10 March 2015

ObserVation: Getting ready to go out

his observation was to be a part of another post in preparation, but I thought it would stand on its own. I tend to go off at tangents when writing or talking, this usually leads to a certain amount of confusion on the part of the reader or listener. And when I sporadically have to get up and teach, I observe the whole range from the audience, starting with entertaining through to total bewilderment. This is also reflected in when I’m finished talking. Some people come up to me and we chat further, but the majority just shake their heads and leave in silence. 
I think this behaviour (not the head shaking and leaving in silence) is due to also writing code in various computer languages and my going off at a tangent in the real world equivalent to writing subroutine code.

[Ed: To misquote one Miss Ann Elk “That’s her theory, it is hers, and belongs to her and she own it and what it is too”]

One difference is that with computer code you are automatically returned to the main thread, with my airing’s this is not always the case and even I get lost sometimes. 

[Ed: Hey!]

Oh yes, you see what I mean I was off again. 

I get to dress about 3% of my time and it is usually spontaneous or at very short notice. This is due to being hardy at home and when I’m at home it has to coincide with my wife being at her theatre group or at a film with friends. When the 3% time slot arrives, I start to panic instead of enjoying the chance to “doll myself” up. This is mainly due to getting frustrated trying to remember what I have and where I’ve stashed it! 
This remembering what and where, has to do with my online shopping routine. When the itch gets me, I pull up the bookmarks to the various online shopping stores that cater for my size (see footnote) and log in with my account (not Abigale’s). I browse and sometimes buy, when the article arrivals (everything to my work address), I try it on once (yes, when possible at work when everyone has gone), sigh, sneak it home, pack it lovingly away and in some cases totally forget where and what it was! 

Everything I have is in the cellar, which is big enough for my hobbies and my clothes and shoes (at the moment that is!). As the cellar is a total chaos, the wife tries her best to steer clear of the place apart from the rare occasion she brings me a cuppa (fortunately I get fair warning, so I have time to kick off my heels before she enters). Following delivery she doesn’t just turn around and leave, but backs up in case there’s something lurking around other than myself. I dread the day when I get the ultimatum to clear up and then have to explain the stack of A3 envelope boxes that are ideal for cheap heel storage. 

Where was I? 
Yes, even if I eventually have chosen what to wear and after digging around in the chaos I find it, my dressed phase is about the same amount of time a manikin has to change between cat walks! 

All very frustrating. 

This frustration is part of the reason for my change in attitude to getting dressed and going out with my wife.

[Ed: I was wondering when you would get round to it!] 

Yes I know, but the above has something to do with the below. 

In the pass when we were going out, I would be ready in no time. This was mainly due to an almost non-existent interest in choosing what to wear from a self-inflicted dull and drab boy wardrobe. Being ready way ahead of ETD (Estimated Time of Departure) the waiting game would begin. After a while I would start my recital of groaning and moaning with the classical “we will be late!” or “you had the whole afternoon to choose…” 
Then after what seemed and was ages, she would appear to commence the first round of many presentations with that “look” of helplessness in her eyes. 
Without paying any real attention to what she had on, I would look up and say “perfectly alright, let’s go”. With her built-in feminine voice decoder all she heard was a flat robotic “it will do”, she would then about turn and be off into the gloom. I would then refocus on the game I was playing on my IPad and decide if to take of my coat or sweat a little longer. 
Time would slowly pass, the following rounds all having the same outcome. Eventually I would start feeling somewhat sticky and decide to remove my coat and take a shower too fresh up. On reappearing, she would invariably be wearing again the first costume of the evening. I would get that other “look” with a “come on! What’s keeping you, haven’t you seen the time? Typical!
I would then throw something on again in record time and we’d be off with yours truly in the dogs and the evening hardy started.. 

Now it’s different, yes different. I can know relate - being sensitised in my own small way to getting dressed as a woman - to what she was going through and I now realise that in the past I was of no help in anyway, just the opposite. These days I get ready as usual, the Ipad is open but instead of a game it’s usually my colour coded Pinterest pin boards of clothes, heels and makeup. I wait and browse thinking about what Abigale would like to have worn that evening given the chance and guts to do it. 
When my wife appears, I am critical but not destructive, ask her to turn around and display, interact using words with more than one syllable, go with her to the wardrobe and browse with her, discuss and take into consideration the weather for the evening, the ambient of the venue, etc. 
Because of this there are fewer “rounds” and we are still invariably late when we leave, but thats ok, the main thing is nobody is in the dog house. 


