10-06-00
In January of this year, I quit smoking 100%. And then in April, I joined a gym. Now, after 6 months of lifting weights and eating a little too well, I've got more waistline, hips and ass than my current closetful of pants can accommodate. In the last 10 months, I've put on about 15 pounds. Easily at least 8 of that is extraneous fatty tissue, but the rest of the lot is muscle mass that strains at the fabric of my chinos and corduroys.
I've always made a habit of buying pants a size too large* so that I can have room in the waist - I don't like pants to ride my waistline, I prefer them to hang at hip level - and legs. I'm a compact person, with muscular, yet shapely legs. Now, all of the pants that used to ride lower on the hips and have room through the thighs and calves, coming down with a single break over the tops of my shoes are now fitted to the waist, tight through the legs, and too short to look nice.
But finding pants is a whole other problem. First off, there's a certain financial issue at stake. I refuse to spend a lot of money on a pair of pants that I will probably ruin at work the second or third time I wear them. Carol gets all of her pants at Talbots and then whines like a baby when she destroys them with the noxious chemicals we have at work. Secondly, I have no use for flared leg pants in my life. We all know what Britney Spears looks like, I'm sure. She has short legs and loves the flares, and she looks stumpy in them. I don't have her large, spangly breasts to detract from the stumpiness of my flare legged pants like she does.
I've managed to find a pair of jeans I like, but I have to wear them with tall shoes because apparently if you are 'wider' through the hips (Oh, yeah, I have gigantic 35" hips now!) then you must by all accounts be 9 feet tall. I am 5'3", and I have a 28" inseam. I can stand on tippytoes and my new jeans still drag the floor. I also found some cute pants at Target, but they're dry clean only. We'll have to see about that.
*Listen to me whine. I used to wear a 3/4 and would buy 5/6's. Now I'm a 5/6 who has to buy 7/8's. I almost cried when I bought the size 7 jeans. I felt like a big old fatty. I'm still a comfortable 6 at Target, and a 4 at Old Navy. God bless the lack of standardized women's clothing sizes in the U.S. to make a girl feel pretty!
