still buying used clothes off ebay. still thrilled with it! probably even more now with all the craziness going on in the world. companies can't seem to figure out their supply chains. I'll see an ad on facebook from, say, Old Navy... and it's filled with angry comments from people saying "your stuff is out of stock!" or "you only have XXS!" or "my order STILL hasn't shipped and it's been six weeks ahhhh hate!!"

it is weird that companies advertise stuff they don't have. that's a pretty bad disconnect between marketing and operations, right?

but ebay has no such disconnect. it's like I go there and say hey world, show me what you GOT! in my weird size. and then I can be dressed.

josie's shoe size is up to 9 now (good lord) so I bought her some really great looking nike running shoes for $25. that made me realize me own running shoes are not as supportive as they used to be, they have some real miles on them, so I bought myself some asics. I bought 11s this time. I am between 10.5 and 11. Well okay... I sometimes think my left foot is 11, right foot is 10.5. For most shoes I don't care but I wasn't sure on running shoes if I wanted a nice "my feet are hugged" feeling, or "I've got plenty of toe room" feeling. I will report back after I get some miles on the size 11s.

I have a new gap wool sweater with colorful stripes that I've worn once a week since I got it.

ethos leggings that I bought as part of my search for the perfect leggings. qualifications are 1) size tall 2) side pocket for my phone 3) light colored, so I can run in the dark and not get hit by a car. well... or a car will at least see me as I'm being run over. Anyway I'd never heard of this brand before and they could be thicker but they meeting the 3 qualifications and I'm happy!

a kate spade wallet with birds on it

and the silliest thing... I found some lululemon leggings in my size for only $25. when I got them in, I didn't think they were high rise enough. so I posted them on facebook marketplace and sold them for $35. not something I'd make a habit of, but hey... gets around the idea that there's no returns, right?

Since I do whatever I want, I'm going to just answer one of the thefridayfive
questions from this week:

2. Do you like pants pockets and what do you tend to put in them?

Oh my gosh yes. I love pants pockets. I love all pockets.

I hate how many women's slacks do not have pockets. It's almost a killer for me, but since I'm a weird size and it's hard to find pants, sometimes I can't be that picky. If I was a normal woman of average height who could buy pants anywhere, I would only buy pants with pockets. If I do somehow find two pairs of pants that both mostly fit, and one pair has pockets, that will be the deciding factor.

Some geeky sites are coming out with skirts and dresses that have pockets. I support this 100%.

For best results, the pockets are big enough to fit my iphone5.

I have not upgraded to an iphone6, mostly because it's bigger, so it doesn't fit as nicely into my pockets.

I heard they came out with a 6SE that's closer to the iphone5 in size. I'm considering it.

I must have chap stick in my pockets all the time. I also frequently have spare change, scraps of paper with notes, and tissues.

I guess I'd like to carry a pocket knife but I'd need like a dozen of them like I have chapsticks so I don't. I have a swiss card in my bag all the time - It's like a swiss army knife, but credit card size. It's really nice. I also do have some pocket knives in various purses. When it comes to pocket knives, they have to have the tiny scissors.

This concludes this very important entry. Thanks!

Giant middle finger for everyone this week on clothes.

I wanted to buy some solid gray slacks. I have a pair of black pants that I bought at Von Maur a year or so ago. So I walk into the store, look around, can't find them. I explain to the salesperson, "You carry the Tribal pants in talls, I think? Or at least you did. Where are they?" She shakes her head and says "Oh sorry, this season we're not carrying tall sizes in the store anymore, bit of a shift there, we just got away from it!"

Okay. Ugh.

So I go across the mall to The Limited because they have lengths of pants there too but nope... again, they have regular and petite, no longer talls in the stores. They just did.

How can my height, which hasn't changed since I was 16, go out of style?

Back to special ordering.

Months ago I went to a networking dinner plus seminar about interview and business attire. The presenters are from a local department stores. First the menswear manager talks about suits, explaining how they tailor the lengths in the store. Then the ladies' department talks about their clothes. Someone asks if they also tailor the lengths. Nope.

The menswear manager pipes up and explains to the crowd that women's clothes are "ready to wear", men's clothes are "made to tailor" so they come with lots of extra pant/sleeve length.

What the FUCK would be wrong with making women's clothes like that?! Do women not come in heights?

