Frumpy McFrumpster

It may be true that my normally put-together look has dwindled to something less than perfect over the last couple of months.  I always imagined myself wearing tailored business suits, fabulous shoes and immaculate hairstyles once I started working at a law firm, but turns out, I just don't have the energy.  Nor does it really seem to matter.  Unlike law offices elsewhere where the attorneys are required to wear actual business attire, at my firm (and in the Bay Area in general) business casual is really pretty casual.  As in, jeans are okay as long as they aren't sloppy and that's probably not something you want to wear everyday (although some people pretty much do).

Most of my work requires that I shut myself up in my office every day to do research or draft portions of motions or hammer through documents.  And so I have taken to wearing brightly colored flats, a cardigan and a loose skirt, with barely touched hair most days.  And now that I have new glasses and they really feel so much better than contacts when I have long stretches of doc review, I wear those fairly often too.  Once I even wore my hair in a braid.  But despite the changes, I thought I was pulling the quirky-business-casual-chic look off. 

Except that lately I have been getting emails from a personal clothier - someone who comes and dresses you when you aren't doing such a good job yourself.  I haven't had one of those since I was two years old and started voicing my opinion about my wardrobe by telling my mom one day when she found me in my room surrounded by the contents of every drawer I could reach that I only had "stupid clothes" to wear.  Even now when she tells that story she seems bewildered/shocked that at two years old I even had an opinion on that matter.  "You were only two!  You didn't even know what stupid clothes were," she always adds.

But it just so happens that every time I get one of these emails I look down to review my clothing choices for the day and grimace.  And although I know in my mind that these are surely just a mass-marketing email list that someone came up with by searching all the female employees of law firms in the area, I find myself suspicious of the people I see during the day who may have actually referred me for this person's services. 

Was it you?

*Disclaimer:  You all who read this blog are such great friends and I can already envision the wonderful comments you are mentally preparing to tell me that I look super-cute all the time (thanks guys!), but I did not compose this post with the intention of fishing for compliments refuting the above stated facts.  Trust me, the photos I post on the blogospheres do not reflect what I look like at work most days.  That would be just too, too embarassing.  More than anything, I just thought the story was funny and wanted to share.