Several weeks ago, Vicki suggested I buy the above top to go with the wide leg trousers I wore to dinner with her. Today, due to Lane Bryant not having the top in its warehouse, I decided to drive to New Jersey to buy it. This top and the top below were the results of this shopping trip, a trip that cost me more in gas and tolls than what I may have saved if I could have bought either top online.
With my face, I am far from a 10. The weight also makes me look fat - because I am. Yet, I seem to blend in well enough to be accepted by people in the female role. Of course, the voice training I got at Mercy College helped a lot in making my female presentation workable for everyday use. (Now, if only I could get rid of my male body fat distribution and develop a set of hips in its place....)
But why do I say that things were catching up with me? People I didn't expect to get in contact were getting in contact with me, and I didn't have the time to do all the things I needed or wanted to do. For example, my friend from game night wanted to confirm going on our hike and wanted to bring another friend from game night along. I wasn't going to miss seeing this other friend as well, so I made sure to say YES to that. Then, one of the two women I befriended from Mercy contacted me and wanted to schedule getting together. With two events already on my calendar that took up days I'd normally use to get together, I decided to use a Thursday, now that my Texas friends are meeting in person and not via Zoom. And I had to consider my get together with FH, along with my weekly chores of buying food for the week, with laundry afterwards. How do I fit everything in to my schedule, now that things are opening up again? I haven't had to think this way since the last time I was gainfully employed.
If I were dating someone who were coming to my apartment on a regular basis, I wouldn't have done what I did after work today - go shopping for the above two tops. I would have been with the woman, as I would have put her needs first. Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to take a drive to look at the above two tops. It's been ages since I was in Clifton, NJ - almost 40 years ago, when on a gig for a "consulting" firm (read: Rent a Programmer) that has been gobbled up by even larger firms since then. The firm I was contracted to also has been gobbled up. So I didn't expect many professional memories to be stirred up while on the drive - and they weren't. Yet, I didn't expect to see how much the area had changed since I was there last. All the landmarks I might have remembered were gone, and either large strip malls or apartment complexes were left in their wake. The Lane Bryant store I went to was in one of those malls.
By the time I left the store, all the rush hour traffic I saw along the way had dissipated. So I decided to take a leisurely ride back home. Could I have bothered to do laundry? Yes. But I was too tired from getting up at 6 am. Instead, I decided to rest, and fell out with the TV on....
