A look at closet withdrawal and other fashion-related strategies dreamed up by women who spend many nights away from home:
L: “I can't imagine simply picking out what I want to wear in the moment - it's an exciting dream for me!”
Moxie: “Like in the morning, standing in front of the closet with a towel wrapped around your head, deciding what to wear to work?? What a concept. ”
L: “Right.”
Moxie: “And not trying to put together an outfit but realizing that half of it is in the apartment where you are not.”
L: “Exactly! And not having to only choose “safe” outfits that you already know will work because you can’t experiment when you don’t have readily available backup. One thing I hate about bag-packing is that I can’t take risks.”
Moxie: “I’ve taken to wearing my PJs to Lunchboy’s house so I don’t have to pack another outfit. And then he looks in the laundry basket and wants to know how I go through so many clothes.”
L: “The boys don’t get that packing work clothes is awful because they get all wrinkled and smashed.”
Moxie: “And carrying around a bunch of hangers is a pain.”
L: “I think it's funny that most likely women are the most concerned about this stuff, yet we're the ones doing most of the shuttling back and forth.”
L aptly calls it Bag Lady Syndrome--the weird, limbo-like state that we, as women who stay at our boyfriends’ houses a LOT, navigate on a daily basis. It isn’t an issue of inequity, and we’re not really complaining about it because that would be snotty. When the boys have apartments all to themselves, it just makes more sense to be there rather than share real estate with a roommate. Not only does it mean that we live out of bags and spend a lot of time staring at our wardrobes trying to plan outfits days in advance, though, it also means that “home” becomes a relative term. Is home where you spend most of your time, or is it where you store your things and collect your mail? There’s no real answer, especially when you’re nowhere near ready to shift residences and move in together. Instead, there’s this vague feeling of displacement that persists no matter where I end up sleeping. My apartment is still cozy and comfortable, despite my roommate’s best efforts to make it otherwise, but it no longer feels like I belong there. L says she feels the same way. We’ve decided the boys have it easy. They may come stay at our places every so often, but they sometimes have to be reminded of what we do in order to spend time with them.
Sometimes I really get what Ms. Klein is saying.
No comments:
Post a Comment