As I mentioned yesterday, I'm down to the dregs of my clean laundry. I still have maybe a dozen clean shirts that are suitable for work, but none are shirts I like. They all test my patience and good sense in some way, and they are each the kind of shirt that gets rotated into my wardrobe only two or three times a year when desperation hits. Only halfway through this work week, desperation has hit.
I paired a black suit with one of the desperation shirts: a leopard print shell. Yes, I said leopard print. The shirt makes me look like a chola playing dress up, but it's cut well for me. It's got two thin layers of fabric that are cinched at the bottom before billowing out. Flatters all the problem areas. Makes it clear that I have both boobs and a waist. Separately. For a short Jewish woman, that's no small accomplishment. Boob-waist is endemic within our population.
So at work I carried my files over my chest and did my business quickly. I didn't want any of my Judges to notice the leopard print in their courtroom. But just as I dropped off a stack of finished motions, one of my courtroom assistants stopped me. She's a brown skin woman who fumbles party names in Spanish, and yet I know she lives somewhere deep in the Inland Empire where speaking English is not an option. I've always suspected that she's more Mexican than she lets on. She looked straight at my clearly separate boobs and waist and said, "Wow. Love your shirt."
3 comments:
That's because that woman is pure class.
My white class roots are showing, but I totally love animal print. I won't allow myself to dress the way I really want because I know how it is perceived. But when I was in court yesterday, a woman got on the elevator wearing gold lame shoes. I was sooo jealous.
Gold lame, really? There's an item I've never coveted.
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