Gloom and Zoom

 

Shortly after my shipment of sleeveless printed tops arrived, I realized my folly: on video calls, not only is your lower half invisible, but most of your upper half is, too! When I'm in a call, the only thing people could see of my outfit is, maybe, the top inch of my shoulders. Sometimes even only my face! So a lot of the shirts that I thought would be interesting on camera actually were just...not.

So I was feeling pretty low about my prospects for ever getting a compliment on my fashion sense again. Was there any point in getting dressed at all? Was there even any point in living? Call me vain, but the only thing that keeps me from retreating entirely from the world and adopting 17 cats is the occasional favorable unsolicited opinion on my outfit, and with out that boost, my strength to go on is severely depleted.

Fortunately, one of the shirts I ordered – just one – was able to lift me out of my funk, having all of its most interesting details at its highest point. Just check out the lacy yellow yoke (in my current favorite clothing color!), and...are those...stars on the collar? Yes, they are! The fun details continue just out of webcam range with more metallic accents and a pleasingly hued series of vertical stripes. It is a loose stretchy knit in a tailored fit, perfect for work-from-home comfort! Of all the shirts in my shipment, this is the one I was most excited about receiving, and it definitely stood up to expectations.

Even if just a smidgen of this shirt shows up on camera, it should give viewers an eyeful! Surely in this shirt, I would receive at least one unsolicited compliment!

I wore it to my weekly staff meeting last Friday and...nothing happened. Alas. At least I enjoyed wearing the shirt. At least I can blog about it. Who needs external validation, anyway?

A belated birthday blog

If there's ever a day of the year for dressing to impress, it's on your birthday. But this year, with gatherings verboten, and my birthday falling on the most ordinary of work-from-home Wednesdays (without even a Zoom call!), getting gussied up sounded like exactly the sort of thing only an Unfashionista would do.

On the momentous anniversary of my birth, I wore not one, but three special outfits: a cheeky first for errands, an artsy second for work, and a sophisticated third for stay-at-home date night with the boyfriend. And then what did I do? I forgot to take a picture of the last (and best, of course!) outfit! I was so upset with myself that I nixed the whole idea of blogging my outfits for that day, and resigned myself to letting my 37th birthday suits disappear into the sands of time. But the thing about time? It heals all wounds, and now that I've had 2 weeks to get over it, I am able to admit that two out of three ain't bad!

So here they are—the first and second fashionable ensembles of the most boring birthday ever!

 

First thing in the morning of the 5th, I scuttled into my clothes and hightailed it to the supermarket. These days, I try to do my shopping before work, when the store is less crowded. That day, with a tropical storm just behind us, it was fairly chilly out at 7 AM, so that meant pants and a shirt with sleeves. The shirt I chose was an over-the-top graphic print with rainbows and unicorns. This kind of shirt was already passé when I bought it at the thrift store sometime last year, but it cost next to nothing, so I decided to get it anyway. It was the perfect tee for a birthday grocery run—festive but not fancy. I wore it with rainbow platform sandals and pink pants, to take it from just a silly shirt, to a whole look.

Once the shopping was done, it was time to get down to business—from the home office. I've been wearing shorts at work so much this summer that they've ceased to be a novelty, so to add the interest factor worthy of a birthday, I wore shorts with sequins! A sleeveless sweater with a blinged-out neckline rounded out the look. I haven't been wearing shoes at home since June started, but as it was still kind of cool in the house and I wanted to go the extra mile for my birthday, I also wore my furry black sandals. The mullet-outfit (business on top, party on the bottom) would have been work-appropriate in case of a last-minute video call, but none occurred, so the only person to notice my sparkling style was my roommate. At least she liked it.

After work, the aforementioned forgotten fancy outfit made its appearance. It consisted of a slinky tropical dress and matching green heeled sandals. I really pulled out all the stops, having to dig the shoes out of storage since I haven't been wearing heels during the pandemic, but if there aren't photographs, did it really even happen? I guess only my boyfriend and I will ever know for sure!