I Have No Idea How To Dress Myself

That's it. I have officially fallen into a fashion abyss and I can't get up. There are so many elements conspiring (YES I SAID CONSPIRING. THEY ARE OUT TO GET ME.) against me I am pretty sure I will be wearing yoga pants for all eternity.

Yesterday I received two catalogs in the mail that made me LOL for totally opposite reasons. One was a plus-sized catalog called "The Woman Within." (Note: Wwwrrrrrreeeeeechhh!) The other was Urban Outfitters.

And I realized I have three GIANT STRIKES against me when it comes to dressing myself and I should just give up and never leave the house.

Strike One: I am not 15.

I am not even 25 anymore. I am going to be 35 this year. *chokecough* And while I don't think this means I need to dress like a "mom" (whateverthehell THAT means), I am not convinced it's okay for me to continue to wear pigtails. I just, I have zero idea of what sort of clothes are age-appropriate, or if I need to worry about this, or if I even care about this. (Mostly I don't.)

It's just something I have to think about, especially as it relates to...

Strike Two: I do not understand current fashion trends at all.

Perhaps this is nothing more than a function of age, but I don't even know what I would be wearing if I was 15. I feel like current trends are totally eluding me. I couldn't identify them if you paid me.

The other day I was at a local shopping plaza when a gaggle of good-looking teenaged girls descended on the place, all from the local high school. Every single one of them was wearing a version of skinny jeans -- i.e., skinny jeans, super-tight jeans or leggings -- tucked into Ugg-like boots (except one girl who wore flip-flops). They paired these bottoms with bulky hoodies.

I don't really know what to do with this. I don't mind the IDEA of skinny jeans, because my legs are one of my best features (understanding that's relative, please). But I don't know how I could ever find jeans that fit my legs tightly that could EVER fit over my giant bubble butt AND my under-the-bellybutton pouch.

I'd essentially need the jeans to be made like a golf tee. Wide enough at the top to fit the golf-ball rest of me.

Pretty!

Anyway. Then I got to wondering if I should even be paying attention to what teenagers are wearing (See: Strike One). Especially since there seems to be this growing trend of wearing 80s styles semi-ironically, which I find hard to get behind since I lived through wearing those things UNironically the first time and haven't stopped laughing at myself since the 90s. You know?

So whatever. I received the Urban Outfitters catalog and got a brilliant idea. I thought, "Hey. I'm not foolish enough to think I should be wearing any of these outfits, exactly, but maybe the catalog can give me ideas about current trends so that I can interpret them for my age and size."

HAHAHAHAHAHA. No.

Here is their catalog cover:

Please to explain.

I don't even understand it. How can I "interpret" it?

I mean, call me old-fashioned -- and maybe this is just my nearly-35-year-old-self talking -- but pants? When did they become optional?

Seriously. I looked through this catalog and none of it made any sense to me.

I see this dress as $68 of confusion. It's tiny and flimsy and see-through and has a cropped(?) back(?). Which gives me a whole new body part to be self-conscious about.

Bottom line: I don't have the slightest idea how one would ever begin to make this age- or size-appropriate.

Because, lest we forget...

Strike Three: I am plus-sized AND losing weight, so I don't fit into anything.

I hate all the clothes I have because they're all giant, and mostly "yoga" and "workout" themed, despite that I don't do either. They're comfy alright, but I'm sure there's a way to be "comfortable" without looking like I could have slept in my ensemble.

Further, I have quite a collection of sizes of clothes in my closet, ranging from "huge and pregnant" to "not as huge as some other stuff" to "I bought this two years ago and still don't fit into it."

And I'm reluctant to buy stuff now, as I am seriously dedicated to losing weight and don't want to buy new clothes until they're a totally different size than any I've been purchasing for the last several years.

So, BUT! Despite that I wouldn't know what size to buy stuff in, THERE IS NOTHING TO BUY.

You know the screeds I could write about trying to find "fashionable" things to wear as a plus-size woman are endless, but they all come down to the same thing:

• We want to wear what everyone else is wearing.
• If you're going to make clothes in entirely different styles and colors for the plus-size set, please make it so that it COVERS the troubled areas, such as the upper arms. We don't want our upper-arm flab swaying in the breeze any more than you want to see it. Sleeves, please.
• Just because I'm big doesn't mean I'm tall.
• Where do you suggest I put the other half of my boobs? (The half that these shirts don't cover?)
• We want to wear what everyone else is wearing. Oh, did I already say that? I THOUGHT MAYBE YOU DIDN'T HEAR ME.

I ordered a pair of boots from The Woman Within (*hurl*) online when they were the only ones I could find that were cute, not hundreds of dollars, and included exact measurements of how wide the calf was (and would thusly fit me).

Oops.

Now I'm on their mailing list and I received their catalog and I opened it thinking maybe there would be some fashion-forward options for me for spring. Something I could consider buying in a month or two.

Please forgive me if you disagree, but I was personally offended by the clothes in this catalog. OFFENDED. The clothes were AWFUL and the skinny models wearing them looked RIDICULOUS and because I cannot wash my mind's eye of the memory of the ASSAULT on my very existence, you will now get to share in the horror.

WHAT IS THIS???

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Oh yes, that white collar is BUILT-IN. Because you know how you were all, "Where can I get a tab collared like the ones that were popular for 13.5 minutes in 1998?"

Also? It comes in three other colors! "Mocha combo," "Plum combo" and -- not kidding -- "Blue Moon combo."

BLUE MOON. I can't capitalize that enough.

"Yoga" it is.

p.s. And what about hair?