Walking Tall
So, this is new: I can only work in high heels.
When I was fat, I dressed at the lowest possible level for the environment. When I was at home with DS those first 2 years, I barely made it out of my sweats, and there was a period when I went around in an outfit that could only be described as “day-jammies”. If I worked in a business casual place, I opted for corduroys or twill pants, and I was first on board with a Jeans Day.
When I worked at the dot-com company, I bought 4 pair of denim jeans in my size (20W) and wore them, one after another, every day that I worked there. I wore pullover, collared shirts, size men’s Large, bought all at once in an array of jewel tones, hoping that would deceive my ‘viewers’ into thinking they were actually women’s clothes (didn’t work). I owned a lone button-down shirt, a man’s size 17 neck that I saved for presentations and days that I had to ‘dress up’. On those days, I wore the black jeans instead of the blue, and I stuffed my feet into my loafers, leaving my sneakers at home.
As I started losing weight, the men’s clothes went first—the pants with two numbers (42x34 for those keeping track) first, then those awful pullovers, and then, finally, the purple broadcloth. I replaced them at first with the ladies version of the same thing, but over time, as I’ve closed in on normal sizes and a normal shape, I’ve been more willing to dress in a way that draws attention to me, rather than hides me behind tent-like, Hanes-ian monstrosities.
A few weeks ago, Howard and I made an executive decision to dress him up at work. He’s a consultant in a big-time, “Big X”-like organization, one that prefers to stand out from their clients. So, when he’s on site at a client, he’s usually dressed one degree better than they are. If they’re jeans, he’s business casual. If they’re “B-C”, he’s in button-down and wool slacks. If they dip their toes in ‘wool on the bottom, cotton on the top’, he’s shirt and tie. Presentations, dinners, meetings with executives and pretty much any day ending in a “Y” gets the suit jacket brought along, at the ready for girding as necessary.
So when it came time to get some new clothes for Captain 32x30, we decided he should dress as the Partners do-shirt and tie always, no matter the situation. As Howard would be in the office, he’d be right under the Executive Microscope, with all promotion-potential eyes watching him. We tried Kohl’s but couldn’t get quite the look we wanted, and so we upgraded ourselves to Macy’s. Howard had a spectacular Christmastime experience there, and announced that we should give them all our money.
As it turns out, he was right, though not in the way he imagined. Macy’s is expensive. The first place we looked, men’s trousers stacked up like rugs at one of those terrifyingly pompous “Persian” boutiques. These “trousers” ( apparently “pants” is a title reserved for the low-rent in the crowd) had no hems, save the pinking shear zigzag at the bottom. They were clearly made to be modified, and they sported an average price tag of $158. For pants. Excuse me, for trousers. Well, then. That might be all right for the permanent wardrobe, but as we’re both still in transition, we returned the trouser treasures to their piles and slunk off to find pants.
Once we found the proper section, I stuffed Howard into a dressing room and shoveled clothes at him until we found 5 pair sufficiently dressy enough to pass the executive “Eye Exam”. We matched up with a few dress shirts, arguing among ourselves as to whether the double-stitch was more business than the single stitch (we never did decide), and whether button-down collars or stays made more sense. We threw in a few ties, found a couple pairs of fantastic shoes, and called it a day.
After we did Howard’s “Make(over) Me a Partner”, I got to jonesing for a new look of my own. I told Howard it was in solidarity to him, but really, I wanted to stand out. My colossal boss has been threatening to convert me to permanent for months, and I figured that I should start dressing the part of an Associate Director, which is effectively where I’d come in. I trolled through the racks at Steinmart, did my own pilgrimage to Macy’s, and in the end, wound up at a TJMaxx so spectacular that I found 4 pairs of wool pants in varying shades of business (herringbone, tweed, sleek black, and pinstripe), plus a tuxedo blouse that knocked me over, all for under $100. I found 2 new pairs of pumps, including a set of sling backs and a sky-high pump with gilding across the toe. That Sunday night, I laid out my clothes for the first time since the 6th grade. I felt foolish, but also excited. I was going to work Dressed.
That first week, I got all kinds of whistles and grins of approval from my co-workers. The men in my group elbowed one another in my presence, saying, “Hey look. Amy’s done turned into a Girl.” The day I wore my blue pinstripe pants, complete with buttoned bracers and a loosely knotted red tie, the metrosexual man in my department met me at my desk with a “Yowza!” All right, then. This is working for me.
That Friday, I opted to rest my aching arches and wore jeans to the office. I could barely stand myself. My feet, normally tapping down the hallways in shining stilettos now shuffled softly in my rubber-soled oxfords. And the nods and smiles I had received all week in the hallways evaporated. Where I had stood out all week long, with folks glancing sidelong at me as if I were Someone to Know, now suddenly I was Just Like Everyone Else. I fit in, and I hated it.
