Well, today, I wore a few things that I usually don’t:  (1) sportsball shirt, and (2) athletic shoes.

Here’s the thing.  While I give exactly no fucks about sports, having a professional sports team has been good for the city.  And when Torrid actually had a Thunder shirt this year (I do not recall seeing ones in years past, even though they usually make the playoffs and shit), I felt that I should do my OKC duty and buy it.  Also, it was on clearance for like $7.  Hey.  I’ll be an athletic supporter, but not at full price.  I wish there were some cool burnout tees or some other way to show city pride but (1) the skyline, with the addition of the Devon building, looks remarkably like a penis and scrotum; and (2) this is not the sort of hipster or hip-hop cool destination that gets random shirts made.

But since the Thunder is in the playoffs and losing, I figured I should go ahead and wear this today, because if we don’t make it further down the line, all the sportsball fans will be pouting and I really don’t want to TALK about it – and wearing the shirt will invite conversation.  I know who some of the players are, because you can’t live here and NOT know.  I mean, there’s a life-size picture of one of the players (I believe Steven Adams) on a bank window downtown for photo ops.  You can’t really avoid it completely, especially on game days when you make plans to meet a friend for happy hour and then there’s no fucking place to park ANYWHERE.

So let’s get this over with:

This illustrates one of my many white t-shirt woes.  As you can see, there’s a lump where the hem of the underneath shirt hits.  You can also see that the sleeves are too short.  It came from Walmart, it’s the “Just My Size” brand, and their t-shirts actually hold up pretty well, but they shrink.  I suppose theoretically I could line dry them, but I have a lot of things to line-dry, not very many places to hang them, and it’s a $6 t-shirt.  I will line-dry my expensive t-shirts, but not these.  These are the shirts I wear around the house.  I have some that are probably at least 18 years old.  I was trying to remember when I actually purchased them. I remember HAVING them circa 2001, but I don’t remember if that’s when I bought them.  However, when I originally started with these, I bought a 4x, they didn’t have a 5x, and they also didn’t shrink.  When I’ve bought new ones (5-6 years ago?), I bought a 4x once, it shrunk, so I sized up in the rest of them.  Also, the v-necks run smaller than the scoop necks.  I have no idea why.

From the back.  I called this “Number 17 – The Spread Eagle.”

I have to entertain myself somehow.

Shirt:  Torrid. Clearance.  I’m wearing a 4, they still have it in 00-3.  (With the discount or Haute Cash, you too can pay less for this shirt.)

Jeans: Among my favorites. Now they’re calling these “premium” but they’re the same price as the “regular” and I give up.  These actually FEEL more premium, though.  The denim is different…it’s a little heavier and it has sort of a texture.  Mine are a 26 regular.  It looks like they still have these in the full size range.  You need these.  They’re the best of the plain ones.

Shoes:  Brooks Adrenaline 11, men’s size 9.5.  Brooks doesn’t carry many wide-width women’s shoes, and never in the good colors.  I bought this pair on sale on 6pm or Amazon.  It looks like they’re currently on the Adrenaline 18.  (I also have a men’s Ghost 7 and a women’s Ghost 8.  The women’s are the reason I decided to go with men’s.  They’re fine in a medium width for just dorking around, but for actual exercise, the blisters were epic.)  However, before I bought ANYTHING, I went and tried on almost all the shoes at Academy.  That’s when I bought the women’s Ghosts.  I then went online to order in a wide.  In the regular, I bought an 11, but the wide was out of stock in 11 (of course) so I bought a 10.5  (athletic shoes actually acknowledge this size, but since they usually run small, it’s probably so all the people who really wear a 10 don’t get all pissed off).  This is where buying from Brooks directly beats buying from someone else.  Yes, you’ll probably pay full price, BUT.  You have 90 days to wear them, try them, run or walk in them, and if you hate them, you can return them FOR FREE.  It actually used to be 30 days, so they give you even more time.  So when my 10.5’s were just too short, I sent them back for a full refund and bought my men’s ones.  If you’re a wider-footed person, and you would rather order the men’s: the size difference is 1.5 sizes.  If you’re an 11 women’s, order a 9.5 men’s, for example.  That’s what the Brooks online chat person told me, and it was correct.

I actually order men’s shoes a lot for winter/athletic/casual lace-ups.  Since I wear a smaller size in men’s, they usually have lots of choices on clearance, and for stuff like Docs (which are mostly unisex anyway), Crocs (ditto), and winter-type shoes (they might be gray or brown instead of purple), it’s usually a better fit.  It’s one thing to wear cute shoes for a day at work or a night out, but if you’re doing a lot of walking or exercise, your shoes need to FIT.  (Slightly unrelated:  your shoes need to fit you anyway.  I really hate seeing people with shoes that are way too narrow or too wide or too long.  This is part of why I mostly hate ballet flats…even in a wider width, I feel like my feet are slopping over the sides and I really really really hate that look.  It’s just ugh.  They make shoes in lots of styles and widths.  Unless you really have no money (and I can tell that’s not the case most of the time, because I know where the rest of that outfit came from), BUY SOME BETTER SHOES THAT FIT YOUR FEET.  I also don’t like how I walk in ballet flats.  I feel like I’m stumping heavily along stump stump stump.  I wore the same pair of horrible ballet flats for most of junior high (I even bought a replacement for these monstrosities), and I shudder at the thought.

I even put on makeup today.

Eyeshadow: Naked, Virgin, Half-Baked from Urban Decay Naked Palette; eyliner: UD 24/7 Eyeliner in Chaos; lipstick Colourpop in Pitch; foundation is Urban Decay tinted moisturizer I should probably throw away but my skin is an oily mess anyway so I don’t see that it’s going to really DO anything; blush is L’Oreal something that I bought on Amazon.  NOTE.  The swatches on the lipstick?  They used primer and maybe a gloss over. I put on lip balm first.  There is no way it looks like those pictures otherwise.  It’s not very smooth.  However, it kinda smells/tastes like chocolate, so bonus.  A similar shade, L’Oreal Colour Riche in Spice (I promise they’re the same color), has slightly better application, doesn’t last as long, and has that distinctive L’Oreal smell and taste.  It hasn’t changed since I first started using their lipstick in high school.

I also wish Urban Decay would do the following: (1) make palettes that didn’t have all those dark colors; (2) make the shade “Limit” from Naked3 a single, and also “Strange” and “Dust”; (3) bring back eyeliner in shade “1999”; (4) bring back eyeliner in “Lucky” – they have some new version but it’s NOT THE SAME COLOR.

Despite these egregious discontinuances of my favorite eyeliners, I still think their eyeliner is some of the best on the market.  It goes on smooth, it STAYS on, it comes in lots of colors (I currently use Bourbon and Whiskey a lot), and they frequently have kits and/or sales.  Their eyeshadow is also pretty amazing.  What I’ve noticed:  cheap eyeliner and eyeshadow require a lot more blending and applying to get the same color payoff.  Also, cheap eyeliner is all hard, and you end up having to either hold it next to the light or hold it in a lighter flame to soften it up enough to put it on.  It might be fine when you’re 25 and don’t have wrinkles, but um, not so much as you get older.

You will also need a good pair of pointy tweezers, for all the pubes that start growing out of your chin.

And a good facial waxer.