Why You Shouldn't Follow Trends

Last winter, I spent a lot of time posting rants about the fact that girls were walking around NYC tucking their jeans into their boots. I'm not sure WHY I was so offended by this. Maybe because I'm not a trendy person and therefore, was not exactly leaping onto the skinny jean sporting, tuck-'em-in your boots kind of fad. In a gay musical theater way, I thought it broke the line of the leg, making people look awkward and clunky. In a street talk way, I thought it made girls' legs look fat.

I'm pretty damn critical of anything having to do with legs. I LOVE legs. No. I love PRETTY legs. Musical theatre legs. Rockette legs. Alayna Barton legs. I want all girls to have impressively curvy gams with no cankles in sight. (Mom, "cankle", is the phrase the young kids today use for thick ankles, ankles that are not slim and more of a continuation of the calf as in calves+ankles=cankles. See also: Tom DeTrinis.) So, why, pretty ladies, do we make our legs look fat by stuffing our jean-clad legs into boots? I did not understand.

You would think that since I'm utterly vain satisfied with regards to my own legs (except for those damn spider veins, WTF!?), that I would've hopped on the skinny jean bandwagon at least, if not the boot-wearing. I mean, come on! My legs are the only thing about myself that I can stand! Skinny Jeans! They are for people with skinny legs! Skinny jeans are a trend I can embrace. (The belly shirt? Not so much. Wait. Belly shirts were never trendy, were they?) So, straight-leg clingy jeans that draw attention away from my stomach my pimples other things I don't like?! Genius!

No. I did not squeeze my way into a pair of skinny jeans until my birthday party last March and after that, I didn't bust them out again until the end of the summer. So I'm not that fashionable, whatever, here's the point:

Can I tell you why I was hesitant about the skinny jean trend?

Did we all forget about the stirrup pants from the 80's?
Because I didn't. My mother owned several pairs and wore them to various church events, along with shoulder pads and a super curly perm. (Hi mom! You looked great!)

But this scarred me for life and Skinny Jeans just seemed a little too much of a throwback to 1988. While I'm usually a fan of anything from that decade, I thought it best that we should let the stirrup pants die along with my pillow person. (The pillow person that I finally threw away after going through my closet over Christmas. I love you pillow person, may you rest in peace with my autographed headshots of unknown actors, farewell.)


Speaking of 80's, two events transpired recently that warranted a trip to Radioshack this afternoon. 1) My headphones broke and B) I was in desperate need of a tape player. I know, I know. Who uses a TAPE PLAYER? As in CASSETTE TAPE PLAYER?! But I recorded a session with a vocal coach on his tape recorder only to bring the tape home and realize that I do not have the adequate means to listen to such a tape because, I don't know, I live in 2007 and who owns a tape recorder anymore!?

So I walk into Radioshack and quickly assess the situation and come to an embarrassing conclusion: I can solve problems 1 and B efficiently if I purchase an archaic piece of technology known in its heyday as the "walkman".

You heard me.

A walkman. THEY STILL SELL THEM! Who KNEW!? See, I didn't want to spend the money on a tape recorder because I eventually want to get the little recorder that you stick on your iPod. I'm not going to purchase a REAL LIVE tape recorder because this means I'd still be living in 1994 and let's face it, I did that and I have the emotional scars and the Jock Jams CD to prove it. So, I figured, buy the walkman which COMES WITH HEADPHONES! and then I can have headphones AND listen to the tape and be done with it.

So I approach the register and lay down the walkman ($15.99! What? Shouldn't it be like $3.50?) and the clerk gives me a look. I laugh uncomfortably and I say, "Yeah, who BUYS stuff like this anymore, right!? HA!"

And he doesn't laugh and points out, "You do."

UM.

And then, "Why don't you just buy yourself an iPod or something?"

I tell him I HAVE an iPod and it's awesome and then I cut him with the steak knife I always walk around with and leave the store. WHAT A JERK.

