Back from Bigdale

[mrissa]

I have just returned from Bigdale, and I have to ask -- which bozo declared this "dress like Ally Sheedy Circa 1985 year"? (Offering "Molly Ringwald Circa 1985" as my other option is not helpful.) Come on, people! I was perfectly happy dressing as My Own Mother Circa 1975! That was good! No one has ever said to me, "Mris, you looked just like a character from 'Sixteen Candles' in that outfit," and I'd like to keep it that way. If it wasn't so warm, I would go put on my Docs and sulk. (As it is, I apparently have to stay in a decent mood. Go figure.)

Also, do you know how Bigdale smells today? The answer is, very bad. It smells like too many things, many of them not pleasant. I have read too much cyberpunk to enjoy Bigdale even on a relatively non-smelly day, and this was not such a day.

On the up side, I got all my errands done, and now I can continue reading about gin and working on the book, and for dinner there will be pizza. So all that could be a lot worse.

Comments

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Bigdale? Where is that?

[laurel]

I believe she means the mall also known as the Mall of America (a.k.a. the "MegaMall." Not really a.k.a. MOA no matter how much the ad agencies seem to want people to adopt that nickname for the place).

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. We call it the BFM.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I call it "the mall of despair" or "the mall of death".

[timprov.livejournal.com]

You must not have spent much time in Eden Prairie Center in the late '90s.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Very true. I think I've been in it twice *ever*. And had never been in it when I started calling the other one those things.

It's certainly a locus of despair.

[ckd]

I still think Randall Park Mall (OH) practically defines retail despair. (Even the surrounding big box stores are mostly empty; when we drove past on the freeway a couple of weeks ago, we could see a former Circuit City with the sign taken down, sitting empty a block from the mall proper.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

laurel is right.

Mall of America = Bigdale
Burnsville Center = Buckdale
Calhoun Square = Updale
Eden Prairie Center = Westdale

They may not have stuck with the naming convention they started, but we have.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

...now I can continue reading about gin and working on the book...

You've got those two mixed-up, I think. *grin*

[laurel]

Fashion for fall and winter is . . . odd. Well, except for in the catalogs that stick with simple classics-- bless them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Some kinds of embroidery look cute on me. Other kinds, well, I may as well do the crown braids in my hair and end every sentence with "yah for sure from Sveden."

Not that some people wouldn't find that cute, too. But still.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

It's actually worse if you're old enough to have worn those cloths the first time around. I don't realy have any desire ever again to wear pants it's hard to get my foot through. The only saving grace is that stretch denim is much better now than it was in 1985.

Also, if waists come back up and I'm stuck buttoning jeans around my ribcage again (which is where so-called "natural" waists hit me) I will not be happy at all. I'll probably end up switching to men's 501s which are a little higher than I like but at least reasonable for comfort.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

See, I'm sort-of old enough to have worn these clothes the first time around. Sort of. So my reaction is, "I've worn belts over shirts before. I've worn belts over shirts over stirrup pants before. I was seven. Let's move on."

I recognize that there are people who imprinted on this stuff the way I did over dark greens and dark burgundies and stompy boots and CDs where you weren't sure if the entire band made it home all right after recording or if maybe the bassist had to stop to hang himself on the way. I'm just not them.

Men's jeans are never ever ever ever an option for me. But luckily, I seem to be okay for jeans for awhile. Even hit a sale today. Yay sale jeans.

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

"...CDs where you weren't sure if the entire band made it home all right after recording or if maybe the bassist had to stop to hang himself on the way."

This sentence made me laugh out loud! I only listened to a few of those bands but Joy Division immediately jumped to mind. Well, suicide is not inherently funny, I know, except in the very best Voltaire "thoughts of suicide have kept many a man comfortable in the long dark night." I myself preferred Sisters of Mercy where you were pretty sure the lead singer was high on amphetamines and Romantic Liberature, but still, I know what you mean.

I did manage to write you a birthday card in my best handwritten fountain pen scrawl, and it should be in the mail on its way to you tomorrow.

Also, gin and pizza and the possibility of mixing them (though I too would prefer to eat pizza and read about gin), reminds me of the Peanuts episode where Snoopy makes pizza milkshakes and dreams he's a sled dog in the Arctic. Or maybe I only imagined that one.

Mack

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, I was very clear that I didn't want to drink gin, just read about it.

