{Almost daily outfit of the day} Catechism 4.16.12

Forever 21 denim jacket; Vintage thrifted Neiman Marcus silk blouse; vintage thrifted skirt; vintage thrifted python clutch; Jessica Simpson kitten heels; Forever 21 bracelets

This is my I Don't Know What To Wear To Church So I Wore Black outfit. Dressing for church is complicated. Not as complicated as trying to understand Middle Eastern politics or why ABC canceled My So-Called Life after one season but complicated nonetheless. When Sunday comes, I struggle between making appropriate, if somewhat bland, sartorial choices, or sticking to my more fashionable, often tattoo-revealing uniform. It's not easy.

I felt like this outfit was a decent compromise. I was covered up and respectful, but still felt like me.

Do you struggle between dressing "appropriately," and dressing like yourself?

{Almost daily outfit of the day} Simply pink 3.7.12

Thrifted vintage silk blouse; Old Navy jeans; Jessica Simpson pumps; Gap belt; Frye clutch; vintage rhinestone necklaces; Forever 21 bracelet

At this time tomorrow, I'll be hurling down the freeway headed to Austin for the Texas Style Council Conference. It's hard to believe that a year ago I was preparing for the same event as an attendee (and nervous newbie blogger) while this year I'm one of the co-chairs! I'm so excited to speak on the panels, mingle with designers and brand managers, and meet bloggers I've only interacted with on Twitter or through blog comments. If you'll be at the conference, please come by and say hi. I'd love to meet you!

{Almost daily outfit of the day} Black and white and blue 2.10.12

Madewell sweater; thrifted J Crew cords; thrifted Gap button-down; Jessica Simpson pumps; estate sale clutch

Just last week, Dallas meteorologists worked themselves into a tizzy regarding our lack of winter. It's "the warmest winter on record!", they crowed. "Pack away your sweaters and boots!" they recommended. So many of us did. And this week, as if on cue, winter finally decided to show up. Fortunately, I had just bought this cozy sweater on super clearance at Madewell and it kept me warm throughout the day.

{Almost daily outfit of the day} Cherry ice 2.8.12

Thrifted Calvin Klein blazer; thrifted vintage silk blouse; Gap legging jeans; Jessica Simpson pumps; Vintage Martini clutch

It happened almost every summer afternoon. My friends and I were beached on the sidewalk, attempting to recover from hours spent riding our bikes around the neighborhood, tracing new routes and swerving into sprinklers. The air was sultry with heat, the way August afternoons get in New York. Rivers of sweat ran down our backs. Without warning, a hopeful chirp pealed through the air. Could it be? Was it time? Suddenly it emerged, with a trail of excited children behind it, a white knight sent to rescue us. It was the ice cream truck.

A beacon of joy to every kid on our street, the ice cream truck saved us from heat stroke and fortified us for continued adventures. My friends got strawberry crunch bars, and soft serve with sprinkles, and twin pops, and Nutty Bars. I got cherry Italian ice, the kind in the little cardboard carton with a wooden spork. It tastes tart and sweet and bright, like a cherry exploding on your tongue. Kind of exactly like my silk blouse looks.

Outfit Post: Fat talk, female relationships, and a pair of tie-dye jeans

A week ago, I was out to dinner with friends and excused myself to use the bathroom. While trapped in a stall, I overheard the following conversation between a group of friends:

Friend A: Ugh, I look so fat tonight.
Friend B: No, you look amazing! *Sigh* I look gross. So fat.
Friend C: You two are crazy! You're both Gorgeous!...I'm the fat one. Look at my stomach. I need a girdle.
Friend A: You guys! My thighs are huge. I should have never worn this dress. I need to lose like, twenty pounds.
Friends B and C, in unison: You're not fat!!!
(Uncomfortable pause.)
Friend B: Seriously. I should have stayed home. I'm sooo fat.

Who were these creatures? I emerged from the stall to discover three beautiful young women, all under the age of 25, applying lipstick and critically examining themselves in the mirror. These women were perfectly lovely, and in my eyes, looked a bit underweight.

It’s almost inevitable: When women get together, the chatter eventually turns to whose skinny jeans don’t fit anymore and who weighs in heavier on the scale. We hear women in dressing rooms, locker rooms, and bathrooms complain about one thing over and over again – their bodies. In a culture that equates beauty with thinness it's no wonder many women are obsessed with the figure staring back at them from the mirror. To many she never seems thin enough, not like the ultra slender women that strut down fashion runways, are splashed across glossy magazine pages, and star in today's biggest movies.

We are told these women are beautiful. We are told that if we are thin we will be beautiful too. So we strive to attain this thin ideal and along the way destroy our self-esteem and berate ourselves for not measuring up to these unrealistic, not to mention unhealthy, bodies. Researchers call this “fat talk,” a term coined to describe a behavior common among Caucasian females.

“We have found in our research that both male and female college students know the norm of fat talk - that females are supposed to say negative things about their bodies in a group of females engaging in fat talk,” said Denise Martz of Appalachian State University.

In a study concerning fat talk among students, Martz and her colleagues showed 124 male and female college students a scene describing three women engaging in fat talk. The test subjects were then asked to predict how a fourth female would respond to this discussion. Forty percent of male subjects and 51 percent of female subjects believed that the fourth female would self-degrade her body.

