My talk went great. Usually I’ll say things like “Yeah it was pretty good” but no this one was great. Partly this was because I was on a panel with both a really engaged panel chair and also two other top-notch presenters whose ideas neatly interfaced with my own. I rarely feel so psyched about panel-type discussions but this one was really fun all around. You can read my notes and see some pictures from this librarian.net link.
And then there was drinking with archivists and drinking with sysadmins. It seems like no matter where I start out in DC, I wind up in the Brickskellar drinking mystery beer. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Yesterday was a MetaFilter meetup which is sort of a way to actually face-to-face hang out with people I already spend considerable time with online. Again, it went great, nice bunch of people, nice venue, good food (cheese grits, my gosh!) easy to get to, fun.
I’m trying to make peace with the fact that other people’s photos of me are going to go online even if maybe I don’t look as great as I’d like to look in them [for reference, this pic is nice, this one not as nice, even this one is fine]. It sounds like a trivial issue, but it’s not really. I’ve sort of been having a disconnect between what I look like in my head, to me, and what I see when I look in the mirror. Part of this is getting older, part of it is having moved to the country and put on weight, and part of it is just having been in a long relationship where I was always told “you look fine” but maybe not appreciated/treated as if I looked fine. Swimming all the time makes me feel fit and now I want to bring the rest of me in line and look fit. This includes dropping some weight — nothing drastic, just paying more attention to food etc — but also maybe learning how to dress as someone who is built like me, not built how I feel like I am in my mind which probably bears more resemblance to how I looked a decade ago.
I’ve always dressed almost exclusively for comfort and tried to make this work when I also had to dress for work, or dress to impress. However if you always dress for comfort you wind up in a mumu and that’s just not going to work for me, not if I’m leaving the house anyhow. I’ll check back in in a month and see how it’s all going, this won’t become an obsessive navel-gazing “how do I look” set of posts. I just think this sort of thing becomes more useful and more effective if you say it out loud. One of the downsides to being a real in-your-own-head brainy type is that it can be easy to forget that your brain isn’t worth much if you’re not paying equal attention to where it has to live. Yeah it’s another litter box post, but again I think it’s a step in the right direction.
I”m right with you on changes in attitude/self-perception regarding dress. it seems cliche, but I really did find the Trinny/Susannah What Not To Wear books (the British ones) to be superbly useful regarding assessing shape, color, fit, and so forth. (My PL had both books, happily, and my thrift store had plenty of clothes which suited me well.
Luck!
Dude, we were separated at birth.
I have decided that I am dysmorphic – but in the totally opposite way of the clinical diagnosis – I think I look FABULOUS! Subsequently, everytime I see a picture of myself, I burst into tears. Everytime someone makes a fat joke at me (which happened THREE TIMES last week!), I always wonder what the fuck they mean, and I get terribly hurt.
Anyway, I’m right there with you about the clothes – I wear t-shirts, shorts, and Old Navy pajama bottoms (to work!) almost exclusively. I do not (and will never) own a shoe with a heel. I think beads and some lipstick = dressed up. I’m pushing 40. And I’m (apparently) fat. Oh, well!
I think you look great…
I dress neat but plain to work. You know you dress really plain all the time when you buy a new skirt and colleagues make comments about it for days!
On the theme of photos taken by other people you’d rather they didn’t, the flat we’ve been renting for 7 years is being sold by our landlords and the photos went online today. In the photos, I have a ridiculous amount of clothes and shoes. Not a lot by many people’s standards, but seeing this picture of this stuff overflowing is kind of UGH.
I’ve been thinking a lot of the same things about clothes. For me, the priority list has gone: 1) comfort; 2) cheapness; 3) appearance. What that means is that I end up wearing dowdy (on me) librarian jumpers at work, and jeans and T-shirts at home. I’m getting accustomed to the idea that, yeah, I’m 40, and not skinny, and not likely to get skinny, and maybe I can find some things to wear that are comfortable *and* make me look a little more like I want to look.
Sorry again we weren’t in town; SIGBEER with you would have been a good time! 8^)
i like the fine/FINE distinction, very good point.
when you come to portland the next time, we will thrift.
— sara
I totally agree with the “it’s helpful to say it out loud” thing. One of my DC friends jokes that it’s dangerous to hang out in your head too much — bad neighborhood.
I might have to start blogging about this too. While I was pregnant, I was much more responsible about eating healthy food because I noted my fruit & veggie count every day in the blog.
I think you’re beautiful.
f greg
Well, Jessamyn, you are getting older. Body changes come with the territory. But what you change, if anything, is up to you. If you are physically active, then that helps mitigate the effect of extra weight.
