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February, 2010:

Jeans shopping getting scarier every year

Feb 17th, 2010
by Gillian.
10 comments

I have problems buying jeans. I’ve blogged about this before: here, here, here, and here. Jeans that fit well are hard to find when you’re shaped weird.

And I’m shaped weird, with thighs bigger than my hips. Honestly, it doesn’t look that bad, and no guy has ever commented on my thighs being large or anything, so I’m still coming out ahead. I have the hip measurement of a supermodel, but otherwise the body of a person who eats regularly. If I was okay wearing skirts all the time, it wouldn’t matter, but t-shirt plus jeans is my life uniform.

I don’t know if my thighs have gotten bigger (a possibility; I haven’t been keeping track) or if it’s the fashion industry, but I have a hell of a time finding jeans that fit both my hips and my thighs. “Too tight” is the norm. If I can pull them up, there’s tons of room in the waist to let the rainwater in. If I find ones that fit my hips, I can’t get them up without acrobatic skills and a shoehorn.

The other day when I was doing laundry, I saw holes in the back of a pair of jeans, on the corners of the pockets. I didn’t realize it until now, but I wear jeans until they fall apart, and they always fall apart in the embarrassing areas, as I’ve mentioned before. I probably haven’t shopped for jeans in two years, but now was obviously the time, since it’s best to retire this pair before they give my workmates a show.

So I went around the mall. Kelowna has a pretty big mall, with most of the stores you’d find in the malls in Vancouver, so I was pretty confident I’d find something. I avoided all the juniors stores since young women have twigs for legs and skinny jeans are the status quo, but it still left a lot, and I went into all the stores I could find. And nothing. No luck, everything’s too tight, I’m losing feeling in my toes…

I ended up finding mom jeans at Reitman’s. Ugh. That was the only place in the entire mall that had wide-leg jeans, but of course the waist is up at my belly-button. But that’s not all I found: I tried on a bunch of other styles at that store, and got the shock of my shopping life when I tried on a pair of their “comfort jeans”: there’s no fly. No fly!!! They pull up like sweatpants, except they’re not, they’re jeans. It’s freaky. Please, God, please, let me never be forced to wear jeans like that; I need easy access to my genitals. You never know when I might need them, and can’t afford the extra milliseconds of yanking the pants down against the pull of the elastic waistband.

I’m not really sure why those jeans scared me so much, but when I put them on I felt like I was disowning my privates. There’s no door to the unknown, it’s just a wall. Nothing here, it suggests. Nothing you’d find interesting. It’d be like giving up. Besides, they were too tight.

I ended up finding some non-mom jeans that fit at Plum today, strangely enough, thanks to a sales clerk who was wayyyyy too loud and cheerful and blasting Abba in the store’s PA. But I was so happy, because I’d been feeling like the clothing manufacturers had all decided that I no longer qualify as a jeans wearer. I can’t wait until wide-leg or loose jeans come back into fashion, but it could be a while. Hopefully before I develop crotch holes in these ones.

I keep thinking music videos are a dying art

Feb 14th, 2010
by Gillian.
No comments yet

But then OK Go releases a new album and another fun choreographed video, this time with marching band:

OK Go – This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

If you can recall, these guys got internet famous in 2006 with music videos of them dancing in a backyard, and again on treadmills. Their new album, entitled “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky”, is out now (for once I mention an album that’s already released). I’m really digging the lo-fi videos from the indie music scene, another one being the semi-deconstructed Cousins by Vampire Weekend.

Many of you don’t know this, but I got into music via marching band. My first instrument was the glockenspiel. Believe me, it’s hard to aim for the right key when you’re stomping around. Also when you have bad aim to begin with. The clarinet was easier, it stayed still.

No rest for the wicked

Feb 13th, 2010
by Gillian.
1 comment

I’m supposed to be in Maui right now, but I’m not.

Strangely I am okay with this; the truth is, in my line of work (sole DBA in a big organization) there’s no point being on break when some of the databases have the same idea as you; it is better to go away at a time when it’s unlikely you’ll be called on your vacation, and when it’s as unlikely you’re going to have a massive mess to clean up (more than usual, anyways) due to your being away a week. There’s never a perfect time to go, but this weekend turned out to be the worst possible time EVAH. Except maybe for last weekend. No, this weekend for sure.

I realize this won’t make sense to many of you, and some will think I’m a crazy workaholic who’s gonna die of a heart attack at 40 (that still gives me just under 8 years!). And that I don’t know how to say no, and I don’t know how to have fun, and whatever else. And that’s fine, because you don’t get me. I chose to stay, nobody made me. And I’m okay with that, because there will be a better time to party in the near future, and in the meantime I like my work.

Of course, the last-minute decision to cancel the vacation led some relatives of mine to worry that oh noes, Gillian must be depressed. Because depression makes you cancel a vacation to Hawaii that you already paid for, the night before (I’m sure it’s possible, but I don’t think I’ve ever been that depressed). I would like to remind them that just because I have a history of depression, it doesn’t mean that I’m on the brink of suicide whenever life throws me a curve ball. And that even though they don’t see me very much, it doesn’t mean that I spend my entire time away from them in despair. Maybe I’ve had a stressful few weeks, and maybe it’s been hard, but stress is not depression for fuck’s sake, it’s stress. And the cuts on my wrist are from my cat not wanting to go to the vet today.

I’ll be taking a break for sure, just a smaller one, probably in a month. Maybe just to Vancouver, where my peeps are at, because in the end I really wanted to see my peeps more than anything.

The only thing worse than working on the weekend

Feb 7th, 2010
by Gillian.
3 comments

is working on the weekend and having to change rooms because you can hear your neighbours having sex and it’s quite obvious that they’re having much more fun than you are.

Can someone remind me what a day off feels like? Also sex?

6 months

Feb 4th, 2010
by Gillian.
4 comments

Today marks 6 months at my current job. I celebrated this by baking cookies for my workmates; I was hoping this would bribe them into celebrating along with me, but really they were just cheering about the cookies. They even admitted it. At least they’re honest.

I did manage to guilt someone into a ride home, though. Score.

I leave for a short vacation to Maui a week tomorrow. I think I’m supposed to be excited, but I’m not. Last week’s 70 hours of work* ruined all remaining enthusiasm for anything, ever again. I got a facial and a pedicure at the spa on Saturday in hopes of recovering some mental stability, but no. I don’t even want to go, now.

I looked into cancelling my trip. The insurance does say I can get my money back if I’m fired from a job where I’ve worked for at least 6 months. So I’ve got that out. Less dangerous than an “unforeseen illness”, though I could do with a coma.

Oh, I’m going on the trip, unless some database-related disaster happens chez Employer, which seems unlikely. But people have been asking me today if I’m excited and I’m disappointed to say I’m not.

I did have a dream about the trip the other day. In it there was a big tsunami and I needed to quickly get away from the beach but I ran back into my hotel room, putting my life at risk, to get a camera because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to document the experience. Stress gives me weird dreams. Though I’m still unsure what cameras to bring.

*Normally, I do 40, like most people, though some of that time is spent playing pingpong.