, so any jeans I’ve had have mostly been scrubby old beaters for bumming around in on the weekend. I’ve got the pair I made ages ago (the ones that dyed my butt and cute underpants blue that one time), but they’re pretty faded and “broken in” now.
So much so that there are now patches on the butt and left knee.
My other pair are a pair of GAP jeans (that I should have bought at least one more pair of before they changed styles). They don’t look that good, but they are really comfortable and they cover my butt entirely, and a fully-clad butt is pretty important to me.
So I have two pair of jeans, but I feel a little self-conscious about wearing the daisy-butt jeans out anywhere much, so functionally, I have one pair of jeans.
Why am I on about jeans?
Because the big-big buzz in the office right now is that this coming week, in an effort to raise money for a food pantry or to acquire canned goods for said food pantry, the employees at my workplace are allowed to wear jeans on any day they either donate $1 or a can or box or nonperishable food. My co-workers are all a-twitter and jubilant, being all stoked to be able to wear jeans. I’m much less moved, since I am having way more fun wearing pretty much anything-but-jeans. I did the jeans-and-a-tee-shirt thing for so many years, and I just don’t really feel put-together in jeans. In this office, we’re not allowed to wear jeans on Fridays, which is a matter of much grumbling contention among many of my co-workers, but again, I don’t feel like I have a dog in that race. I don’t feel like I’m being deprived by a denim ban. There are so many other more interesting options out there.
This coming week, I reckon I’ll donate some bucks to the charity campaign, but I’ll probably continue on wearing other things entirely. Just because I am technically allowed to wear jeans doesn’t mean that I have to.
Also, if anyone is wondering what the hell is going on with the title of this entry, Strongbad can explain.