The Chase

I see these great vintage shops with beautiful and reasonably priced dresses and I used to wonder why it doesn't feel right to buy them or even to venture into the store.

But I figured it out. I think most of the joy in getting dressed is in the chase. The looking for it and finding it and deciding what to make out of it and after lots of seam-ripping and background noise of the original Law and Order, coming out with some sort of finished product with crooked contrast stitching and asymmetrical curves. I usually wear it the next day or soon after, and fifty percent of the time I realize after a few hours of wearing it that I got a little too excited the night before and while it was awesome in theory, that Liz Claiborne dress that I was so pumped to wear can't really be rocked properly with a hijab.
And then there is the strange satisfaction of watching the slow decay of the clothes, where the seams rip open because I didn't reinforce them or I tailored them so closely to a temporary body with no room for adjustments for winter weight.
Sometimes I face the strange situation of discovering something on the article of clothing that refers to the living body that was once in it, like a stain or mending or a nametag. One of my latest sweaters turned out to have what looks like a bloodstain, and in the shape of a bird or the type of dinosaur that flies. Sometimes I can't resist googling the name on the nametag and then get super creeped out if they live close to Buffalo, as was the case here. What'd you do, Pete? A woodshop accident? Did you go and get yourself stabbed? Is is coffee? Did your future wife spill it on you and that's how you met?
Those stay at the bottom of the projects pile. Except this one, where I decided to make a bird-shaped hole and fill it with something else.
So this is where we find ourselves. And unless I someday become a businesswoman or a shepherd's wife or a farmer's daughter, this is where I'll stay for a while.