52/54 EU dresses and slips sometimes 54/56, 43 EU heels (wide fit if possible) and 115C-D bra. Concerning bra size, underwear in general and figure enhancing contraptions - all a science in itself - a separate post will follow.

9 comments:

  1. Abi glad you posted this and see what she goes through from dressing up. Keep up the great job my love.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Abi, I enjoyed this post! I can relate to the time spent trying to find my items and then what seems like an eternity trying to decide what to wear! (That picture with the girl in the closet is so applicable...nice choice!) I used to have very little in clothing, so the choices were necessarily easy. Now flash to today and I have enough clothes and shoes that it makes me spin like a top! Now I have to decide in the general category of Dress or Skirt. What color, what shoes, what hose, what hair piece, and it just is so difficult to be happy with any one choice. Although I have better than the 3% time block, it doesn't matter, trying to decide what to where is the one time consuming constant. Maybe that is really part of the entire experience and we should appreciate that we have that choice or choices to make. So consider the act of trying to find what to wear part of the experience and it may help you feel like you get more in that 3% time slot!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Amy! I can understand that choosing what to wear is part of the experience, but you can see it all at once (as in the picture), I can't. I have started to clear up in the cellar (own idea, could hardly move about!) and found 2 white lace tops I had totally forgotten! Would love to have all my known (and to be found again) clothes and heels in one place.
      A girl can dream...
      Sorry have to go, just seen a mint top on-line I need! {click} yes!!
      oh well, wonder when I have a chance to wear it..
      thanks for the comment
      bye bye Abi xxx

      Delete
  3. You may have hit something there. Is my propensity to infinitely nested sub clauses and parentheses due to a love of Austen and Sterne or more to 30 years of writing subroutines?

    I have to keep Susie's things hidden away too, or at least out of sight. Since Susie time is limited to about once every 2-3 weeks, I tend buy more stuff faster than she gets to wear it, and there is stuff stashed in hidden corners all around the house. I am somewhat nervous about L taking it on herself to surprise me by redecorating the bedroom or spare room one day and emptying out the closet in preparation. It was a near thing with her needing to call a plumber recently and shifting the stuff in the back of the airing cupboard.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Susie
    Do I hear a programmer here? When write letters to friends I would, as with the blog go off at tangents. Depending on how much I would stray from the straight and narrow, as with Pilgrim I would get hopelessly lost and spend ages backtracking. As I couldn’t really stop this, I decided before going off track, I would add an open bracket each time then adding a close bracket when I thought I was finished, sometimes I forgot.
    Of course this still got out of hand with brackets sprinkled all over the place and trying like mad to match pairs. I then decided to bring another visual component into the mix and started to indent the start of each ‘subroutine’ text. I ended up with a structure similar to the Lisp programming language.
    (I was playing around with at the time,
          (I take it that’s where I got it from).
                (I was also into Smalltalk and other Actor languages.
                   (It shows how old I am.)
                        (And by the way, here is an example of calculating factorials in Lisp.)))

    (defun factorial (N)
       "Compute the factorial of N."
       (if (= N 1)
               1
               (* N (factorial (- N 1)))))

    Now that I have Ed to keep me in check, I don’t need the brackets.
    [Ed: and boy do you need checking!]
    See, what did I say..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To your hiding your stuff, I'll get back to you, somewhere else.
      Abi.

      Delete
    2. I never tackled LISP. I shied away when I saw the acronym unpacked as Lots of Infuriatingly Stupid Parentheses. But, yes, I'm a programmer for my sins (it keeps Susie in shoes.. just.)

      How did Mrs A react to your sudden critical appraisal of her outfits after years of monosyllabic grunting? I still have to bite my tongue sometimes when I'm really tempted to say something like "that's a nice frock she's wearing".

      Delete
    3. Hi Susie, I was going to answer here your question to how Mrs.A reacted to my turn around. But I realised it was going to take a little longer and one thing lead to another, so it has ended up as a post!
      Just for you!.
      [Ed: and the rest of the world.]
      Ok, if you say so.

      Delete