We have conifers available to lick in this very neighborhood, if I wanted that flavor.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I wore bell-bottoms at age 3, myself. It's not the belts over shirts that bother me; it's that skin-tight jeans where it's difficult to get your foot through because the calves are so tight and you have to lay down to zip them up and even many 18-year-olds have *corners* where their wider hips give way to squished-by-denim legs are damned uncomfortable. I don't do damned uncomfortble any more. (I didn't in high school either, but then it was mostly because I was too small to wear juniors sizes.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

See, I have a stockpile of jeans I am hoping will carry me through this unfortunate time. I am not one of those thin women who moans about how her legs are soooo faaaaaat, but my legs have a tendency to take on muscle at the slightest excuse. My thighs and calves are bigger when I'm working out regularly, not smaller. I know you can sympathize. So the jeans with skin-tight legs? just not happening. Anything with enough Lycra to make it feasible on me no longer counts as jeans.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Yeah - not only do I work out including working my legs, but they are the first part to get in shape and the last part to lose definition. (Everyone has one. The legs are mine.) So that's a problem with the new skinny-cut jeans I hadn't even thought about: it's quite likely my legs will simply not fit through them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Stockpile the boot-cut, that is my advice. Even if you look out of date, it's better than having no jeans.

In other news, I have mailed your bars, packed together. If they don't arrive intact, please let me know both that it happened and what seems to have happened -- I haven't shipped bars before, so it was all new to me.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I think what I can do is just go to standard straight legs, which is a bit less conspicuous than boot-cut.

Thanks for letting me know about the bars (and thanks for the bars themselves). I will be looking out for them. Glad you're well enough to be enjoying baking again.

[genevra.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would prefer that the waists come back up. Right now, the "modern cut" of pants mean they're making plus-sized pants with less fabric in 'em! How is half of my ass uncovered even remotely attractive??

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Whereas for those of us who are short-waisted, lower waists are far more comfortable. I''m not talking about ultra-low-rises; I don't have any desire to show plumber's cleavage either. But a higher waist tends to equate to a curvier cut with the result that the pants designer seems to expect me not only to have a tiny waist, which I don't, but to have it somewhere up my rib cage. (How much do women's bodies vary? Yesterday I looked at a photo of me in a sweater I'd knitted, next to a photo of the sweater's designer in her implementation. She is busty and long-waisted. With the photos at roughly the same scale, and our shoulders on a level, my belly-button and her nipples were at about the same height (allowing for the difficulty of locating either under clothing, of course).)

Hey, here's a novel idea - maybe they could make a variety of cuts to suit the variety of women's shapes? No, that would be far too logical.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Phew. I've just looked through recently-arrived Athleta and LL Bean fall catalogs. (Not the big Bean's fall one yet, though.) Nice counterpoint to the dictates of fashion: clothes that are actually meant to do things in. Maybe I'll just start dressing like a lumberjack all the time. I've almost forgotten how much I *like* dressing like a lumberjack - of course that could be because I live in a climate not well suited to flannel. Also, since Bean's tend to lag behind the fashions, they're just moving into pants that sit below the waist.

Also also, Athleta has a long flowing knit skirt with embroidery on the bottom that might not be too Svedish on you. Not sure.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh heavens! I would never have looked at a place called Athleta, on the assumption that I am way more femmey than that. But it has stuff! That's not totally obnoxious! For women! Oh, my goodness, I am so glad you pointed them out to me.

(Although if there is anything femmier than me in Docs, jeans, and a big flannel shirt, I have not seen it. It is way femmier than me in a sequined dress, makeup, "done" hair, and gold pumps, for example. My femminess is portable. It works on all operating systems.)

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

i do not approve of this '80s nonsense with big stripes, diagonal narrow stripes, zigzag hems, neon yellow of any kind, or (god help us) one-shoulder shirts. not even a little bit. not even at all!

what's next? hypercolor?

and word, sister, on the docs. (see icon.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Neon yellow is the fastest way to make me look three days dead. Seriously. If I wore neon yellow to a party, people would start sniffling and saying, "But she was so young...."

And one-shoulder shirts -- there were some of these already last year or maybe it was two years ago -- do they not realize that I am not the sort of woman for whom a bra is optional under a sweater? I will gladly go braless once in awhile with a sundress structured so I can do that. Or with a pareo -- I am already calling a piece of cloth with a knot in it a dress, going braless is not a big step from there. I will sometimes run to the grocery store in a T-shirt and soccer shorts, no bra, if it's early or late. But braless under a sweater? Uh, no. Not since the fourth grade. And everybody -- you may trust me here -- everybody is happy about that.

I didn't wear Hammer Pants last time, and I'm not wearing them this time. I just want to state that for the record.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Clothing note: Don't know if this helps but Eddie Bauer now has an entire consistent pants fit - in cords, jeans and even dressier pants - "proportioned for a curvy figure, one size smaller in waist than hips". I don't know how much help one size is, but least it's a step. Now all they need to do is offer that kind of fit choice in shirts and you're set.

Also, it's Fall so lots of dark colors and grays and browns.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Last I tried on EB clothes, their trousers didn't go small enough for me. I will check again with the new fit, though, in case they have something interesting. (I'm pretty good for cords and jeans, since J. Jill has different cuts that they label.) And yay fall!