Possible Reasons to Get Into Shape
Not my reasons, necessarily. Just hypothetical ones.
1. To fit into better clothing.
2. To wear a certain Halloween costume that you didn’t feel comfortable wearing before.
3. To participate in activities you were physically unable to do before.
4. To improve your health.
I know we’re not supposed to say that fat people are less healthy, but I have to tell y’all that my hypoglycemia has improved dramatically since I’ve lost a little weight.
5. To look sexier.
Cheekbones, high waist-to-hip ratio. Human biology says these are sexy.
6. To be able to try new… um… yoga positions.
7. To get more clothing on sale.
Smaller clothes always seem to go on sale more often. To be able to find better stuff at thrift stores.
8. To go up the parking garage stairs without breathing all hard and making your lunch dates worry that you’re going to have a heart attack.
Reasons to Lose Weight that May End in Heartbreak
1. So that people will love you.
2. So that people will treat you better.
3. For revenge.
4. So that your life will go from miserable to awesome.
Thrift Store Shopping
I don’t mind telling y’all that I’m kind of broke right now. This mortgage and all the expenses that houses incur are kind of killing me. But it’s all right — I have a house. I have equity.
So, in the meantime, I’ve been losing some weight, right? Remember I told y’all that? And, I’m glad to be losing it, but at the same time, I can’t afford to buy new pants as fast as I’ve been needing them.
Enter: Thrift store shopping.
I have tons of fluctuating issues with thrift store shopping. Sometimes I think it’s cool, and fun, and good for the environment. I know lots of people who shop exclusively at thrift stores, and they find really awesome clothes to wear, and I admire them for it. I like vintage clothing, in general. I like the idea of wearing something creative, and something you won’t find at every single mall on earth.
But then, sometimes, it gives me PTSD over growing up poor. The smell of the Goodwill will depress me, I mean, and I’ll have to turn around and leave.
Other times — times when I’m fatter — I hate thrift store shopping because, apparently, fat people never give good clothes away. I don’t blame them. When you’re fat, it’s hard enough to find good-looking clothes. Why would you give your good stuff away without knowing if you’d be able to replace it? No, fat people have to hold on to their good stuff. I know, because I’ve been fat. More than once.
I’m still pretty fat, but less fat than I was before. Less fat than the pants in my closet, in fact. So, over the weekend, my boyfriend and my youngest son and I went thrift-store shopping. And, oh my god, I am going to shop at thrift stores for the rest of my life, y’all. I mean, at least for as long as I’m less-fat and I have a mortgage I can barely afford.
We went to this one by my house — one of those gigantic ones with a name like Value Village or Thrift Town or Used Universe or whatever. One of those ones where all the aisles are organized by color, and all the signs are in Spanish, then English, and the staff who sets the prices has NO IDEA what’s valuable and what’s not.
I mean, granted, what’s valuable to me doesn’t have to be what’s valuable to them. It’s good when everyone likes different stuff, right? But still — it doesn’t cease to amaze me how you can go into a thrift store and buy either a polyester jewel-toned skirt suit with big gold buttons for $11.97, or else a wool sweater for $1.93.
Luckily, this thrift store didn’t have Depressing Smell. It just had the normal, slightly musty thrift-store smell that fades from your nostrils within a few moments.
I found two sweaters, one top, one skirt, a pair of work pants, and two pairs of jeans, for $30! Dude! And they were nice, too. Some of the stuff even seemed new. I’ve noticed, lately, that the Goodwill carries new clearance merchandise from Target, Mervyn’s, and Wal-Mart. So maybe this Value Thrift World store does, too.
One of the pairs of jeans was from the Gap, and it was good to know that I can wear pants from the Gap now, because I haven’t had the guts to try on Gap pants in an actual Gap store yet.
I probably would’ve bought more stuff, but I was tired of looking through the racks. You have to be in the mood for it, and we were pressed for time. My boyfriend didn’t find anything because he wasn’t in the mood. My son, however, found a $6 men’s blazer that he simply needed to own. He needed it, y’all. For formal wear. For cool weather. For the simple fact that it was six dollars and it looked good on him. Never mind that he’s only 10 years old. He needed it, so I bought it. I can’t deny him. I know how it feels, to need cool clothes like that.
So we raked it in, and I was glad we went. Just like, for the second year in a row, I was glad we went thrifting for our Halloween costumes, too. A while back, we went to a smaller local thrift store — our costume-luckiest, and my boyfriend bought a suit and a shirt to use in his costume, totalling about $9. I bought a bee-oo-tiful ladies’ full slip (the kind of thing you’d only find in the lingerie section of the thrift store, these days) for $2.32, that will, with a few yards of tulle, become my fairy costume.
I know a photographer who uses thrift store lingerie for photoshoots. I know several bloggers — including some of y’all reading this, maybe — who regular post their thrifting finds on their Flickrs. I know artists who scout thrift stores for art supplies. During the summer, I bought a bunch of Barbies from the thrift store to use in my own project. It was, like, twelve barbies for six dollars. Something ridiculous like that. Beautiful Barbies in all colors and vintages. And then a big-headed Filipino Bratz boy, for good measure, for 75 cents.
Anyway. I’m happy. I’m broke but I’m happy. You know? I’m realizing lately that it’s totally possible to be both, as long as you have people to love and a little bit of creativity.
Tell me about your thrift store finds, your reasons to get into shape or not, or whatever you want to tell me.
