Addressing the Style of Dressing

Living as I do in rural New South Wales, I spent the last few days shivering and wrapped in layer upon layer of clothing as that cold snap hit us all like a sock in the jaw.  So many layers wrapped my bod, I felt I was dressed by the House Du Couture De l'Onion.   My French isn't passable, so if I've fucked it up in that phrase, I'm trying to say that my multi-layered ensemble was like an onion.  Today is actually very nice, considering, and whilst my French is not passable I can say with confidence my high school Geography of natural systems is, and I'm sure this warm day is heralding one mofo of another cold snap.

Speaking of dressing, I viewed today an article that a Sydney mother of three has been criticised over the way she dresses.  This is nothing new.  Women are always being criticised over the way they dress.  She's in her early thirties, has had breast implants, and dresses to suit her bangin' figure.  She apparently likes to dress like Kim Kardashian.  Why on earth anybody would want to look like they have an arse the size of a helipad is beyond me.  That being said, she can dress how she wants provided she is keeping within our laws of decency and is appropriate for the occasion.  If she rocked up for school pick-up wearing a spangled G-string and tasselled pasties, I could understand some disgruntlement upon the parent body.  But she is not dressed thus, so everyone calm down.  This just reminds me of that old Jeannie C Riley number 'Harper Valley PTA', which some of you will recall is the ultimate Bah-zing-ah! number when it comes to telling those who seek to criticise to just fuck off.  ('Mrs Johnson, you're wearing your skirts a little high...', and then Mrs Johnson addresses the PTA meeting and points out all the members' foibles and crimes). 

I've seen mums attend in all manner of attire at school pick-up, before I got my kids onto the bus and was spared the aggravation of finding a park, only to have that lunatic in the Tarago who HAD to be at the front of the queue execute a tyre-squealing manoeuvre that saw her fishtail backwards into position in front of where I had SAFELY parked, and obliterate the view of all who were parked behind her.  But yes, I've seen mums in skinny jeans topped with singlet style tops (in winter), one mum in jeans a size smaller than her arse teamed with a filmy blouse that did not concealed her sun-weathered décolletage and from where her braless breasts threatened to fall (which we did NOT want to see), mums in trackie dacks, and then there's me who'd be dressed in jeans and a sloppy joe.

I felt like a frump when I attended my son's school concert the other week, but admittedly I had just finished the evening medication run and I was in my AIN work polo and slacks, and hadn't had the time to dress nicely.  However, my son didn't care; he was pleased I was there to support him.  It's better than some of the outfits I remember from my school days - mums in the canteen with their hair in curlers, covered with a scarf.  Why would someone wear hair curlers in public?  It's kind of slovenly, and it kind of makes you look like a Martian.

Today's narcissistic selfie culture bugs me, what with people constantly posting photographs of themselves pouting in revealing outfits, but if this woman hasn't broken the law, then leave her alone.  If you've got it, flaunt it.  Because I'm getting a little more tech savvy with this blog, and not just typing my discombobulated and crazy thoughts, I'm going to post a photograph of myself taken some years ago, wherein I'm kind of rocking the lyrca.  I hope this works.  I've copied the photograph into a folder, and discovered a way to edit it so the face of the other person isn't showing.  The other person in the photograph is my boyfriend at the time.  That boyfriend is now my husband, but I haven't asked Mr Bingells if he minds me using this photograph, so as a precaution I've removed his face in case he didn't want his image used in this post.  I'm also proud having worked out how to edit the photograph thus.  Anyway, here goes:

Having added that, I can see I was a little haphazard and untidy in my methods of masking Mr Bingells' face.  I don't know if I'd wear that dress now, which is a moot point because I no longer have that garment.  This photograph was taken about twenty-four years ago, and sometimes I feel the number of years matches the number of kilos as well, if you get my drift!

But it's crazy to think this is what passes for news - someone's pissed off because she's criticised over her choice of attire.  She shouldn't have to change, but she will have to accept there will always be detractors.  I don't know if I'd got to the media if someone had a go about how I was dressed.  I've got too much to worry about.  But there must be other things to groan about.  Like when I opened my electricity bill today.  I read the figure, scowled, and thought: fuck my life.