I read that tucked in shirts are back in style, so for a trendy new look, go tucked in. Everything was untucked for a while. now it's back. I hope college students were interested in this because I am not at all interested in the revolving doors of tucking/untucking, high waist/low waist, neutral/jewel tones, all going back and forth, who finds this interesting? Are women all supposed to die in childbirth before we hit 30 so we don't notice these rehashed excuses the clothing stores use to get us to buy new clothes every year?

I realize I've been tall for decades now and dealing with this bullshit for decades and I should be over it, but I'm not. Maybe because a few stores taunted me last season?

back to special ordering. it's frustrating. I ordered three pairs of pants from pennies a few weeks ago and returned them all because they were cheap lightweight polyester that felt like they were going to fall apart if I bumped against a wall. nothing structured or sturdy. I wish I could feel fabric and find a size that fits me in one process. nope.

Twice a year when the seasons change, it's clothing flip time. Jojo, our overprivileged oldest, gets new clothes. I pack her clothes away in a clear tub with a masking tape label - this last one said "XS 4-5 SUMMER". I also retrieve an appropriate tub of hand-me-downs for our deprived second child, Olive. I found and opened the bin that said "3T winter".

Let me tell you - this is the worst bin yet.

The one I packed away, "XS 4-5 SUMMER", actually has some cute clothes in it because Josie is pretty excited about clothes shopping and dressing herself, she loves cats, rainbows, unicorns, the color pink. I'm not thrilled that the wardrobe has shifted sharply into pink and purple but at least things match that way right?

But the 3T bin? Josie clearly did not give a shit yet.

And based on the fact that we'd been buying her clothes for 3 years, I'm afraid it looks like we also did not give a shit. A 2-3 year old is not a cute tiny baby that everyone buys onesies for. It's a nasty snotty toddler. So between us not caring and her not caring, I'm ready to declare 3T as the official low point of kids fashion. It's a nasty mishmash of clearance rack finds, thrift store tokens, hand me downs from random other families, and separate pieces that made me question whether we did laundry that year at all.

Just to remember what was going on, I flipped through some old photos:

You guys... this is what she was wearing when I thought she was cute enough to photograph... a white t-shirt that doesn't even fit:



this is creative but what's with the cyan jeans?



and there's a tutu with jeans, that's a good look:



It's all coming together, kinda. Josie loved dressing herself but culture and development hadn't lined up to make her want to match anything. We didn't sweat it - still won't. Toddlers don't even like wearing clothes 90% of the time, Olive certainly doesn't, so why give it much thought?

Well Olive that's what you get to work with this year. It's uphill from here, kid.

I went shopping for work clothes the other day for almost an entire afternoon and found NOTHING, it was amazing really. I went to department stores, mall stores, finally the nice stores up at bradley fair (ann taylor, talbot's) and maybe I was shopped out by then but I still just hated everything in the stores.

when you're not finding anything, it gets increasingly annoying being greeted by overly perky salespeople. "Hi how ARE you! Can you believe how nice a day we're having! What are you looking for today? Let me tell you about our specials in 5000 words or less!" zomg

Is it just me or are clothes being "titled" past their importance a bit these days? How many shirts in the world can really be called "essential"? Also pretty presumptuous to assume that you can create my "favorite t" - that's for me to decide, thanks.

one store had the "ultimate weekend shirt" - ultimate, really? and I have a weekend shirt. It's a grimy old t-shirt I sleep in that says "Kansas State Fair 2005". It does not need a $40 replacement. do people really go shopping for clothes to relax in?

It made me remember that episode of strongbad emails where he lists "giving chocolate deserts dangerous names" as one of the top items on his "bottom 10". chocozuma's revenge. chocolardiac arrest.

anyway here's the issues I have with current styles:

1) I feel like maybe most people buying summer clothes are buying them for the beach or the club, not their office job, so the work clothes sections are pretty sparse.

2) There's this trend of big loose flowy tops that's really not working for me, maybe short people can get away with that "cute short girl in a big shirt" idea but as a tall woman I just feel like a linebacker.

3) I surveyed the crowd at this year's SWE conference and we were undecided about whether sheer tops over a cami were an acceptable professional choice for the workplace. Anything where you can see straps, people said, is questionable. I don't want to be questionable.

4) I am still trying to buy natural fibers like cotton, avoid polyester and rayon, and acrylic is on my all-out boycott list.

When I got home I ordered some basics from penny's because they have tall sizes in plain cotton button shirts, which I'll just use as my go-to. I don't need all tall size tops, with short sleeves it doesn't matter much, but putting in "tall" as a filter reduces my choices a bit so I just shrug and go with the simple. I won't be terribly stylish, but acceptable is a good enough goal.

