diary of the unemployed

one of my daily decisions includes, "the gray sweats or the blue sweats?" this decision has been happily supplemented by the ross dress-for-less sweat pants my sister loaned me over xmas break, which i stealthily premeditated bringing home with me the minute i put them on. i doubt she noticed or cared, but i coveted them upon tearing off the "WAS $24.99, NOW $7.99" tag and jamming my two legs into them as fast as i could. yes, i am one of those.

one of the funny feelings i experienced while walking around the mall on sunday buying these was how distant i am now from the desperately-seeking-work-clothes person i become when i have a paycheck. i walked through my usual haunts of banana republic, nordstrom, gap, and anthropologie, admiring those dolman sleeves or that surplice top, pulling out snappy cotton button-downs and sailor pant-inspired jeans. plackets, tweeds, bracelet sleeves, kick pleats. words that i could throw out there with the best of the apparel merchants, not because i was one, but because i lovingly studied clothes, magazines, catalogs, and the accompanying vocabulary more devotedly than i should be admitting.

while i am not, like my father, the type of person who wakes up on weekends and puts on proper clothes (granted, his proper clothes are 501s and a flannel shirt, but he wears a belt and actual shoes and socks to putter around the house), i was - and likely still am, once the paycheck monster returns - a big fan of clothes and appearance. it was just strange to be walking around in familiar territory that i never realized i was missing. the boredom i feel here and now is linked not only to the absence of hours eaten up by a job i don't have, but also to the things that i do and buy when i am working: clothes, salon grooming, drinks out, vacations to warm places. my cousin emailed me this morning about her upcoming trip to hawaii and it, too, made me realize that i had long been out of my normal, american, working version of me for quite a long time. sure, i worked in china, quite a lot, actually, but your american life is upended for the international version of your life. vacations to waikiki and weekends in vegas give way to exploring the yunnan province or spending chinese new year in vietnam.

i realize i am not unique in my daily sweat pants decision, that there are likely hundreds of thousands to millions out there - especially after the 2 million U.S. jobs that were reported lost in 2008 - who sit at home all day, looking for work in sweats and a t-shirt sporting last night's chili recipe. (i credit trev for coming home after class and not having a semi-disgusted look on his face, as i likely would.) i don't really miss thinking about what to wear in the morning, debating the 3" heeled boots or the less-cool looking black flats with the laser cutout pattern, or observing whom in the office has fallen victim to VPL and who remains scrupulously thonged. it was more of an abrupt reminder of my past self i hadn't realized leaving behind: hello merino wool sweaters, greetings croc-embossed belts! i'd nearly forgotten about you. i used to care a lot about owning you at the lowest price possible, and here i am, appropriating my sister's $8 sweats.