Monday morning, the Work Clothes came back in force, this time with a starched white blouse and shining shoes with someone famous woman’s name emblazoned across the toe. I stocked my closet with knee-hi’s and I pulled out my foot massager. Jeans are for home, and work is for play-the real kind, where image and impression matter; now to me as well as to those in the Decision-Making offices.
I dressed in jeans again today, as an experiment to see if my Slumming Slump was a one-time deal. No chance. I want to make noise as I walk.. I want to show some toe cleavage when I sit. I want to Dress Up. So what if it’s just superficial? I like looking this way, and I like that I can do it. I weighed in at 176.50 pounds tonight, just 3.50 pounds away from the BMI normal range. I’m three and a half pounds from normal. Let’s make some noise!
I do a lot of walking in my job. I’m off in a corner of the building, surrounded by finance people who never leave their desk except to have lunch, and who never talk on the phone. It’s silent back by me, and I try to honor these people’s needed quiet by holding my meetings in conference rooms, usually on the floor of whomever I’m seeing. I catch my reflection in the glass and mirrors all around me, and I’ve noticed something interesting. Where I used to slouch, I’m now bolt-upright. I thought my (very mild) scoliosis had caught up with my middle-aged bones and was busy forming a Girl’s Quasimodo Accessory on the top of my shoulders. Nope, no more. It’s gone.
When I was thin back in high school and college, I used to go around with my tummy sucked in all the time. Pull your navel back to your spine, I heard once, and I did it whenever I remembered, which was always. At some point during my Fat Years, I realized that pulling in my stomach didn’t change my silhouette. Maybe the ground crews were working on the inside, but that paunch stayed firmly in place, cutting off circulation any place it touched my clothes, which was everywhere. So I quit trying.
The other day, I noticed that I can pull my stomach in again. In fact, there’s quite a difference from ‘leaving it hang as-is’ and ‘yanking the tummy backwards’. I go from Droopy Mama Pouch to Sucked In Slimmed Down. I love the way I look. I might have as many as 31.50 pounds to go, but I’m nearly normal, I’m nearly an 8 in jeans, and I’m so light on my feet that I can wear high heels all day long. Can? I want to wear them. Why shouldn’t I? My company, and I get the best of me when I’m Walking Tall.
A the N(oisemaker)
When I was fat, I dressed at the lowest possible level for the environment. When I was at home with DS those first 2 years, I barely made it out of my sweats, and there was a period when I went around in an outfit that could only be described as “day-jammies”. If I worked in a business casual place, I opted for corduroys or twill pants, and I was first on board with a Jeans Day.
When I worked at the dot-com company, I bought 4 pair of denim jeans in my size (20W) and wore them, one after another, every day that I worked there. I wore pullover, collared shirts, size men’s Large, bought all at once in an array of jewel tones, hoping that would deceive my ‘viewers’ into thinking they were actually women’s clothes (didn’t work). I owned a lone button-down shirt, a man’s size 17 neck that I saved for presentations and days that I had to ‘dress up’. On those days, I wore the black jeans instead of the blue, and I stuffed my feet into my loafers, leaving my sneakers at home.
As I started losing weight, the men’s clothes went first—the pants with two numbers (42x34 for those keeping track) first, then those awful pullovers, and then, finally, the purple broadcloth. I replaced them at first with the ladies version of the same thing, but over time, as I’ve closed in on normal sizes and a normal shape, I’ve been more willing to dress in a way that draws attention to me, rather than hides me behind tent-like, Hanes-ian monstrosities.
A few weeks ago, Howard and I made an executive decision to dress him up at work. He’s a consultant in a big-time, “Big X”-like organization, one that prefers to stand out from their clients. So, when he’s on site at a client, he’s usually dressed one degree better than they are. If they’re jeans, he’s business casual. If they’re “B-C”, he’s in button-down and wool slacks. If they dip their toes in ‘wool on the bottom, cotton on the top’, he’s shirt and tie. Presentations, dinners, meetings with executives and pretty much any day ending in a “Y” gets the suit jacket brought along, at the ready for girding as necessary.
So when it came time to get some new clothes for Captain 32x30, we decided he should dress as the Partners do-shirt and tie always, no matter the situation. As Howard would be in the office, he’d be right under the Executive Microscope, with all promotion-potential eyes watching him. We tried Kohl’s but couldn’t get quite the look we wanted, and so we upgraded ourselves to Macy’s. Howard had a spectacular Christmastime experience there, and announced that we should give them all our money.