I've been trying to buy very few articles of clothing the past year or so, after a few resolutions and cleanout sprees, I only buy something if I know I will love it and want to wear it every single week.

But I did want a new hooded sweatshirt, I was tired of wearing marc's huge ones and I had a few favorites that died over the years.

I'm tall so there's only like five places I can buy clothes and everything gets special ordered online. My standbys are:

Eddie Bauer - but their hoodies were were kinda "performance" workout material and I try to buy natural fibers.

jcrew - nothing affordable or casual enough.

jcpenny - had to be weird about everything all the sudden

lands end - nothing quite right, plus their quality has been spotty ever since sears bought them, mom and I both agree

gap - the winner of this challenge! 100% cotton, plain gray zip up hoodie, with just a small gap logo in a circle at the bottom that hey, I could deal with.

So I order it, there was even a coupon so I got a pretty good deal. It quickly arrives at my house. I unpack it.

it's got GAP in GIANT shiny foil letters across the whole back. I'm talking they're like 8" tall! like an that can be seen from space. shoot!

I'm keeping it, it was cheap and fills my need, I'll mostly wear it around the house or just to the store, I like how it fits.

but it got me wondering... who buys a sweatshirt and thinks "I'm so happy that it says GAP in huge letters across the whole back! that's the look I was going for, a GAP commercial!"

maybe nobody likes it and they just sneak these screenprints on for people who shop online and never hit "all views" on the photos? but not everybody shops online! and they wouldn't make it if it didn't sell, right?

I can't relate to humanity.

entry is cross posted to ello because yeah I'm doing that now.

this article about smart guys who wear the same outfit every day is making the rounds - it brings up Steve Jobs' black shirt, Obama's same suit, Zuckerberg's hoodie, and lead my circles to ask if the same concept could ever work for a successful woman. The men who do this claim it's great to wake up every morning and have one less decision to make.

If you're into celeb news world (I'm not) you'll definitely feel that women are held to a different standard - no one is supposed to wear the same dress to two different events, or even the same dress that someone else has worn.

But that world is not my world, so this year I took on Project 33 - cut all your clothes, shoes, accessories down to 33 items per season. I did it for closet space because my old house was built before people had to go nuts with materialism. But surprisingly it's worked out really well for me, I love it!

I don't wear the same thing every day, but I'd say I only wear 5-10 outfits in a rotation at any given time. My closet is 3 ft wide but I've got room for my clothes, plus a few inches for hangars to move around. I don't spend much time wondering what to wear because the outfits I'm down to are the ones I love. I don't feel guilty about repeats, because making myself scale down made me realize that nobody really notices or cares.

I do work in engineering, which makes a difference. People tend to be more logical, there aren't fashionistas where I work. Even before this project I'd had a pretty successful career despite the fact that I never wear makeup at all. Due to the demands of crawling around on airplanes I don't wear skirts or heels. The true eccentrics insist on wearing only natural fibers in case of some nasty industrial accident involving a fire, I won't go into that here, but natural fibers are a good idea anyway so I pay attention to materials.

I won't speak for every woman but I think we could do this. Or at least wear the same outfit twice.

I realized I'm jealous of my 10-month-old baby because you know what? she doesn't have to dress herself. someone buys all her clothes, then each morning comes down and physically puts her into a clean outfit. also, a coordinating set of sweatpants that match her onesie is considered a really put together look.

someone please figure this out for me. I hate buying myself clothes, putting on clothes, deciding what to wear. Are women supposed to get joy from this? I would literally outsource all of it if I could.

I want to look nice at work, I just don't have a lobe in my brain to tell me how to do it. I have other things to think about.

Sometimes I search for fashion on pinterest... general fashion is a mess, so I'll search for something like "gray slacks" to find ideas that at least incorporate a piece I already have. oddly enough, most everything I search for has as many if not more men's results than women's. that's me failing as a girl, I realize.

but honestly for work I can't be that girly because it's a freaking airplane factory, so most fashion is eliminated because of one or more quirky requirements I have:

1) No open-toed shoes. This is a hard-set rule by my company, for safety reasons.

2) No skirts or dresses. They just don't feel engineer-y enough, and aren't glamorous when climbing past the pedestal to sit in the cockpit in 6-seater jet.

3) Layers are a must because I never know what the temperature will be. The office is kept at 68, unless the HVAC system is freaking out which happens at least once every two weeks, then it'll be 80. Or I'm going outside and it's either hot or cold. Or I'm running around and just need to shed a layer because I just walked a mile and I'm hot.

