Something I'm Embarrassed to Own/ A Favorite Outfit for Writing

It's true! I am finally getting around to the photo meme stuff! I decided to begin with this one because I think even you, my faithful readers, may be shocked and even a little embarassed for me that I own this. Or you might say, "Crazy, that is both embarassing and probably the craziest thing in your house," and thus it kind of fills two of the categories in which people wanted me to take pictures. And I might say in response, "Actually, it fills more than two: I am also sentimental about this item and it also makes up part of one of my favorite outfits." But, without further ado, I should show you this most embarassing item.

It's true. This, my friends, is a bathrobe that I've had since 1992. I remember the year precisely because I got it for Christmas from my step-dad and it was my first year of college, and living in the dorms, well, you need a robe. (So not only have I been wearing this thing for nearly 15 years, I began by wearing it in semi-public.) It is made of toweling sort of material, and really, it looks almost like brand new, even though it's as old as it is. You might be interested to know that I've only seen this robe in one other place outside of my possession, and that was at a thrift store about five years after I received the item as a gift. You will laugh when you hear that my first thought was not, "hmmm.... maybe this robe is hideous," but rather, "wow, why would somebody get rid of this great robe?"

But, my friends, it does not stop with owning the robe. I do, in fact, continue to wear this robe, and it in fact is the kind of icing on top of the cake that is one of my favorite outfits. This is not an outfit that I would consider "fierce" (unless we're talking about "fierce" in the sense of potentially dangerous to those who look upon it because they might die of laughter), nor is it an outfit that any outside of my most intimate circle (i.e., at the moment, my cat) would see me wearing. This outfit is my favorite writing outfit, an outfit for when I am having a hard time sitting down to write and which somehow inspires me. The first key to this outfit is that it's got to be cold. If it's summer, I turn on the air conditioning so that everything is really cold, just so that I can wear this outfit. Some parts of the outfit are negotiable. Generally, though, it includes some version of the following:

Footwear: either these L.L. Bean Slippers or these Adidas running shoes. If I wear the running shoes, I wear little athletic socks, but if I'm wearing the slippers I tend to wear wool socks.

From the waist down: either some kind of sweat pants (either the old school kind with the elastic at the ankles or yoga pants with stripes down the side of the legs) or plaid men's pajama bottoms. The choice of footwear has absolutely no bearing on the choice of the pajama bottoms or sweat pants. Also, and this is key, you must think about how this will look with the above bathrobe.

From the waist up: well, this does tend to vary more. Some favorites, though, are this t-shirt, or an ugly sweater (though only in winter, and yes, I realize it's weird to wear a sweater with a robe over it, but so be it), or a forest green sweatshirt that dates from around the same time as the robe (what was it about the early-to-mid-'90s and the color "forest green"?) that has the name of a university on it in plaid letters. Again, the choice of shirt has absolutely nothing to do with the choice of shoes or pants.

However, the most awesome part of this favorite writing outfit is the head-gear.

Normally, I don't put my hair in front of my face, but rather I use the tiara to hold the hair off of my face for better ability to see. However, the needs of a pseudonymous blog are such that I needed to disguise my identity.

But yes. I wear this tiara (which I acquired during the writing of my dissertation) when I need particular inspiration to write. I have a theory that it channels all of my brain energy and focuses it. Also, the tiara makes it uncomfortable to lie down and to take a nap - as does the footwear - in this, my favorite writing outfit, so it really does facilitate productivity. As for the layers of hideousness that comprise the rest of the outfit, well, they make it impossible to leave the house - even if only to take out the trash - for fear of being seen by, well, anybody.

So yes. The bathrobe is particularly embarassing. And with the rest of the outfit that I have described to you, perhaps even more so. But you know what's hilarious? I can blog about this precisely because it is a deep, dark secret that I have that really only people (or cats) who are very, very close to me would ever suspect. Mwahahaha!