Do they have that in medium?

I blinked at the salesgirl. She was under four feet tall but had an old-looking face. I knew she was in her mid to late twenties, she was mature and helpful and knew her stuff. I was instantly impressed with her customer service. But she didn’t perceive me to be as skinny as her. That’s fine. She was probably a XXS with room to spare. She was also likely Philippino. I was white girl with a winter jacket on top of a sweater.

I had brought three coats into the change room to try on. Another salesgirl had run out to find the jacket I had just tried on in a different colour. The short sales girl had been working helping other customers – it was busy in the change room – she turned to me quickly, and asked,

“Do they have that one in medium?”

I blinked. Trying to comprehend.

She thought I was a medium. She thought I was getting another jacket to try on in the same size she perceived I had already been trying on.  I couldn’t figure out how to correct her without feeling like a moron for saying it, as if I would sound like I was in self-denial. My mother, never one to allow for silence, piped up.

“She’s an XSmall.”

Thanks, mom.

I don’t belong in Aritzia. I wasn’t wearing enough make-up (I wasn’t wearing ANY make-up). My hair wasn’t dyed and teased and straightened like the other girls’. My shoes were runners, not ballet flats and my skinny leg jeans were too long and bunchy rather than ending perfectly at the bottom of my ankles.

And then the salesgirl asked if I was a medium. It’s not the end of the world, to be a medium. What it meant to me was not that I looked 20 lbs heavier, but that my clothes were too big. Which is true. I felt all of a sudden very self-conscious about the fact that my style is casual, all the time. That the sweater I was wearing I had bought at Garage, a store that targets primarily girls between the ages of 14 and 16. That my jacket had been bought at Athlete’s World, not a women’s fashion store. I just felt out of place, and bad about it.

As for affording things at Aritzia, I typically can’t.

I’m going to wear my winter jacket another year, or at least for as long as I can. We’ll see how I feel walking to work once it gets really cold. I’ve already found that at about -5 I shiver uncontrollably in my current coat (I feel like it’s gotten thin, if that’s possible). The Aritzia coats are most definitely higher quality, and warmer, and the salesgirl I talked with said she’d had hers three years and was often waiting for buses outside in her travels to and from school (I suspect UofT). If I bought the coat it would be roughly the cost of three coats at the price I typically spend on a winter jacket.

Arg. The cost of living. I do spend significantly less than most on travel, but living without a car is not an expense-free lifestyle. I just have to figure out what sort of money I should spend keeping myself warm this winter. Dang you, coat! I want you, but will you last three winters? Will you be three times as valuable as a $100 coat? Will you kept me warm?

Moreover, what will I wear if I go back to get it?

Sita Sings the Blues

Sita Sings the Blues website where you can download it.

Not sure how I heard about this, but I downloaded it 1080p legally, and it is just a really odd beautiful piece of art. Reading the FAQs also helped me “get it”. It’s a free full length movie. And I recommend it. But don’t watch it on youtube. ;P

Aritizia playlist

I was in Aritizia not able to afford anything even at sale prices when I heard some good music.

Help me figure this out – british singer, currently popular, short, red hair, kinda looks like a boy, and sings really high. (remembered: La Roux)

Anyway, here music was on and I liked it.

Almost made me in a good enough mood to spend $300 on a jacket. Almost. Actually, not at all.

Here’s some Aritizia music. Fun.

Travel Anxiety

I’m not sure when it creeped into my life as a facet of my personality, but at some point I realized that get traveling anxiety. Only when I’m traveling alone, however. It could simply be that I’ve done very little traveling on my own before. There is some reasonable fear in traveling alone. I am a woman, and to some degree defenseless. So I am careful. But the anxiety was always in other things – was I on the right bus? Would I wind up in the middle of nowheresville with no one to save me? Would I burst into tears? It was always the worst if I had never been that way before. I would research before hand, pour over maps etc, but the anxiety would be like a ball in the pit of my stomach, and wouldn’t go away, and would typically last in the days leading up to a trip, during the trip and all the way home until I was same in my abode once again.

YET, something has changed recently. It’s not that I know where I’m going all of the time, or that I don’t wander like a tourist in some of the bus stations but after seeing a blind guy do it recently, I realized, I have eyesight, and if the world can look after him when he asks “Is this eastbound?” then certainly I can be provided for, moreover, “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love?” (Ph.2.1 ) God is with me, I should not be afraid).

Easier said than done, but on my recent trip to Hamilton for the first time ever I was at peace. I found it relaxing, not tiring. I wasn’t tense, I wasn’t waiting for it to be over (sorry friends in Hamilton! It’s not you, I promise!). I was just glad to be there, and when I realized I had printed out the morning instead of the evening schedule, I remained rather calm, and having a cell phone, was still able to coordinate meeting up. There was no rush, there was no feeling of being unsafe. And I had a great, great time.

When I’m alone, I’ve finally started slowing down. Not pounding my feet on the pavement as I speedwalk to my destination. Not letting my guard down, or keeping my ears peeled when it’s past dark, but enjoying the walk a bit more, enjoying the travel, people-watching, and just being ok with it. It’s been good for me.

I have too many gray hairs. I need to learn to be less stressed.

The cheapest way to impress your boss

Buy Starbucks coffee when it’s on sale. Make it in a french press (one of them big ones so multiple people can benefit from the sweet nectar of life). Offer it to your boss, your boss’s boss, and the President of the company.

Make an impression ;)

But I would probably say, don’t do it your first week of work, or else people might suspect/expect it.

Look a badge!

Two odd purchases today

for my Frosty the Snowman costume for the murder mystery I’m participating in at church next Saturday. Let’s hope they arrive in time!

Event Horizon

Bad science.

Do not watch.

Political Views

There’s a friend of mine on facebook whose political views are “Out on Bail.”

Well, I ended up

writing anyway. got at least 1000 words down. Still about 10,000 behind.