4) Did I mention that I'm abnormally tall? This limits selection.

So last week I think I wore the same black cardigan 3, maybe 4 days, over different tops... that's okay right? I need something I can layer with my black pants because if I wear the black cardigan with it I look like I'm in my pajamas. I googled some looks and apparently you're supposed to pair black pants with a "pop of color"... again, not in my engineering vocabulary.

for a couple years there I stopped caring about my career and just wore khakis and polos every day. but I'm trying to look like I want to be the boss. not ashamed to say it. just not sure how to dress like it.

Here's what people are wearing right now and how it makes me feel:

Skinny jeans tucked into boots: I approve! Because I'm tall, and no one can tell my jeans are short. I can buy this look at a normal person store, it's nuts.

Basic shirt under a deep v-neck cardigan and a scarf: since I'm still breastfeeding, this look is brilliant. I can nurse the baby and still be covered in so many ways nobody notices.

Long shirts or sweaters with a belt: I like using some belts that stopped working when low-rise jeans got popular, but I don't see this lasting forever, it's kinda weird.

I saw some random pinterest thing about how to get your wardrobe down to only 33 pieces of clothing: Project 33.

I liked the idea. And I haven't exactly laid out all I owned and counted 33 pieces yet - but I've been thinking about it, and I have an informal goal in place right now to have a wardrobe that fits into my living space. My house was built in 1929 when a "closet" was not a separate room that you walked into, it was a 3x3ft square behind a door. I have that, and a dresser with six drawers, and I've wondered if I could live out of it. This has gotten me to try to move clothes out of the guest room, my kids room, and downstairs closets - when we first moved in, I had to be everywhere just to deal.

So I've gotten rid of bags and bags of clothing this year, most of it donated, but some I decided to store. The project 33 website encourages that. I wasn't sure what size I'd be after pregnancy, and storing clothes gave me a chance to open a bag of clothes I hadn't seen in six months to re-evaluate. It was nice. I'd pick up a shirt, and if I felt like I'd missed it, it went back into the rotation. If I hadn't missed it, wasn't looking forward to wearing it again, then it got donated.

I only have about 5-10 outfits I really love, and I found out that it's liberating to just let yourself wear them every week. The people I work with every day might notice the repeats, but I'm not as concerned about them because they're the people who know me the best. It's the people who I see occasionally, in the important meetings at work, who I care about, and this way they're more likely to see me in an outfit I'm really comfortable in.

My little closet features the clothes I want to wear. For a new item to make it out of the store and into my closet is has to meet a lot of rules now - no dry cleaning required, excellent fit, versatile. It can't just be on sale.

I bought more clothes this year than I normally do because I was just pregnant and basically went a year without buying normal person clothes. But I like the stuff I bought a lot more because I didn't feel like I had to get 20 new shirts to refresh my wardrobe. I'm trying to keep it simple.

The article: The most common question from young women engineers? What to wear.

The quote:

I often run into young women in early technical careers at conferences and other technology events who are hungry for inspiration and advice. Despite my background as a technologist, though, I find that the questions seldom involve matters of science or engineering.

No. Undergrads, graduate students and women working their first jobs after college want to know:

“What should I wear?” “How should keep my hair?” “How do I fit in with the guys?”

And she goes on to explain how we ask women way too many questions about how to fit in to engineering, but also fit into being a woman. Even obituaries about women engineers start by explaining how domestic they could be, just to get out of the way how normal they were despite having this engineer gene that apparently makes them freaks.

But back to clothes. You know what? It's a big deal. And it's annoying. I don't know what to wear.

When I got out of college I was told the dress code for my job was "business casual". Okay. So that immediately messes up what most people say about clothes, that you should "be yourself" and "dress like you". If I picked clothes out purely by listening to my soul, I'd be in flannel pajama pants every day.

The second laziest way to dress yourself is to just look around and wear what everyone else is wearing. In my department, it was khakis and polos, because they were all guys. I did not feel pretty, and definitely did not feel like "me". But since I didn't care, it sort of worked out.

A few times I tried to step outside a bit... I'd wear a scarf with my sweater. or there was a year I bought some suits. But I felt awkward.