But life in Astoria gets better, kids, as I decided later on in the evening to venture out to Key Food, a supermarket I usually enjoy because watching old Greek people complain about discounts and coupons never gets old. But the Key Food is a good five blocks away and the problem is that I can only buy what I can carry home because I refuse to be that girl who walks around with the geriatric shopping cart on the sidewalks of Astoria. Seriously? No.

So I start getting excited thinking about the fact that I don't have to work tonight and that I can buy ALL THE GROCERIES I WANT because I can have the food DELIVERED! Ah! I am a spoiled goddess! I can buy all the heavy things my little arms cannot usually take home! Soup! Kidney beans! Soymilk! Small children! It will all be mine!

I decide this is almost as good as going on a date, so I get on my skinny jeans! I bought a new pair this weekend which brings the total up to two. I love love love them and since a significant amount of time has gone by, I was thinking maybe I could try out the boot-tucking thing. JUST ONCE, JUST TO SEE HOW IT LOOKS.

In all honesty, I did the tuck-the-jeans-into-boots ONCE BEFORE, while on tour on a snowy day in Michigan for a total of 5 minutes, while I ran out to the van to get my laptop and bring it back into the hotel room. Margot and I agreed that it was just not a good look for me, probably because they were the wrong kind of boots and the wrong kind of jeans. I don't think that's a coherent sentence, but it made sense at the time. Shut up.

So I put the jeans on and I put on lipgloss because hey, why not? And then, in the last second before leaving the house, I TUCK THE JEANS into my knee-high boots and leave the apartment completely TREN-DAY! But I forget my mittens. And I forget that the temperature dropped to about 15 degrees. No matter. I can put my hands into my coat pockets because WOO GROCERY DELIVERY Y'ALL!

I get to the store around 6:15 and ask the clueless high school junior young lady at the customer service desk how late food can be delivered. She tells me 6:45; I have a half hour to go nuts. KA CHING! I hit up EVERY AISLE of that grocery store--vegetable soup, tofu, grapefruits, cereal, pasta sauce, string beans, oreos (they're vegan! who knew?!), everything I've ever wanted ALL AT ONCE because I don't have to carry it home! Wooo!

You know where this is going right?

You know that at 6:38 pm, EST, while I'm on the check out line, the DUMB ASTORIA CLERK GIRL announces over the loudspeaker that there are no more deliveries for the evening. Wait. No. Absolutely not. Unable to believe my ears, I march up to the pimpled cashier sipping his Dr. Pepper in Aisle 7 and tell him that I heard the announcement but I need a delivery. He stares at me for awhile and then tells me that the delivery guy just went home.

"WHAT?!" I sputter.

"Yeah," he says, snapping his gum carelessly, "He went home."

I calmly say okay, even though it was definitely NOT OKAY, and cut him with my steak knife. Then I reason with myself that I didn't get THAT much stuff and that I can leave out a few cans of soup and still carry it all home.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

You guys? I carried home about 50 pounds of groceries, fingers frozen and aching from the plastic bags that were digging into them. Bulky cereal boxes slamming into my thighs because I didn't possess the physical strength to hold them farther away from my body. At one point, I pondered sitting down under the Hellgate Bridge for awhile, throwing cans of kidney beans at the passing train above.

And oh how pleased was I to be walking 18 million slow miles in BOOTS. UGH! The damn boots were the worst idea ever but maybe not as bad an idea as the lipgloss, since the wind was blowing wildly and my hair kept whipping into my face and getting stuck on my lips. Since I was carrying the entire grocery store home, I couldn't push it out of the way so it just stayed there, lovely blonde hair, hanging out on my glistening lips. Hot.

When I got home and dumped out all the groceries on the counter, I looked down at my ensemble and decided that tucking the jeans into the boots?

So not for me.


And as much as the skinny jeans remind me of the stirrup pants, I'm still entirely into them, especially when worn with pink snowflake socks:




So, yeah. No boots over jeans. But now, I'm thinking of busting out the walkman and carrying it around the city. I'm just going to insert a Pat Benetar tape and cruise around Manhattan as if totally out of touch with reality, with what's "in", with fashion trends. Because really guys, what the hell is the point?