“Because women feel pressured to follow the fat talk norm, they are more likely to engage in fat talk with other females,” Martz told Livescience. “Hence, women normalize their own body dissatisfaction with one another. If there are women out there who feel neutrally or even positively about their bodies, I bet we never hear this from them for fear of social sanction and rejection,” she said.

In March, a different study found that the more often women engaged in "fat talk," the "greater dissatisfaction with their bodies and are more likely to have internalized an ultra-thin body ideal than those who engage in fat talk less frequently," no matter what size they actually were, according to Science Daily. The research also showed that the women who talked about fat more frequently felt that it made them believe they felt better about their bodies. Complaining that one appears fat, and hearing friends validate that they aren't, might help boost a woman's self esteem. Frighteningly, the study also found that more than 90% of college-aged women regularly engage in "fat talk." The study also noted that there was no association between a woman's actual body size and how often she complained about her body size with peers.

Fat talk has become so social acceptable and pervasive that even respected journalists such as those of The New York Times have fallen victim. In November, dance critic Alastair Macaulay took the opportunity to lament the appearance of a lead dancer in the New York City's ballet production of The Nutcracker:

Jenifer Ringer, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, looked as if she'd eaten one sugar plum too many; and Jared Angle, as the Cavalier, seems to have been sampling half the Sweet realm.

When society seems to go above and beyond to encourage women to fat-talk, it can seem an almost impossible habit to break. How often do you find yourself engaged in fat talk with your friends? Do you think it makes you feel differently about your body? Has fat talk affected your female friendships? 

Thrfted vintage silk blazer; Gap tee; Current/Elliot jeans; Jessica Simpson pumps; Forever 21 necklace; Forever 21 single cross earring

Outfit Post: Anorexia, competition, and the quest for blogger win

As a card-carrying perfectionist, I have often viewed life as a competition. There is The Best, and there is everyone else. My lifelong goal has been to be The Best at whatever it was - not out of a healthy sense of competition, but more because I viewed myself as a failure if I wasn't The Best. My constant striving was fueled by a desire to finally feel like I could measure up to everyone else.

As a teenager, my quest towards being The Best was challenged daily by the extremely competitive environment I lived in - that of honors classes and music conservatory. I was a concert flutist, and attended a prestigious music conservatory while enrolled in a performing arts high school. Not only did I need to achieve perfect grades (which I nearly conquered, if not for my dammed music theory classes), but also achieve first chair status in orchestra, small wind ensemble and concert band. I was absolutely ruthless during those years. Actually, I had forgotten how awful I was until curiosity led me to flip through my high school yearbook. Most of the messages from my friends include some mention of how I "pushed them to work harder", "drove them crazy", and "made their life a living hell." Ouch. The process towards becoming The Best usually included alienating myself from my close friends, all of whom were flutists and strove towards the same goal as mine. It made for some tenuous, stressful times. As far as I was concerned, losing friends was just part of being The Best, and I accepted it as a mater of fact. The most important thing - indeed, the only important thing - was to win.

My anorexia only amplified this thinking process. Losing weight, conquering my need for food, sleep, and affection, was the way I found to "win" the competition. Anorexia made me feel special. It was my trump card. Giving up my eating disorder meant giving up this one way I had of feeling special, of being The Best. As long as I ate less, and weighed less, then at least I could be The Best at that. Right? Too bad this contest is so tremendously self-destructive.

Although I've learned in the past few years that this is a very distorted and disordered way of thinking - a way of thinking that preceded the eating disorder - it's still very much there and very much present. Now, reading my high school's alumni magazine is an exercise in self-loathing. The accomplishments of my classmates make me almost feel ill when I look at my life. My therapist calls this "compare and despair." I have similar feelings when checking out the stats of some blogs I follow. I spend entirely too much time and energy trying to figure out what makes some so successful, how they have so many followers and sponsors and lead such gorgeous glamorous lives. Now, I can't even say "Well, at least I'm eating less then they are!" Because I'm in recovery, and almost certainly not.

Now, it seems I am hungry all the time. Like, ALL the time. I'm assuming it's due to the fact that I'm actually paying attention to hunger cues (which I used to do my best to ignore.) Giving in to my hunger would mean, in my head, that I'd be eating more than most women. I defined being The Best for so long as eating the least. Because of this, now, I seem to be The Worst, which is pretty much a living hell for someone who has perfectionism.

I don't always want to feel I need to participate in the contest but don't yet quite know how else to feel okay with myself without these concrete measures. I always have this profound sense of inadequacy, and this was mediated, temporarily, by the eating disorder. It quelled the anxieties of not measuring up, of not being good enough.

I know that I need to stop defining myself in relation to others. And not just any "others," but those who have achieved more and done more and make me feel like utter crap when I think about what my life is and what it has done. I know I need to compare me to, well, ME and to hell with everyone else.

Have you ever struggled with competition? Do you have trouble with perfectionism? How do you avoid the compare and despair trap that so many bloggers struggle with? Do you get caught up in comparing your stats with more successful bloggers?

Forever 21 silk top; thrifted Escada lace skirt; Jessica Simpson pumps; Frye clutch; Forever 21 rhinestone spike necklace; Forever 21 rhinestone bracelets; Target rhinestone drop earrings