Then I joined IT for a year and interestingly enough, there were more women there... and they cared about clothes! In fact I joked with them that when summer came around they'd get to see the whole spectrum of my incredible wardrobe of polo shirts... black polo shirts, navy blue polo shirts. They complained about getting assigned to an office off the factory where they couldn't walk in sandals, to me it was no big deal. But little by little, I started to feel a little inspired by the way they dressed. I'd wear a sparkly top, or a bracelet, or a belt around a sweater, and I liked where it was all going. I got those women to take me shopping, like a charity case, and they were thrilled to help me out, introduced me to boots and skinny jeans and necklaces that worked with what I was wearing.

The point is though, all of that felt so much easier when I just had other women around me. When I was working with all men I had a nagging voice in my head reminding me that I was supposed to dress "professionally", like I knew what I was doing, and that meant I was NOT supposed to dress like a man. But that left me feeling like I had to make it up as I went along. I was afraid that even though all the guys around me said they didn't care about how anyone dressed and couldn't tell a tube top from a camisole, there'd be subliminal issues they'd notice that they couldn't put into words. They would think that I just didn't seem as put together as the women they knew who weren't engineers. I would not be "well dressed" because for a woman, that's different from the way they dress, they'd just know I wasn't right.

You're just doomed if you're the only token woman. Clothes are one more thing that just become a sudden no-brainer if you've got good examples around you every day, that's the problem. It's one more reason why we need some critical mass in this world... we shouldn't have to think so much about clothes, here.

Remembered another first vs. second pregnancy difference: my wardrobe. Except this one isn't what you think... they say with your first you spend all this money on so much stuff, and with your second you realize you don't need all that crap and you buy the baby a pack of diapers and wash the old onesies and you're off.

But you all know I'm too smart for my own good right? So first pregnancy, I read all that advice about wasting money and decided to do the whole thing as CHEAP AS POSSIBLE. We bought as much baby stuff as we safely could off craigslist and garage sales, and I refused to buy maternity clothes until they presented themselves as an absolute necessity.

My existing clothes will work just fine, I said. I'll buy some larger sizes so I can wear them when I'm not pregnant, I said.

So what happened? Well, I felt like a dump truck. I didn't realize the issue fully until I went to victoria's secret to buy a slightly larger bra and was confronted with giant posters of skinny models and I started crying in the dressing room, blogged about it, and YOU ALL were like, "Buy a stretchy comfy nursing bra, what are you DOING? No woman with actual breasts shops at VS anyway!" (I didn't know!)

I had one nice maternity sweater that I got on sale that I wore at least once a week, and it was cute, and I felt cute... all the other days I felt huge and awful.

The deal is that maternity clothes make you look blissfully pregnant, they're comfy but fitted in certain places and not-so-fitted in other places, and you've got new clothes and you just feel happy. When you're going to gain 50 pounds and live in a whole new body it gives you image issues, there's just no way around it. Wearing burlap sacks for nine months only makes it worse.

Oh, and all those "slightly larger sizes" that I thought would totally work after the baby? Hell no. The weight dropped off so fast from nursing and I was in such a hurry to get back into my skinny clothes that the baggy tops were almost torched in the front lawn. When I wasn't pregnant, I did not want to be REMINDED that I'd been pregnant.

So this time I've gone on some shopping trips because I've realized that even if I am a very logical woman, I have to feel good about how I look. If I woke up one morning with the body of some voluptuous curvy girl, I wouldn't just throw on a sweatshirt. I'd be thrilled to have actual hips and breasts to show off! I think you deserve a pass to take care of yourself through any body change you go through, even if it is temporary. Spend a little money.

Hell, all it does is reduce your baby clothes fund... and that little bugger doesn't give a crap anyway, you know?

So I'm reading this book "Think" by Lisa Bloom... it's awesome, I'll write up a full review later. It's about the evils of letting your mind decay into worthless celeb news when there are important things going on in the world that need your attention.

But anyway one early chapter had a bit about beauty routines, and how much women in our society invest, measured in both time and money. The author talks about how much women spend on makeup, how we spend 30 minutes a day blow drying our hair, the days we lose recovering from cosmetic surgery.

Except, I totally don't.

The author has spent her life in Chicago, New York and LA as an on-air legal analyst for major news networks. I've spent my life in Kansas as an electrical engineer. I feel the same way I did when I read Judith Warner's book about the high-pressure, competitive world of motherhood in Washington DC... "wow I'm glad I don't live there!" I don't know if it's the big city thing, or my nerdy world of engineering, or just me.

Here's my "beauty routine":

I always have a lip balm in my pocket. I also have a stick of concealer in my desk at work. I might have some lip gloss... I can't tell you where it's at now or when I put it on last. At random times over the last five years I've owned mascara, like if we had a big vacation and were going out a lot.

