I Feel Pretty

Has anyone else noticed its getting kind of warm around here? LOL

Anyway, at the risk of losing any new male readers I may have gained through having a post entitled Sexual Fantasies, I would like to share with you the fact that I am currently prancing around our loungeroom in some lovely new clothes and feeling very pleased with myself.

Now, I mostly hate clothes shopping. I love to be comfortable and I hate to spend serious money on clothes, so I mostly live in jeans and t-shirts in my own time and work clothes the rest of the time. But the fact is that I haven't had new clothes for a long time. In 2003 and 2004, I was either planning or undergoing fertility treatment and hoping to be pregnant soon. Not much point in buying new clothes I was hoping to be busting out of. Then in 2005, I was pregnant. Not much point buying new clothes I would only wear for a few months. Then I was breastfeeding. Not much point in buying new clothes for a newborn to appreciate, and I hardly saw anyone else. Then I was enjoying gradually fitting into more and more of my pre-pregnancy clothes, and I didn't want to spoil that by buying new things - otherwise, given my official ban on the bathroom scale, how would I know if my post-pregnancy fat was shrinking or not?

But, a year after the birth, the situation has become urgent. Its one thing to be casually dressed, but its quite another for everything I wear to be badly faded, tatty or having mysterious breastmilk and baby saliva marks on it. The next level down is wearing flip-flops and curlers to the local shopping mall. I will not go gently into that good night. So I ventured out to the shops.

Now, I think that 35 years old is actually a slightly tricky age for clothes buying. An age when my standard still-thinks-she-hasn't-left-university casual and/or bohemian look starts to look a little ... undignified. So I was looking for something with a hint of sophistication.

And it was a truly depressing experience. The clothes on offer seemed to be more than usually hideous. Everything seemed to be designed for someone who is exactly like me, and yet tragically stupid and also blind.

And I will just never understand the retailers and designers responsible. The average Australian woman is a size 14-16. We are... voluptuous. The average age is not 15 years old. Hence, relatively few of us are interested in offerings like fat horizontal stripes over our rears and mini-skirts that show our knickers. And yet, we are also not pleased by boxy polyester blouses with wierd ruffles that make us look 20 years older and strangely like our own mothers in law.

We want to look pretty. And they, presumably, want our money. We are a match made in heaven, or at least in a capitalist economy. So why doesn't their desire to vaccuum our hard-earned cash out of our purses make them offer something decent? In three hours, I found only one thing I liked: a t-shirt. And it was $99! Are these people crazy?!

So, in despair, the following day, I went to my favourite clothes shop. The one where everything is more expensive than I can really afford to pay. And thank you, Jesus, they were having a sale. I could actually afford to buy some of their stuff.

And in joyous recognition that my life is in a pretty good place right now, I avoided my usual funereal black and picked a few nice things in colours like aqua and cherry red. And clothes that acknowledged the fact that I am a youngish looking 35 and not a schoolgirl or a grandmother. Clothes that skimmed my curves, rather than maintaining a death grip that turned them into bulges. Necklines that will earn me an appreciative grin from my male colleagues but won't actually get me followed home by strangers.

Oh, and I like them. I have been dancing around the loungeroom, singing "I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and bright". And I do.

Now for the final and critical stage. Snipping off the price tags and calculating what to tell the Big Dude they cost. Because I find that my partner, bless him, while liking his woman to look nice, is under the endearing impression that I can do so for under $20.

So I am going to lie.

Do I feel guilty about this? Not really. I do believe in honesty in a relationship. Honesty about feelings, directions, plans, etc. But in relation to the price of female beauty, the truth can only hurt him. More importantly, the truth will make him retreat into a bewildered sulk that will only spoil my womanly triumph over ugly clothing.

The right answer, on the other hand, will give him a pleasing sense of masculine superiority about the fact that he cares nothing for fashion, and pride in the fact that his woman looks good, without leaving him with the displeasing sense of having been robbed. Which would be irrational, anyway, since I am the main earner around here. And he has no real interest in our finances. So I manage our money, and I doubt he is even completely sure what we both earn or could guess our average electricity bill within $200.

So a small, characteristically female, lie will, in my opinion, only enhance our relationship.

I think I will go for my usual automatic 20% discount on what they actually cost (in addition to the 30% discount from the sale itself). That way he will be agreeably scandalised, without actually feeling outraged.

See the pretty girl in that mirror there
Who can that attractive girl be?
Such a pretty face
Such a pretty dress
Such a pretty smile
Such a pretty me!