The other day I woke up feeling groggy and gross. I knew my work day would be frantic and I was dreading it. As I left my room, I cast a longing glance over my shoulder to my bed and thought, ‘I can’t wait to be back with you again’, as if I were a young lad going off to war, leaving all my family and home comforts behind. When I feel like this, there is only one thing for it. My good pants. My good pants and an adorable little outfit because, even if I am crying inside, at least I can look and feel cute while doing it. 

It’s common knowledge that most women have different pants for different occasions, I don’t need to spell them all out. But what is universal no matter your gender is that in your underwear drawer, there is a harsh divide between pants you deem to be good and those you deem to be bad. The good are obviously the comfiest, the boldest colours, the ones that frame you nicely. The bad are the ones that are far too old and scraggly, that have threads hanging off them in a long tangle, that should have been thrown away long ago. They are also the uncomfortable ones. The ones where a seam runs right underneath and rides up like a cheese wire trying to slice your vagina in two. If you’re like me, within your group of ‘bad pants’ you’ll have the worst of the lot. The ones designated only when you’ve not been able to do laundry all week and they’re the last ones left available to you; they are for when you are most desperate. I used to reserve my good pants for special days. If I were going to work I’d make sure to wear mid-range pants, the ‘nothing special, but nothing wrong’ pants that meant the day was to be middling. If I had fun weekend plans, I would wear my favourite pants as an extra treat. On every birthday I make sure I am wearing my best pants, I might even buy a new favourite pair for the occasion or I’ll wash my current favourite and leave them unworn for the whole week; on special hold for my special day. This is great in theory and I still do it, but earlier this month I began to realise that I work so much that I more often than not wear my middle pants or if I’ve run out of middle pants and the day is not looking like it’s going to be exciting, I’ll even stoop to my bad pants. What this means is that I wear my middle and bad pants far more than I wear my good pants. That often, my good pants sit in my drawer clean and unworn for weeks on end, their little faces looking up at me with puppy-dog eyes wondering when it’s going to be their turn to be taken on a spin of my ass. Because of this revelation, I’ve decided to start wearing my good pants as a pick-me-up on average and even on bad days. To use the good pants themselves as the occasion for fun and joy. 

So, the other day when I woke up feeling bad, I put on my new favourite boxy black dress and my third favourite pair of pants (let’s not go crazy I can’t allow myself to use my #1 pair on a bad day, come on). I am not usually a dress person. I like wearing the occasional summer dress but in general, whenever I wear a dress I feel like I’m dolling myself up for the male gaze which makes me uncomfortable. It doesn’t necessarily make me feel like myself. But this dress I do like because it’s long and boxy and doesn’t show much skin. When I wear it I feel cool, I feel edgy, I feel like weird men on the street are disappointed with how I look and that’s the sweet spot. I work in a pretty much all-female office and so I was excited to mop up all the compliments during the day, because what is life without a little validation? However, let me tell you, on this day I only received one compliment on my dress. All day long and only one. I couldn’t believe it. I chuckled, I guffawed, because it seemed impossible. But even with only one delicious bit of praise for it, I still found wearing my good pants and my dress made me feel better about the day. The day itself was dull but what made it brighter was the outfit. It was the source rather than the cherry on top. Oddly enough, I have worn this dress since and gotten loads of office compliments so I imagine everyone was just extremely busy that day. I might be wrong but I don’t think complimenting me on my outfit is in anyone’s contract so I’ll let them off. 

This week I had this delicious pear and almond tart from Greensmiths. It was sweet and nutty but not sickly and I believe it had cinnamon in it as well because it tasted a little spiced. Firm on the bottom, soft inside, and what made it even better is that I ate it while wearing my good pants  —  what a day!

As you will have noticed, my blog has now changed. I’ve had a rebrand and I’m so excited about it. I’m still working out if baking fits into it or not or if it can some weeks and won’t on others. I enjoy sharing what I’m baking or what treats I’ve had in the week so I might continue anyway but with it not being the main focus as it hasn’t been for a long time now. I’ve renamed the blog ‘I Can’t Stop Talking’ because I can’t, and this blog helps me to both talk and shut up more. I imagine it will keep evolving as it goes on and I’m excited for that too. This is now blog post 21. I don’t number them in the posts but 21 blogs, 21 weeks of me chatting shit, seems quite a lot. I hope it never ends.