I’m a guy in my early 40s who has had lifelong body image problems. I avoid looking in mirrors. I think that my attitude has affected my ability to have relationships. I’m in good physcial health and get exercise. I’d like to lose 40 pounds and I think I’ve finally found a way to achieve that (substituting water for soda).
It may seem odd for one of your radical comrades to say this, but you might want to watch some episodes of “What Not to Wear” or “How Do I Look?” One of the biggest turnoffs for me when it comes to women is not body size, but presentation. If you look frumpy all of the time (like most librarians) or “dress for comfort,” you aren’t doing anything to get me interested in you. In my book, you should dress for comfort for doing shit around the house. When you are at work or out with friends, sexy and interesting is not the same thing as frumpy and comfortable.
Lastly, please stay away from the thrift store. If you are wearing other people’s garbage, it will look like you are wearing garbage.
A provocative, frumpy friend. ;-)
Well I think my point is that I’m not dressing up to try to get laid or even to meet people, but that as a fairly confident and happy person I’m realizing that I want to make sure that I look outside the way I feel inside.
With all due respect anonymous, “sexy and interesting” doesn’t really fly in rural Vermont the way it does in more urban areas (granted, this was a post about DC). However, wearing clean clothes that fit and make me look good is becoming more of a priority of mine. Part of that process is moving a little away from the confidence-building but defeating “I think I look great! Screw what other people think” approach to fashion, and learning to see it as more like etiquette – things you may do because they’re important to others, not necessarily to yourself.
If you are someone I know IRL (and therefore may know my current fashion sense better than just a casual reader of my blog) please feel free to send me an email with specifics about my frumpiness or my thrift store failures, otherwise I find your description of what I can do to get you interested in me to be a little off-putting.
a few comments …
what not to wear is a dumb show. the people i know personally who follow its advice look bad.
mr. anonymous poster: i suspect she isn’t trying to dress to date you. also, i think women have a raw deal overall — men can look like crap, be overweight/bald/no fashion sense and never face disdain. women even want to date them! sucks.
finally, jess, if you need my help picking stuff out i’m always happy to. i like to dress for style and comfort, rather than trendiness. find something you like, buy classics, stick to them.
signed, channeling my mother
sdn said…
“what not to wear is a dumb show. the people i know personally who follow its advice look bad.”
It’s not Must-See-TV, but for a person who has ignored fashion for most of my life, it certainly helped open my eyes. Take the advice from the show with a grain of salt, especially the biases.
“mr. anonymous poster: i suspect she isn’t trying to dress to date you. also, i think women have a raw deal overall — men can look like crap, be overweight/bald/no fashion sense and never face disdain. women even want to date them! sucks.”
My comments were meant to be about presentation in different situations. Jessamyn writes that “I want to make sure that I look outside the way I feel inside.” This is a good place to start from, because in the long run you’ll be happy if you are true to yourself. But there are different ways of showing this. You can have your look for work. You will look differently for dating. Dating may be a low priority for Jessamyn right now, but she may want to update her look for work or for her blogging soirees.
One of the reasons I’m chiming in here–other than the fact that I know Jessamyn–is that I see her going through a big transition right now. I’ve gone through a similar transition in recent years and learning about fashion has been one way of helping me rethink my life. I’m still amazed at how much you learn once you cross that 40-something boundary.
Women have a raw deal? I don’t want to go into a radical feminist analysis here, but I think this is more of a two way street. I understand your criticism of guys that “look like crap.” Guys do have it easy, but then women date, marry and sleep with them. On the other hand, you display a similar attitude. Guys can do something about their weight, but hey, losing your hair is a natural thing. I don’t have to worry about being bald, but I’m overweight and mostly unemployed. I have to shake my head a bit about guys having it easy, because some of us don’t have it easy.
mr. anonymous poster
Jessamyn writes:
“Part of that process is moving a little away from the confidence-building but defeating “I think I look great! Screw what other people think” approach to fashion, and learning to see it as more like etiquette – things you may do because they’re important to others, not necessarily to yourself.”
I spent most of my life rejecting fashion and dressing to please myself. I think this hurt me in different spheres, including dating and work. I pay more attention to fashion now, although I’m not quite living up to my fashion goals.
If you look at yourself as going through a major transitional period, re-inventing yourself or paying attention to those fashion details might be rewarding. Hey, at least you could get the ladies down at the library a-talking and a-twittering!
“If you are someone I know IRL (and therefore may know my current fashion sense better than just a casual reader of my blog) please feel free to send me an email with specifics about my frumpiness or my thrift store failures, otherwise I find your description of what I can do to get you interested in me to be a little off-putting.”
Sorry. I haven’t seen you lately, but we’ve met several times over the years. My comments weren’t meant to be overly critical, rather more about personal transformation.
mr. anonymous poster