I cannot tell you the last time I wore foundation, eyeshadow, lip liner, or blush.

I wouldn't get cosmetic surgery if you paid me to.

My daytime wardrobe is usually khakis and a sweater or fitted knit shirt, sometimes wool slacks, more and more jeans. I do not wear skirts. I do not wear heels, maybe because I'm tall, but mostly because they're impractical. I own very few clothes that require ironing or dry cleaning. I blow dry my hair only if I'm in a hurry, and it usually ends up pulled back into a ponytail at some point during the day.

Granted, at my office there are plenty of gals who class it up a little more than me, it's not like all engineer girls are as anti-fashion as me. But I feel like where I'm at, I fit in just fine. It's when I read books or stories about the average woman spending $800 a month on makeup that I'm like, "huh?"

So anyway, ladies, what's your routine? Do I care way less than average, or just a little less than average? Is your "maintenance level" affected by where you live and what you do?

And really... am I the only woman who doesn't wear any makeup?

I've been needing to buy lots of clothes for work lately. It's complicated... I basically went a year without buying clothes, you know, since I was pregnant and all. I bought some maternity clothes, but mostly tried to buy clothes that were just big but not maternity. Then when we moved, I got rid of all my non-fitting small clothes because I hadn't worn them in a year and forgot what I liked and REALLY needed to scale down and get rid of clothes.

Fast-forward to now... I weigh less than I did before I was pregnant and looking into my closet and seeing all these huge sweaters sucks. Yes, it was a nice thought when I was pregnant, that all these big clothes with huge shoulders would last me for years. But I was in a very different mindset then. I think I'll call it the mindset of "huge". Everything that felt a little tight felt terrible, I was already wearing maternity pants, I was gaining weight like nobody's business. People told me I was "carrying so well" or "all baby" but seriously all, at the end there I was probably a week away from having my own gravitational pull. I put on those sweaters now feel like some kind of sloppy bag lady.

Issue #2: I've always had a complicated relationship with winter. Cold-weather clothes just make me feel ugly. I hate the layers, I hate the sleeves that don't look right on me... that makes it even harder to like big clothes. I feel less sexy in a season that already makes me feel totally not sexy. I thought it was impossible.

I think about October and Halloween and it makes me remember the traumas of my childhood, when my mom would make me wear a bulky purple coat over my delicate white dress that matched perfectly with glitter fairy wings for trick-or-treating. She said, "You can wear your fairy wings over your coat, everyone will see them." OHMIGOD NOT THE SAME. I didn't care if I was going to freeze! Fairies make sacrifices! Talk about being scarred for life.

Every winter I'm thankful that I don't live further north. I also thing whimsically about moving further south. Like, maybe the equator, or some place where there is no winter, where everyone just parties in flip-flops and tank tops all day. Marc would leave me, but at least I'd be warm and I'd feel attractive.

my sunburn from last weekend is peeling. so that's gross. I'm going camping next weekend, too, so it can only get worse.

I got a bunch of pants in the mail! I had a bad moment last week trying to find a shirt that went okay with the khaki slacks I have (the one pair) because nothing went with them, they're just unflattering. So I ordered three new pairs of pants from two different websites, with this thought that I'd pick my favorite (or favorites) and send the other (or others) back. They all came in, and I've decided to keep them all. I mean, what's good about being a decently-paid hardworking professional girl if I can't have all the pants my heart desires? It's a sign of accomplishment and arrival, having all these pants. Since I'm tall I have to special-order all of them. Stores don't sell women's pants in inseam lengths... if you're lucky, the pants will come in "Petite" "Medium" "Tall", and "Tall" usually means 33" inseam. That doesn't cut it for our hero. So I special order, and if I can find a pair for $60, I've done pretty well (most of my good ones I really like are $80-$100).

My first two years of work I wore mostly skirts. It sucked... I'd go to climb around in an airplane and people would look at me like, "You're seriously going to try this?" And I was fine but it was still weird and awkward. Plus, and this is hard to describe, I felt uppity in a skirt. I wasn't sure if I felt overdressed, or just divided from everyone else I work with (they're all men) but something made me feel apart from the group. a skirt just seems to say, "I work in marketing!" or something like that. Pants put you on the same level as everyone else. Plus, if you wear the same skirt every day it gets obvious, whereas if you wear the same gray pants every day (I almost do) it's no big deal.

So now if I wear a skirt, the technicians will ask me why I'm so dressed up which is funny. I wear pants. It's taken me a while to build up the collection but I'm a lot happier.