I have gone mad. I've just bought an astonishing amount of clothing, nearly all of it from catalogs. Do I have the money? Yes, but did I plan to spend it on clothes? No. I ought to have known it would happen, though. Every spring a fit of insanity comes over me as I realize all my clothes look faded and frayed, and I immediately buy a boatload of new summery clothes. I do buy clothes in the fall because I love that season, but that's more a case of stocking up on black turtlenecks, not the frenzy that comes upon me in the spring.
Which reminds me, why is it I always need to get new black clothing? It's not like I don't have about a trillion outfits in black. But somehow when fall rolls around I'm always missing some essential element, like a 3/4-length boatneck sweater, or a cardigan that doesn't make me look like a granny, or a short dressy skirt. It's weird, that's what it is. And while we're at it, can you tell me why everything I own, no matter how pressed and starched and tidy it looks in the store, immediately goes to wrinkles and crumpliness the minute I put it on my body? Can you? I think I have crumple pheromones. Like when your body chemistry changes an otherwise lovely sweet-smelling perfume into eau de something that died several weeks ago. It's probably genetic. I can't stand it. I'll never look crisp and freshly pressed.
Anyway, I bought clothes this weekend. White and sand and soft canyon red with hints of sage and slate. Desert colors. Summer colors. And I'm not done yet. I am going to replace a lot of my standard pieces, the workhorses of my wardrobe. I want to get rid of all the dreary colors hanging around. I'm going to toss out anything that hasn't been worn in two years, has tatty cuffs or unremovable spots, and takes up valuable space in my tiny closet. It's time to start a new bag for Goodwill.
It started last week when I went shopping for a strawberry pot and wound up, god knows how, at Lane Bryant where they happened to have silk outfits resembling salwar kamiz (the tunics and pants Indian women wear). I spotted one in a particular shade of green which looks fabulous on me despite its intensity. I tend to call it acid green, but perhaps new grass green would be more correct. Pair it with shinyness and I cannot resist. The outfit came home with me, and I immediately succumbed to clothing despair since the rest of my closet was so drab.
I bought new shoes, too. Two work-worthy pairs of sandals, and one pair of thoroughly frivolous flats in I'm-on-vacation green to match my new outfit. But Lucy, I hear you say, you already own 70 pairs of shoes. Why do you need more? Most people get by with three or four pair. Are you some kind of Imelda, some insatiable shoe freak, some shopaholic who never met a sale she didn't like? I am not, really I am not. I just like having a variety of shoes. And I don't wear them once or twice, either. I wear everything I own until either the outfit it went with no longer resides with me, or my feet outgrow them (no longer much of a problem), or occasionally when they go embarrassingly out of fashion. Then I box them up and put them away to make room for more. So I don't actually have 70 shoes in circulation. I have about 30. Perfectly reasonable. Besides, there's no such thing as too many shoes.
Well, unless you bankrupt an entire country to pay for them. I do have my limits.
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