Wet Thursday Thoughts on Insides and Outsides

I got soaked when I left work tonight. Soaked to the skin. It was not just rain, but a torrential downpour, with lightning and everything. I managed to find one extremely small bright side: once my skirt was wet through, it didn't move around much in the wind, leaving me a hand free to turn my umbrella back to the standard shape when it blew inside out.

I said it was an extremely small bright side!

Anyway, it felt great to get home and into dry clothes. There's nothing like being that wet to make me appreciate the state of dry again.

On with tonight's random assortment!

Insides and Outsides
It seems to me that the men of Boston don't wear suits as much in the summer (not that I blame them), and most of the men I see during my commute are more casually dressed. (Maybe the suit-wearers are just less likely to take the T? There are certainly some men in suits on the streets. Perhaps they all drive in.) This morning, though, a man got on the T most elegantly attired, in a stylish suit that even had a jaunty pocket square. He sat next to me, and how do you think he spent his time?

1. reading the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal
2. studying work-related paperwork, like a legal brief
   
3. reading the Globe or Metro
4. reading a business book
5. checking his smart phone to see how the Nikkei did overnight
6. reading a Tom Clancy novel
7. using his smart phone to play a video game involving a cartoon character and exploding things
   

Did you guess #7? Yes, there he was, example A of not judging a book by its cover. Not that there's anything wrong with video games (unless they make noise in public, and his was silent), just that it didn't seem to fit the persona. But a person is more than a persona.

Inappropriate in the Workplace
I live in a glass house when it comes to fashion, and am well aware of that fact. I'm content if I manage clean and tidy (and not too furry). I prize comfort over style, and am probably middling conservative. So I'm not really criticizing when people wear outfits that are kind of out-there, just because I wouldn't. I'm a jeans and t-shirt girl mostly, with no pretensions to elegance. I saw the most elegant, casually-dressed older woman on the street the other morning--she looked fabulous, in jeans and a lovely tunic-length top--and it made me sad that I will likely never look that good. But I accept this. We are who we are.

I'm also sure that I too would benefit from checking how outfits look from behind, with the too-tight and the jiggle-jiggle and so on that one sees around (like that woman I was behind going down stairs at the T the other day--if she'd known that top gave her such serious back cleavage, I bet she would have chosen something with a different neckline). There are a few things above and beyond these, though, that (to me! to me! only my opinion, like everything else around here) simply do not belong in the workplace:

• Flip-flops. These bother me in both look and sound. I'm not all that fond of real sandals that make the same noise, but at least they look nice. If your job isn't located on the beach, you should not be wearing flip-flops to work. (To get to work, fine, but then switch to real footwear.) Thwack-thwack somewhere else.
• Short-shorts, or short skirts. Please, I try not to be a prude for other people, but I don't want to see that much of your legs. Also, refrain from shirts that aren't long enough for you to move without revealing that lower-back tattoo or thong preference. I do not know you well enough.
  
• Four-inch heels. Call me conservative, but I don't think that what they say belongs in the office. (And on a similar note, to the young woman I saw recently talking to someone at her desk, with her legs crossed toward him while fiddling with her hair, honey. Don't. It's an office, not a bar. At least be subtle.)
• Visible bra straps. Not just a little glimpse, but obvious style incompatibility between shirt and bra.
• Plunging cleavage. It's distracting, even to other heterosexual women.
  
• Audible expletives. Everyone has had that day, that mood, that temperamental computer, that job. In general, though, no one should hear you swear unless they walk up to your desk at just the wrong moment. People who sit ten feet or more away from you should not know what your favorite curse is.

Any others you would suggest?

Insides, Outsides, ELEM
One of the best pieces of advice I try to live by (and it's hard for me) is not to judge my insides against anyone else's outsides. That elegant woman I saw the other day may have a miserable life, she may be selfish or unhappy or lonely, who knows? While I admired her outside, I reminded myself of that.

Although, I was wondering, does anyone else ever catch a glimpse of themselves in a mirror from the side, instead of the standard front-on mirror usage, and find themselves a little surprised at their three-dimensionality? Heaven knows, I am aware that I'm not a paper doll, but still. It catches me off guard sometimes. Anyone else? Bueller?

After several weeks of holding steady, my weight finally dropped a little as of last Saturday, to which I say thank god for a smidgen of motivation. It was getting veryvery hard to keep going with the not-eating-everything and the walking-walking-walking when the scale wasn't moving (nor the fit of clothing, in case anyone was going to say that muscle weighs more than fat; I don't think that's happening here at the moment either, sadly). Of course, the weight loss is largely due to being sick last Monday (seriously, the difference between the previous Saturday and Tuesday morning was drastic), but I'll take it. Any motivational port in a storm of ELEM.

In other health news, I am greatly saddened to say that I must cut back somewhat on my new love, frozen pomegranate seeds. I still love them, they're still available at Trader Joe's and I have umpteen bags in the freezer, but ... well ... well, let's just say that my system is not used to such impressive amounts of fiber, and leave it at that, shall we? I'm still eating them, but it has to be less than I was eating (which was a lot).

Bring on the ice cream! (just kidding...kind of)(I read about freezing grapes for a snack; are grapes a major source of fiber? anyone know?)

Hmm. I'm not sure I've achieved the narrative flow I was hoping for today. Oh well, what else is new?