Oh, I thought you were wearing a little...pantsuit

You're probably supposed to inaugurate your inaugural blog with an introduction to how the blog name came about, or why you started it. So since this feels compulsory, I submit to you my story:

Thursday night I was at a birthday party at a bar. (At this point in my blogging I'm not sure as to how many details I'll get into and when, so hang on to your hats! You might not know whose birthday and you might not know which bar and you PROBABLY won't care!) This bar/party combination was a good'un. I was having fun with my roommate/best pal Shley who will no doubt be a recurring presence herewith, and we had been chatting with a couple of gentlemen - a guy we've met dozens of times but still introduces himself alternatingly to one or the other of us, and...

His delightfully picky friend...the sort you find so often in LA.

Average in looks, intelligence and charm but ready to date Zooey Deschanel and Zooey Deschanel only, I'm referring to the uniquely Angeleno creature known as "the 6 who will only accept a 10." Now, this seems a cruel initial assessment of the fellow, but let me tell you that - within literally 10 minutes of knowing this man - he shared with us, "I'm so picky. I don't like anyone. Out of like 900 girls, I'll be lucky if I'm attracted to one." Interesting, as I promise you actually would have excpeted him to say, "Out of 900 girls I'd be lucky if one of them were attracted to me." But not in LA, friends!

All this aside, he was quite amusing and I felt a little sorry for the guy, especially concerned for him should he ever leave the ridiculous den of delusion that is Los Angeles for short, hairy men. BUT THEN...as we passed again by the bar, he asked me to step back so he could get a better look. At first, I was sort of like, "Oh. He's sort of hitting on me. This is a weird way to do it, but bless him." But then I realized (because he definitively clarified) that he meant it not in a leering way - he didn't want a better look "at me," per se - but rather he wanted to assess better what I was wearing. When he realized it was a crisp white button down tucked into tailored jeans, with a belt, and some heeled cowboy boots underneath he said - almost with relief, "Oh, I thought you were wearing a little pantsuit, at first." Huh? "Why did I think that?" he (sort of?) asked me. And then, answering his own question, "You looked sort of business casual." I thanked him and told him people often told me I reminded them of a young Hilary Clinton. He believed me, which gave me pause.

But really if he weren't the strangely-all-too-frequent-in-LA closeted 30-something homosexual (which I'm fairly certain he was as the lady doth protest too much...I mean, really? You're a dude and you'd maybe only do 1 in 900 girls you meet? In LA???), the exchange probably wouldn't have struck such a nerve. But the closeted homos know. They knoooow. The nerve had been struck.

Was the first thing people really thought of that night when glancing at me business casual?? Ew. It made me want to set fire to a nearby Annie Sez or Marshall's. Steal a woman walking to work in sneakers' high heels from her NPR tote. At age 29, did I look straight out of the pages of a Chadwick's of Boston?

According to Shley, kind of. While not excusing "6 who will only accept a 10"'s bar routine, Shley said I could maybe use a little "zazzing up" (my turn of phrase - probably absorbed and then adopted after I read a Spiegel catalog or MORE magazine that used the same term). Shley advised:

1. Show the legs if not the cleavage - the cleavage if not the legs.

2. Finally get the Jenny Lewis bangs Shley herself had beaten me to last year when twice I couldn't pull the trigger.

3. Make my jewelry less coordinated (Ladies, unbenknownst to me, wearing earrings and a necklace is a little "work dressy." I did not know this. I am learning!)

That prescription sounded pretty reasonable. And so began this - my very new, very questionable as to whether I will stick to it journey to become less business casual and, in general, more age appropriately well-heeled. Because while LA may be an acceptable place for 12 year olds to dress like they're 25 and octogenarians to dress like 20-somethings, it was never okay here for a 29 year-old to dress like a walking mid-life crisis.

Over the next year, this blog as my witness, I intend to go from feeling never-quite-properly attired-for-the-occasion to feeling sometimes-properly-attired-for-the occasional-occasion. In a city where "California Black Tie" is the most oddly specific vaguery one can print on an invitation, I am going to figure this all out. Instead of the California dress code of "anything goes" confusing me and sending me like the non-fashionista turtle I am back into my business casual shell, I am instead going to let this crazy commitment to "anything goes" free my mind, so the rest might follow. I will come to accept that just cause I wear high heeled shoes, that doesn't mean that I'm a prostitute, oh no - no. Let's put on En Vogues' Funky Divas and do this damn thing.

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/en+vogue/free+your+mind_20050308.html