And a new dress, several new blouses/shirts, a few tank tops, a new skirt (on order), a belt, pants to replace the ones that got too short, two new pairs of shoes, a necklace… I think that’s about it.

Yes, today is normally a work day. But next week is Holy Week. I’m callin’ this comp time.

That list of clothes seems extravagant, except I only buy clothes about twice a year, at the most. I usually loathe shopping unless my CGs are involved. I like having new stuff from time to time, but I would rather it magically appear. I would so get behind a personal shopper.

And I had a discount coupon! Score!

We watched The Devil Wears Prada the other night, which kept going through my head today as I tried on eleventy million outfits in the dressing room lit by the single floodlight pointing straight down (People! There is no less flattering light! The shadows! Fluorescent is actually better!). If zero is the new two, and six is the new fourteen, what is the new fourteen?

No comment.

(Can I pause here and say how proud I am of those of you who are losing weight and buying new (smaller) sizes? That will be me someday. But for now the priority is on nice stuff that fits.)

I am so much like that Anne Hathaway character was in the beginning. I just don’t care that much. I don’t judge those who do care, except when it becomes idolatrous.

If stunning clothes suddenly appeared in my closet, I’d wear them, because I like looking put together. But I don’t like it enough to spend time shopping, except the minimum required when faced with “Ugh! I am sick of the stuff in my closet and nothing fits!”

I blogged this several years back after a similar shopping expedition:

All these new clothes necessitated cleaning out my closet. This is a cathartic experience, and I was long overdue. Little kids are right—monsters do lurk in closets. They nestle in those tight crevices between the too-small skirts, the stretched out blouses, the dresses that you can’t decide whether they’re in style or not anymore. The demons of days past are just packed in there, way too full, wheezing in the warm, stifling closet air. The black maternity sweater that you wore at your father’s makeshift funeral, hundreds of miles away from the real one. The nursing blouse you wore when your church voted to call you as their pastor, the one that you liked a lot but you hoped didn’t seem too obviously a nursing outfit, because was it going to freak people out to have a pastor who lactates? The skirt you bought for your new job that seemed like a good idea but that made you look horrible, but you really didn’t care because who had the time and the energy to care about appearances when your whole world was so different and hectic and depressed?

I will admit it, I did have some fun today. This time I didn’t feel like I was exorcising any old demons so much as trying on some new aspects of myself. Which is a good thing.

The only bad part about today (and it’s a big one) is that blog-friend Judy and I were going to get together today and I just now got her e-mail with cell phone number. Poopity poop! I love me some blog meetups. Shoot.