As it turns out, he was right, though not in the way he imagined. Macy’s is expensive. The first place we looked, men’s trousers stacked up like rugs at one of those terrifyingly pompous “Persian” boutiques. These “trousers” ( apparently “pants” is a title reserved for the low-rent in the crowd) had no hems, save the pinking shear zigzag at the bottom. They were clearly made to be modified, and they sported an average price tag of $158. For pants. Excuse me, for trousers. Well, then. That might be all right for the permanent wardrobe, but as we’re both still in transition, we returned the trouser treasures to their piles and slunk off to find pants.
Once we found the proper section, I stuffed Howard into a dressing room and shoveled clothes at him until we found 5 pair sufficiently dressy enough to pass the executive “Eye Exam”. We matched up with a few dress shirts, arguing among ourselves as to whether the double-stitch was more business than the single stitch (we never did decide), and whether button-down collars or stays made more sense. We threw in a few ties, found a couple pairs of fantastic shoes, and called it a day.
After we did Howard’s “Make(over) Me a Partner”, I got to jonesing for a new look of my own. I told Howard it was in solidarity to him, but really, I wanted to stand out. My colossal boss has been threatening to convert me to permanent for months, and I figured that I should start dressing the part of an Associate Director, which is effectively where I’d come in. I trolled through the racks at Steinmart, did my own pilgrimage to Macy’s, and in the end, wound up at a TJMaxx so spectacular that I found 4 pairs of wool pants in varying shades of business (herringbone, tweed, sleek black, and pinstripe), plus a tuxedo blouse that knocked me over, all for under $100. I found 2 new pairs of pumps, including a set of sling backs and a sky-high pump with gilding across the toe. That Sunday night, I laid out my clothes for the first time since the 6th grade. I felt foolish, but also excited. I was going to work Dressed.
That first week, I got all kinds of whistles and grins of approval from my co-workers. The men in my group elbowed one another in my presence, saying, “Hey look. Amy’s done turned into a Girl.” The day I wore my blue pinstripe pants, complete with buttoned bracers and a loosely knotted red tie, the metrosexual man in my department met me at my desk with a “Yowza!” All right, then. This is working for me.
That Friday, I opted to rest my aching arches and wore jeans to the office. I could barely stand myself. My feet, normally tapping down the hallways in shining stilettos now shuffled softly in my rubber-soled oxfords. And the nods and smiles I had received all week in the hallways evaporated. Where I had stood out all week long, with folks glancing sidelong at me as if I were Someone to Know, now suddenly I was Just Like Everyone Else. I fit in, and I hated it.
Monday morning, the Work Clothes came back in force, this time with a starched white blouse and shining shoes with someone famous woman’s name emblazoned across the toe. I stocked my closet with knee-hi’s and I pulled out my foot massager. Jeans are for home, and work is for play-the real kind, where image and impression matter; now to me as well as to those in the Decision-Making offices.
I dressed in jeans again today, as an experiment to see if my Slumming Slump was a one-time deal. No chance. I want to make noise as I walk.. I want to show some toe cleavage when I sit. I want to Dress Up. So what if it’s just superficial? I like looking this way, and I like that I can do it. I weighed in at 176.50 pounds tonight, just 3.50 pounds away from the BMI normal range. I’m three and a half pounds from normal. Let’s make some noise!
I do a lot of walking in my job. I’m off in a corner of the building, surrounded by finance people who never leave their desk except to have lunch, and who never talk on the phone. It’s silent back by me, and I try to honor these people’s needed quiet by holding my meetings in conference rooms, usually on the floor of whomever I’m seeing. I catch my reflection in the glass and mirrors all around me, and I’ve noticed something interesting. Where I used to slouch, I’m now bolt-upright. I thought my (very mild) scoliosis had caught up with my middle-aged bones and was busy forming a Girl’s Quasimodo Accessory on the top of my shoulders. Nope, no more. It’s gone.
When I was thin back in high school and college, I used to go around with my tummy sucked in all the time. Pull your navel back to your spine, I heard once, and I did it whenever I remembered, which was always. At some point during my Fat Years, I realized that pulling in my stomach didn’t change my silhouette. Maybe the ground crews were working on the inside, but that paunch stayed firmly in place, cutting off circulation any place it touched my clothes, which was everywhere. So I quit trying.
The other day, I noticed that I can pull my stomach in again. In fact, there’s quite a difference from ‘leaving it hang as-is’ and ‘yanking the tummy backwards’. I go from Droopy Mama Pouch to Sucked In Slimmed Down. I love the way I look. I might have as many as 31.50 pounds to go, but I’m nearly normal, I’m nearly an 8 in jeans, and I’m so light on my feet that I can wear high heels all day long. Can? I want to wear them. Why shouldn’t I? My company, and I get the best of me when I’m Walking Tall.
A the N(oisemaker)
posted by Former Fat Girl Gone Skinny | 7:42 PM
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