She had a proposition.
She wondered if I'd be willing to write some blog submissions for a new fashion blog she and two of her friends are starting up based out of L.A.
The message went on to say something about celebrity backing, something about a jet-setter lifestyle, parties, vacations, etc.
I had to re-read it three times before it all sunk in.
I was too shocked she was asking me to even understand anything past the part where she "immediately thought of me."
Let me preface this by telling you about Linda.
Linda should be illegal.
Linda is a knock-out mother to three boys that must have been formed of jello because they did not do one harmful thing to her body with their births.
Linda is the type of mother that, when she posts pictures of herself, makes me want to bang my face firmly on a rock as I wail to the sky about how unfair it is for someone who has even THOUGHT about having kids to look that good.
It's like - Not even normal how hot she is.
It's probably some rare syndrome with some fancy acronym.
So, you can imagine, when getting a message asking for my assistance from THAT person -
That person that God decided to make genetically incapable of weird lumps, or hair in odd places, or even just a slightly lazy eye to make the rest of us feel better,
I was a little stunned.
I read and re-read.
It *might* have been as I drove. That I will never admit.
She went on to tell me that she would be the face of the blog, but that she just wanted a few posts here and there with my spin.
Well that's good because I'm pretty sure that no one wants to take fashion advice when I'M the face.
As it is, I have to force myself to even put on regular clothes during the day.
Those gray star pajama bottoms and spandex sleeping bra are pretty tough to beat.
She gave me some topics and wanted me to submit some stuff as soon as I have time.
And here I am.
Writing this.
Because THIS I KNOW.
Because for at least the last 6 years, when I think about fashion anything, my brain turns to pudding and dribbles out my ears onto my very unfashionable clothing and then blends in with every other stain and mystery splotch.
"You HAVE seen my facebook posts?" I ask her.
"You DO know that my idea of fashion these days is yoga pants and desparation?"
She responds with an LOL.
"No. I mean - I'm really not kidding. You DO know that, right? You realize that my fashion choice every day is whether to wear the shirt with the moth hole or the one with the oil splatter."
"That's the beauty!" She says. Most likely from somewhere in Beverly Hills through her gorgeous white teeth.
"You can write about fashion while sitting at home in your pajamas."
So I start to think about it.
Do I even remember fashion?
Do I, Kerri Green, know one thing that is going on in the World of the Runway?
I can remember a time when a young girl's mother that I knew approached me to tell me that she just wanted me to know that her daughter IDOLIZED my sense of style and wanted to look just like me when she grew up.
It is distant memory.
But it's there.
I blame it all on the kids.
Mostly because that's easiest.
I used to shop at expensive stores and care about things like double stitching and things cut on the bias, but now all I care about is if the pattern of the material will hide a thick toddler sized hand-print made out of what LOOKS LIKE marinara.
Will it show pit-stains from the sweating I'm about to do trying to keep a toddler from boarding an escalator without me?
Or from prying them out of a department store window display?
Do the pants have enough give to stretch my legs into the splits as I reach some beloved miniature plastic animal of some kind that is wedged behind the futon?
It has to be DRY CLEANED? Well then, forget it.
The last item of clothing that I bought that had to be dry cleaned was my wedding dress for a reason.
After that it was all down hill.
I should have taken my strictly sarong wardrobe from my honeymoon as a premonition of things to come.
My honeymoon where they lost our luggage and the only thing I could do was buy clothing aboard the cruise ship we were on.
The cruise ship that sold only sarongs, straw hats, and giant cotton granny panties.
Every honeymooner's dream.
I'm sure it was Justin's.
But I should have seen it as a window to my future.
If it isn't loose, patterned, multi-purposed, and able to be tied on in seconds with one hand - It's not for you anymore, Kerri.
Fashion....
Fashion....
What do I know about fashion?
I know what I DON'T like:
1) Pants with tight ankles that take a shoe-horn to get over my heel
2) Anything that makes me look like a block letter "P" from the side
3) Anything drawing even more attention to....well...any part of my body other than my eyes.
and
4) Shirts with a sewn in camisole underneath.
Who in the SAM HILL thought of the sewn-in cami?
Trying to figure out what goes where and which way to twist it to get your arms in both holes for both arms successfully takes the skill of a neurosurgeon.
I have spent HOURS of my life in dressing rooms trying to just get through phase one of trying on a shirt with a sewn in cami.
I have tried and failed and come out needing a chiropractic adjustment.
On the rare chance that I can get it on properly without having only one arm in but the other one stuck elbow first through the outer shirt like a chicken wing while the cami strap sticks out the neck hole, I almost always buy it, just because I can hardly believe what just happened.
That moment is TRIUMPHANT.
It becomes less of a cami and more of a Victory Shirt.
But good luck ever getting it on again.
You'd better wear that sucker out and have the cashier clip the tags on the way because you can bet MONEY that's never ever happening again.
Especially after you WASH IT.
The post dryer shirt with sewn-in cami makes the dressing room shirt with sewn-in cami look like child's play.
If mockery had a shape......
A few weeks ago, contemplating my lack of updated knowledge on what was even OUT THERE fashion wise, I took to my bath tub with an InStyle magazine in hand.
For 45 minutes I poured over it's pages, trying to soak up trends and make sense of hair styles.
The realization I came to is this:
Those people are crazy if they think I'm doing that.
Let's take this for example:
I've seen that dress before.
It was on a scary torso-only Barbie covering my grandma's spare toilet paper roll.
Or these:
If I wore heels like that, the only place I'd be going was careening to my untimely death.
Or this shirt:
In Sears next to the elastic waist polyester pants.
It's just not cute.
And I'm *pretty* sure the girl wearing it has been turned.
I may not know what to best pair with a pencil skirt, but I know how to recognize a Walker.
I soaked and I looked and I came out of it all feeling like the page I identified most with was this one:
Maybe it isn't acne they're looking at, but it's something.
The used Hello Kitty band-aid stuck to the inside of my pants leg.
The booger that's not even MINE smeared on my shin.
The winter shoes that I'm wearing with capris because I just didn't want to go back upstairs
one
more
time to get proper ones.
The egg that's been stuck to my chin since breakfast - which was almost an hour and a half ago.
Something.
I mulled over it all so long I got pruny.
I stepped out and looked in the mirror and this is what I saw:
Clearly I know at least SOMETHING about fashion.
I rock a wicked smokey eye.
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