Guest Blog

Today's blog comes to you by way of my best friend. Before you role your eyes in agony and close the tab, let me assure you that many of my friends write far better than I could ever imagine. And lest you think it's just my laziness at work, I will tell you that I did plan on writing...but she was typing away by the time I woke up this morning. And in a moment of sheer genius, the plan was hatched. We have spent the past 3 days together so her stories are mine anyway. I kinda like this idea, so perhaps you may see more of it in the future. Enjoy...







O great and wonderful jersey knit and elastic bands, how do I love thee? Let me recount the ways...

I've been best friends with the same girls for over a decade. Like a jigsaw puzzle, each of us are extremely different but fit harmoniously together as one. We've been there for each other as our parents fought brain cancer and breast cancer, divorce and infidelity, financial prosperity and financial despair. As we shift into adulthood we are sharing similar experiences as the generation that preceded us; career crisis and career shifts, marriage and near marriage breakups, health crisis and economic crisis. The puzzle pieces of our lives are falling into place and together we are beginning to form a picture of something intricate and beautiful. In the meantime, we are still proverbially spread out over the kitchen table and looking like a hot mess as we figure out where we are suppose to go.

As with puzzle assembly, sometimes you need to walk away and take a break from looking at the same pieces over and over. This weekend one of my best friends and I stepped away from the puzzling life we lead and relaxed poolside at a spa in Arizona. But I have to note that if we resembled puzzle pieces, she'd be the beautifully ornate, multi-complex, center piece that held all the other pieces together; I'd be the bottom left-hand corner piece with the trademark logo placed strategically upright, just so you can know what direction its suppose to be place. Yes, we're that different.

Different in just about all areas of life. She's a professional athlete, I'm a professional eater. She's a professional model, I'm a professional reader. She has an six-pack of abs, I have a keg o' fun. She dates millionaires, I date... uh... well, I don't date. See? We're that different.

Which brings me to joys of jersey knit and elastic bands. I was having a clothing crisis and needed serious intervention. I heard a voice from the next room and it almost made me stab my eyeball out with a toothpick, You can borrow the dress I wore yesterday. She couldn't be serious. I think it'll fit well. She was serious. Her waist is the size of my right thigh and she offered her dress to me. Maybe the sun was too much for her to handle and she's delusional now.

I stepped into the closet and pulled down the dress like Indianna Jones in the Temple of Sin, cautiously, curiously, carefully. I slipped it over my head and felt like I had just escaped the rolling ball of death because the dress fit?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!? Yes, it fit. The professional model/athlete/world-traveler had offered me the holy grail of fat girl fashion. I twirled in it. Yes, I spun around like a five year-old in her Sunday best.

I just realized that I've given jersey knit such a hard time for being cheap and made in sweatshops in third-world countries. And elastic, who knew it could make anyone feel like a model with a six-pack?

O great wonderful jersey knit and elastic band, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...