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Much has been written here and here and here about the comfort/style balance, particularly as it pertains to footwear, and how as as I surge forward deeper into Formerlydom, it is ever more precarious.

Even since I began this blog three or four years ago, I’ve become more strident on the importance of perambulating pain-free, something young women do not appear to value. It’s certainly an age thing and at 44, I’m a few years late to the party on this one. Thank you to the many wiser women than I who have long since traded in their stupid shoes for clogs and flats for welcoming me into your community of comfort footwear with understanding and acceptance. My name is Stephanie, and I’m a recovering fashion masochist.

Well, I fear I may be overcorrecting here, and I could use an opinion or two. Perhaps someone from the fashion departments of one of the women’s magazines I write for needs to come over here, wedge my size 11s into pointy, ridiculous, sky-high stripper shoes to remind me what’s really important for a woman: To be propped up like a Barbie in the corner of the party, unable to move for fear of my disproportionately gigantic breasts toppling me forward. Oh, wait. I’d need implants for that. Never mind.

Anyway, neither comfortable nor stylish, the above Vibram Five Finger foot coverings are my latest addition to my footwear collection. Tell me they don’t look like dinosaur paws, or like several million years from now they may evolve into actual human-looking feet! (more…)

This evening I went through my warm-weather clothes, paring down my piles and getting rid of stuff that I know I won’t wear again.

This is always a hard process for me. Compulsive shopper plus hoarder equals lots of stuff. Mix in a dollop of optimism (mental illness?) and you’ve got a gigantic pile of “keeper” clothes consisting of items such as a pair of leather pants that still fit but are cut in such a way that by the time they’re back in style I will be way too old for leather pants; A pair of white Tibi shorts I got for nothing at Loehmann’s that are a smidge too small and see-through. Still I imagine I will someday fit into them and not mind that you can see my panties because then I will be thin and nothing at all will bother me; and a gold pleather skirt that I wore to parties in my 30s and now think I may eventually need if I ever decide to be a trophy for Halloween. This is separate from the “Save for my daughters” pile. In the tiny “Donate” pile are things like rain ponchos bought during unexpected downpours and promotional T-shirts advertising margarine substitutes.

There is one item of clothing I  have no problem parting with, however. I was sitting amidst the heaps  when I heard my husband and daughters come in from their day, and got up from my task to go greet them at the door. I grabbed something to put on, a black denim skirt that I wasn’t sure fit. I pulled it on, pausing at an obstruction (my ass) that was a bit of a challenge, but nothing a bunch of hopping up and down couldn’t overcome. Finally, I sucked in my belly and wrestled the zipper up,  and shuffled to the door to greet them. Sasha ran up and hugged me.

“Nice skirt,” my husband said. After almost 8 years he knows to say such things. He was not taught this at the Ivy League college he attended and to which he still sends checks; I had to homeschool him on this.

“Thanks! It fits. Kinda.” I hugged Sasha back, her face at the level of my abdomen. She pulled her head back a few inches and head-butted my belly. Her forehead sprang off it like it was a mini-tramp, and she laughed and did it again. “It’s springy, isn’t it?” I laughed. You have to laugh, right?

“Yeah,” she said, laughing too. “That skirt makes it looks like your vagina is in the back and your tushy is in the front. I can do that with my Barbie.”

The “donate” pile just got a bit bigger.

Who says real women can’t have bodies like Barbie dolls?

Photo by Paul Lipson, my poor husband

Thanks to Carrie for pointing out that it’s Barbie’s 50th birthday this week.

I won’t go so far as to call Barbie a Formerly because I have zero insight into her self-definition and whether you are a Formerly ultimately has way more to do with how you feel than anything that can be observed from the outside. She may well think she’s the hottest shit in tiny yellow plastic pumps. She certainly looks as good as she ever has. Being made of plastic and rubber pretty much ensures that things stay where they belong, but there is a trade-off, namely that you’re made of plastic and rubber.

Barbie is, however, old enough to be the Bratz’s mother. There’s no way she’d still have a figure like she does if she were the Bratz’s mother, of course, unless she adopted them or let them all gestate in a two-inch incubator inside the Malibu Beach House while she was out sunbathing or something. Actually, I’m pretty sure she was a “baby doctor” in one of her many incarnations, so maybe the Bratz were foundlings that she took home from the hospital when no one claimed them because they looked like baby aliens or tiny harbingers of doom. The world may never know.

If Barbie were a Formerly, here’s what I imagine a conversation between Barbie and one of her Bratz daughters might sound like*:

Barbie: You’re wearing that? You are not wearing that. No way are you leaving the Barbie Malibu Beach House with your belly hanging out. Is that a piercing??

Cloe [rolls her abnormally large eyes]: GOD, Mom. All the girls dress like this. What’s the big deal? Can I have the keys to the camper?

Barbie: I’ll tell you the big deal: You look like a store-bought hussy, that’s the big deal! Just wait til your father gets home.

Cloe: I am a store-bought hussy and so are you. Toys ‘R’ Us, specifically. And mom, I got news for you: Dad doesn’t have all his parts.

Barbie [her blue eyes imperceptibly wider than usual]: Cloe! What…I mean how…?

Cloe: That’s right, mom. I…KNOW!

[Soap opera organ chords can be heard.]

Barbie: When…how did you figure it out?

Cloe: I have an oversized head, in case you haven’t noticed. It houses an oversized brain. I overheard you talking to Black Barbie Whose Name is Inexplicably Also Barbie, about how my father is really…

Barbie: Don’t say it!

Cloe: STRETCH ARMSTRONG!!!!

[Loud organ chords]

Barbie [sobbing]: NOOOO! It’s true. Stretch is your father. It was just one night–one SLOPPY NEW WAVE DANCE PARTY in 1983…your father…I mean Ken, was in a band…his hair was crunchy…he wasn’t paying any attention to me and I looked so cute…I was wearing magenta leggings and teeny tiny Ray-Bans…and anyway…Stretch was so big and so strong and sooooo…well, stretchy. Kajagoogoo was on the radio and…well, that song Too Shy always made me want to…you’re too shy-i-i, hush hush…[Barbie swivels her hips in reverie]

Cloe: MOM! Gross!

Barbie: Sorry. Yes, Cloe. It’s true. Uncle Stretch is your real father. That’s why you look so strange. So, how does it feel to know that your old moms wasn’t always so perfect?

Cloe: Fine. Whatev. Can I have the keys to the camper now?

Barbie: Where are you going?

Cloe: Nowhere. What do you care? Shopping. Fuck you.

Barbie: Oooh! Can I come along? I love to shop! I hate math!

Cloe: We know. You may not come. You are my mother, not my friend. I need a parent, not a buddy. Go do your Rodney Yee tape. Don’t forget to eat. I’ll see you later.

Barbie: What time?

Cloe: I don’t know. Later.

Barbie: K! Have fun! Namaste!

*Legal disclaimer: Barbie is a doll and I am writing about her. I am not maligning her because she is a doll, not a person. Not only that, my daughters own several, and they’re not allowed to have Bratz. I make no money from this blog so nobody should sue me. Thank you.

Photo by: Steve Winton, CC Licensed