And... I'm Still Wearing the Eyeliner

Went to the mall yesterday.  Celebrated Dr. King's memory by ... spending money.  Yeah, maybe I need to work on that.

So, anyway, I was on a quest for some winter wear that, y'know, fits.  I know, I know -- I'm all about saving for a house so there's no point in spending money on clothes that I don't know how long I'll be able to wear ... but then there's the practicality of the fact that I have to pin all my pants so they don't slide off my newly-slim self.  I'm totally cool with that, but it has been suggested to me that my current "look" is a little too oversized.

And, well, when you get right down to it, I was extremely happy with my current state of weight loss.  Not so much the number of pounds involved, but the fact that I got my butt back in the really expensive midweight fleece pants that I wear under the equally expensive rain pants.  Fitting into this ensemble was a major weight-loss goal, and it felt great to slip into them fleece pants and zip them up all the way without, y'know, sucking in.

So, in a combination of celebration and desperation, I bought some new jeans at Eddie Bauer.  The don't exactly fit perfectly (I still have that proportionately-lost-rather-more-weight-in-my-waist-than-in-my-hips problem), but considering what I've been wearing lately, they're a noticeable improvement in the fit department.  And I was darned happy about the size I ended up buying, which was actually a notch smaller than what I was wearing before I even started on the whole medication-induced weight gain.  (I think that was just the eating-too-many-french-fries weight gain.)

And I bought a coupla tops and a really cute dress (an even smaller size than the jeans!) and was wandering around the mall looking for a few other purchases and then I hit upon the ultimate impulse buy for someone who just lost 20 pounds and was feeling all cute and slim...

Glamour Shots.

I know.

I am so weak.

So I'm strolling by wearing my fleece pants and a sweatshirt and looking like a typical "before" picture and I walk by and listen to their sales pitch and next thing I know I'm sitting in a chair and a nice lady name Kahlua (I swallowed my first thought and came up with, "Pretty name") is slathering makeup all over my face and attacking my hair with a curling iron.

About an hour and a half later, I'm slipping into my Eddie Bauer outfit and posing for a dude named Shaun who was taking my pictures.

And then there's the wardrobe changes.  You're supposed to change into two other outfits, but, of course, I didn't bring two other outfits.  "Don't worry," says Kahlua, "You can use some of ours."

Now, half their stuff is for kids.

Of the other half, a good third was graduation robes for High School students.

Another third was lingerie for your more "intimate" photos.  (Shaun told me that if I really wanted to show off my newly slim self, there's a really nice pose he does where I'm "tastefully" wrapped in a long drape of red fabric and he sets off the wind machine.  Kahlua steps in and says, "No, she's conservative."  Probably the first time in 20 years I've appreciated being called conservative.)

So, the last few things on the closet bar were beaded and sparkled tops and a few dresses.  Many of the dresses were in very large sizes (I saw a 28W go by) so they could be put on any customer and pinned up.  I picked two dresses -- a junior-sized pale chiffon number and a woman-sized brown velvet gown.

I experienced wardrobe malfunctions with the both of them.  The pale chiffon had a halter cut to it so I couldn't wear a bra with it and it was a very light chiffon if you see where I'm going with this.  Kahlua came to the rescue by suggesting that I, er, strategically place a coupla sheets of toilet paper under the dress.  Good enough.  So, Shaun snaps a few pics with me laughing because I'm wearing toilet paper, and then I go off for my second wardrobe change.

Into the velvet gown that is, numerically speaking, about twice my size.  Mere pins will not suffice to hold the dress on -- Kahlua attacks the back of it with some banana hair clips.  This turns out to be a fairly big problem.  What looks good about the dress is my profile, but Shaun couldn't really take a shot from that angle without catching bright green hair clip. 

We finish and I go off to grab some dinner while they "put together a slide show" of my pictures for my purchasing perusal.  While eating dinner, I have in my mind their prices and exactly how much I will allow them to sell me.

I return for my slide show (yet another Glamour Shots employee is in charge of selling me stuff -- Kahlua and Shaun are now hiding in the back somewhere).  Turns out that the guy is going to have a very difficult time selling me much because the great bulk of the photos blow.  Honestly.  Everything in the brown velvet dress is totally out because Shaun took full-length shots, which look pretty damn stupid when there's a foot and a half of dress gathered at my feet.  All of the headshots are out because -- while he didn't actually snap me blinking, he often snapped me nearly blinking, so one of my eyelids is open more than the other.  Or he took the shot from so far above that the frame of my eyeglasses runs right across my eyes.  Or I just looked bad.  (You know how photographers sometimes put you in really unnatural positions and then you look at the picture and it looks really good?  In these, I looked really uncomfortable.)

By the time all was said and done, it was about three hours since I'd walked in their door and there was only one picture worth buying.

You'll have to wait till I pick it up to see.  :)