Dear Rachel Dratch,
Today was the first time where it has been the most appropriate to wear a jacket outside. I have even taken to wearing a hoodie with the hood over my head while I am writing this. The weather has been super hot for the past three months. In those three months, we have received nothing but fall/winter clothes at working, making me long for colder days and nights full of hot chocolate and those weird smelling blankets that sit in the closet for the other nine months of the year.
In preparation for the coming fall, I have been stockpiling the chic since my birthday in July. I bought my first leather jacket, my first pair of boots since childhood when I mentioned in passing that it sounded like I was wearing high heels and wasn't allowed to wear boots ever again, and my first leather bag. As a vegetarian, I'm not sure how I can rationalize buying and wearing animals, so I don't. I just wear them and not eat them. In buying these things months in advance of the cold weather, I have been dying inside with the desire to put them on and wear them out in the world. I bought a couple hoodies in June and made myself wear them when I was in San Diego in July when the weather hovered around 70. It didn't matter to me--I wanted nothing more than to feel real cozy.
Because I live in the South and have lived in the South all my life, it is sometimes deep into other region's winter by the time it gets even the slight bit cool enough to warrant puffer vests (which I am pulling today to air it out as it has been sitting in the closet where we keep the dog food since I last wore it). It seems like the first opportunity to really turn it out with the fall hits is always Thanksgiving. It's always too warm to think about the big time fall clothes, the ones previously only worn while I strut it out in my living room, until then.
For me, Thanksgiving is also the first if not only time I get to see my extended family every year. Like my fall clothes, I spend a lot of time and money prepping for this. Thinking about seeing my family can make a guy crawl the walls. When I was younger and my mom would spring a trip back down to Georgia on us the day before we had to go, I would get so anxious about the car ride and not being able to stop to pee that I could not sleep. I would down several teaspoons of liquid Benedryl and tie a t-shirt around my eyes all in attempt to get sleep. The thought of not being able to readily access a bathroom and having to be in a sort of confined space for what would seem like days (but was really only eight or so hours) was often too much.
For Thanksgiving, though, I could prepare because I knew it was coming. I would load up on the Benedryl well in advance of going to sleep, and even sometimes go out with my friends the night before the drive so I could just come home and pass out after all those Sex on the Beaches--those awful fruity/peachy drinks you get if you're Carrie Bradshaw or before you realize beer is much cheaper. I would also prepare by thinking about what I was going to wear to make sure I was the most amazing looking of the grandkids and the cousins. If you looked awesome then no one would have anything crazy to say to you because your new jeans and blue ostrich shoes spoke for themselves.
It isn't always the lack of being able to hit up the bathroom or the being in the car that would make me a little nuts. It was also the thought of having to explain why I left graduate school to work at the mall or the thought of telling my grandma that I wouldn't eat her stuffing because she used chicken broth to make it and I was now a vegetarian. I used to eat all kinds of meat, mostly chicken. Turkey would also work. So the first Thanksgiving I rolled up to as a veg was a little weird when I only had Patti LaBelle's macaroni-and-cheese and some yeast rolls on my plate. But I was prepared for the carb fest by going to the gym because I knew Thanksgiving was coming. To avoid having to explain, well, pretty much anything about me, I engage in the following techniques to divert attention and to look awesome.
Clearly I prepare for our annual Thanksgiving gathering by first devising the most incredible and multi-layered outfit that allows for maximal costume changes. If the clothes are my armor, then I will wear as much as I can to deflect the crazy rants on lost retirement and the calls for liquor shots from my grandma. The next two go hand-in-hand. I would say that to make an impact at Thanksgiving, you should probably do two-a-day cardio sessions at the gym and buy smaller clothes. I love when my family comments on how skinny I look and that I need to gain weight. Nothing is worse than being in on a conversation about your uncle who has really let himself go since he became friends with Krispy Kreme and Natural Light. But if you're in great shape, your smaller clothes will only accentuate that and keep nothing but praise coming your way. This also helps avoid explaining your decision to sell pants instead of teaching at college. I just like pants, okay!? They're better than college students and they don't require that I grade papers. And they're pretty. But I could never say that to my family, not until later when they're falling over and I'm sweating away my beauty because I am forcing myself to wear my new lambswool sweater.
I almost wonder if I sometimes am using my clothes as a nerve pill of sorts. Sweaters as Clonopin, maybe. They help me prepare for the anti-climatic meal that doesn't result in anything beyond an aunt losing her shit because her daughter is a brat. They make me feel good, too. There's something about the warmth and coziness of fall and winter clothes that we don't get when we dress for warmer weather. We throw everything on in the winter in an effort to just get through the cool, the cold, the ice, and the darkness. I’m not saying Thanksgiving is a dark winter, but sometimes those family gatherings can be a little dramatic and cold. We try to look as good as possible through winter while we wait it out to get a little warmer. Only for the cycle to start over again--whether we're trying to make it to Spring or to make it to the day after Thanksgiving.
This Thanksgiving I will hopefully pull out some of the cold weather gear I've been sitting on for the past five months once the temperature takes its seasonal dip. Maybe they're armor to defend against the wind chill or the room elephants we all have whenever our families get together. But let's face it, if you bring out all the stops and are dripping in amazingness and not turkey gravy, you'll be fine. Fall clothes will keep us warm and stylish, but like Thanksgiving we are ready for it to be over after a while. Then the cycle repeats, it gets warmer and all we can dream about are sweaters, snow, and our drunk grandma.
Jon
