Jeans (Skirt) & (Long-Sleeved) T-Shirt Kinda Gal

"Jeans are the perfect canvas for everything."

OK, so I just handed in my paper and am going on a NY Times/blogging spree. This article, from which I lifted the above quote, is about skinny jeans, which sound stupid to me, but the quote kinda resonatd with me. Now, how, you ask, would a quote about an article of clothing which I have not worn since kindegarten and which my mother swears I didn't even like then, resonate?

I have been wearing only skirts since I was in the first grade and probably have had no real desire (and by real, I mean, actually want to do it) to wear pants since like third grade or so. I don't know that I'd defend my parents' decision to make me stop wearing pants so young in a school where are all my peers still wore pants, but that's the way it was. And presumably, despite a hard time in first through third grades, they did a good job, since I haven't even really considered wearing pants since.

But at the same time that all that is true and that I would never actually wear pants (excluding pajama pants in the privacy of my bedroom), I have this sort of farfetched longing (not by any means a true desire) to wear jeans.

I don't know if it's just purely the fact that jeans are so ingrained in American culture or that jeans are so ingrained in college culture or that there's something verry appealing about the ease with which jeans can be casual or fancy or anything in between while remaining comfy (or so is my glorified impression of them).

I mean, the truth is this past summer Gap had an offer where if you tried on a pair of jeans, you could get a free iTune, and I did it and was wholly unimpressed with the pair of jeans I tried on.

I don't mind wearing skirts in general, but I can't tell you how many times I've looked around a college classroom and noticed that I was the single person in the room--including the professor--who wasn't in jeans. And it's not that I necessarily want to wear jeans, but it's that I notice that I'm different.

This past week I was shopping for a dress to wear to a college event, and was dissapointed with the fact that I couldn't find one. Let's just say it's hard to find tznius summer party dresses. And partially I was dissapointed because I went shopping and didn't find anything, but partially I was dissapointed because I wanted to look like everyone else and a Shabbos outfit just wan't going to cut it.

Honestly, there's something disturbing to me about the fact that I even nominally want to fit into this society. But there's also something sort of comforting about the fact that being tznius will by definition keep me very visibly different (especially as summer approaches) and also constantly remind me that I'm different.