Commando

Wah. Almost went 'commando' today. Not by intention, of course. (I was going to work, not on a hot date, whaddya think?!)

You know how most women go about their daily dressing-up process. I say 'most' because I do know of some girlfriends who really don't give a heck about what they are going to be wearing for the day. Ok ok, the results of such heck-care attitude of certain friends may not be exactly aesthetically pleasing; I shan't comment further on this. But I must admit (and do envy) that there are those few who could just pull out stuff from their wardrobes and yet look so perfectly coordinated in just 5 minutes (or less, scary). Perhaps they have secretly-employed stylists at home who've picked out outfits for them the night before, I don't know, but I don't think so.

Unfortunately, I don't belong to the latter category. Well, if I do own a whole collection of Club21 in my wardrobe, then perhaps that cuts down my dressing time to like 10 minutes. But nooo... I'm not so fortunate.

Dressing up can be a personal chore. And it doesn't help that I am vain - to a certain extent. No, don't get me wrong; I'm not that kind of girly-girl vain, but rather, I'd like to know that my dressing makes a statement of who I am. (Whoa... so cheem. Like the Yix would philosophize: hiao, say hiao.) Which can actually go awry sometimes, I realize, because friends have perceived my sense of dressing as "weird", "strange". Whatever. I serve to please only myself.

So, I stand in front of my mirror every morning, mixing and matching tops and bottoms, shoes and accessories. There are many methods of mixing-n-matching, endorsed by different folks. Some folks pick one top they'd like to wear that day and start off matching the rest of the look from there. Some decide on shoes first. Most days I start off with the particular piece of pants or skirt I'd like to wear, then I embark on the 'choosing-which-top-to-match' bit of the whole process. I can be trying on five different tops before deciding the whole look is just wrong. Maybe it's the skirt that's wrong in the first place. So I pick out another skirt or pants and then start the whole 'choosing-which-top-to-match' process again. And then, after the top is chosen, there's the shoes bit to work on now.

Sometimes, I try to think of what to wear the next day, while I'm taking my shower the night before. Well, it's not because I'm that obsessed with my dressing, but because I'm not a disciplined 'waker' and I always wake up much much later than I should every morning. Considering that my office is a good 30 minutes' drive away from home, and I take about 10 minutes to wash up before dressing, it really does not work in my favor that I have poor decision-making skills when it comes to dressing.

On good days, I take only about 5 minutes to dress up (and this usually happens when I've already decided on a good combination of top-bottom-shoe in my shower the night before) and I get to work on time even if I wake up super-late. But hah! On bad (read: normal) days, I can take up to 20, or even 30 minutes to try, test, wear, un-wear, fret, decide on what to wear. Don't ask me what time I usually arrive at work - Boss has not found out the real reason as well. It's too embarassing for me to admit; I aim to look 'effortless' in my dressing.

So it happened this morning, that I've picked out the skirt-of-the-day... without undies on at first of course, like I usually do. And because I had woken up super-duper-late this morning, and I had to slug through my shower, try on numerous tees and tanks and shirts, stand and stare and ponder at my mountain of shoes and slippers... one thing led to another, and by the time I rushed out of my house and down the stairs, I realized a tad too late that I seemed to have forgotten one very important piece of clothing article.

It delayed me a further couple of minutes. But I couldn't help but keep chuckling to myself as I ran up the stairs and back into my house. The girls were so puzzled to see me back through the door in less than 2 minutes.

I've gotta tell the Yix about this.

And speaking of the Yix, I envy men. Most men, anyway. Especially the Yix. They survive on few essentials and they seem to pull off their tee-and-berms/jeans stunt pretty well, no matter the combination. The most amazing thing about the Yix is that I am the one who picks out his outfits most of the time (on his request, no... demand) and he wears them with no qualms. Wait a minute, he's just plain lucky he's got a good stylist in me. For free as well.