Daily Prompt 4/1/2016 | Uh… YOUR Style?

In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 4/1/2016 | Colorful

What the hell is your style? Recently, I witnessed a ridiculously petty Facebook argument between Kyle’s sisters, two fully grown women. The younger sister posted a picture of her and her boyfriend, and the older sister commented, “Shirt stealer.” Now, the shirt wasn’t really hers, she was just pointing out that they wear similar clothing (they always have)… well, duh, they are sisters. This caused a back-and-forth sisterly squabble, which spanned days, and got pretty nasty. There was name calling, bringing up personal shit from the past, and other aspects of their lives that had nothing to do with the shirt. The older sister accused the younger of “stealing her style“, which I thought was strange, because neither of them really dress in a unique way, certainly not enough to warrant saying they have a “style” of their own.

They both wear jeans and leggings. Plaids, patterns, and solids. They both wear leopard print a lot. Teals, pinks, reds, beige, black… nothing unique at all. Nothing cutting edge, or trend setting. I believe if you were to classify their style as anything, it would be “basic“. But this got me thinking… do I have a style? Well, the answer is no, of course. I spend most of my days as a stay-at-home mom wearing pajamas, or yoga pants, with t-shirts. All the t-shirts. I have two pairs of jeans that actually fit, which I only wear out if the place I’m going to is too nice for yoga pants. But have I ever really had a style? Did I ever fit into a category? I’m not sure.

I’ve always been a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl, never really one to get particularly dolled up, but the style of jeans and t-shirts that I wore varied with my various life phases. Jeans and t-shirts are a style, right? I’ve never stuck to one particular thing. I was never labelled in high school as a prep, or a goth, or emo. I was always just me. Just Jan. I wore band t-shirts if I wanted to, or a graphic tee, or something with lace or some other detail. Changed my hair and make up constantly. I always wore jeans. Flare, boot cut… I never even owned a pair of skinny jeans until I was 19, and didn’t own a pair or leggings or yoga pants until I got pregnant, but that’s pretty much all I wear now. Nothing original. No one is original.

Well, maybe Lady Gaga. But anyone who says that someone is “stealing their style” is being petty, because they got their style choices from someone else, who got it from someone else, who got it from a magazine, which was inspired from someone else. Nothing is original.

Wearing jeans with a plaid shirt is not “your style” for others to steal. Neither is leggings and a tunic shirt. They are just STYLES. Not YOUR style.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. I just thought it was amusing.

Anyway, thanks for reading, friends.

Jan

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Dream Journal 2/29/16

Past.

I was a teenager, and I was in a large barn with several other girls around my age, give or take a few years. We were all wearing large electronic collars around our necks, and were dressed in dirty, ripped clothes. A man walked in and yelled at us to stand in a straight line. We lined up, from shortest to tallest, and he grabbed the tallest girl on the end, a pretty blonde, and dragged her outside. She was screaming.

The girl to my left was crying, and she kept repeating that we needed to run, but no one would move. I grabbed her hand, and we ran to the back of the barn, where there was a large door, which was wide open. We ran out of the barn and into the woods, but the girl with me dropped to the ground and started screaming. Bolts of electricity were shooting out of her collar, and she was convulsing on the ground. I tried to roller her back toward the barn, but her body went limp and lifeless. I tried to pry my collar off with a large stick, but it wouldn’t come off.

I went back to the barn, but all of the other girls were gone, and the inside was dark. I walked in and tripped over something on the ground. I looked down and saw the body of one of the girls from the group. I covered my mouth to keep from screaming, and stumbled into one of the empty horse stalls. There was blood everywhere. I could hear the sound of a girl screaming somewhere outside, and ran toward it. The man from before was holding a gun to the head of an older woman, dressed very modestly, and she was begging him to let her go. He laughed at her, dropped the gun, and hit her with it. She fell to the ground, unconscious.

I dropped down and crawled back into the barn, and found a blowtorch in a pile of hay. I used it to burn off my collar, but it didn’t burn me. I found a black and white painted horse in one of the stalls, and rode him out of the barn. The forest looked more like a rain forest now, and there were very large, bright flowers scattered everywhere. I could hear low growling from somewhere, and my horse kept trying to buck me off of it’s back. We rode across a large bridge, made entirely of sticks and branches, yet somehow held us. There was another barn in a clearing ahead of us…

And then I woke up.

Take A Walk With Jan #7

Hello, friends! Yesterday was a bonus day, and Kyle got off of work 7 hours early, thanks to a conveyor belt breaking on his line, so we decided to enjoy the beautiful weather, and have a family day. After Liam woke up from his nap, and ate a yummy lunch of brown sugar squash pancakes (I’ve been slipping extra vegetables into damn near everything he eats lately), we decided to walk to the park. The weather has been in the high 50’s/low 60’s off and on this week, and yesterday was going to be the last beautiful day for a while, so we wanted to make the most of it.

We stopped at Subway to get some lunch, then walked to the park. A block away from the Subway, I saw Liam’s black and gray, striped beanie, which he lost three days ago while we were out walking, lying on the ground! I was super excited that we found it, as it is my favorite hat of his. When we got to the park, I was happy to see that there was another woman there, with two small little girls. After chatting with her for a bit, I discovered that she was their “grandmother” (long story involving the death of her son, I didn’t quite understand it all), and that the little girls were 20 months old, and 5 years old. Liam immediately adored the little girl, whose name is Jersey, and followed her all around the playground. She was a bit better on her feet than he was, since she is 7 months older than him, so he couldn’t follow her up onto the play area, or down the big slide, but he was so smitten. I found it funny that despite her being 7 months his senior, Liam was a head taller than her, and his feet were easily double the size of hers. She had the cutest little Puma sneakers on! He doesn’t very often get to see babies his age, but when he does, he comes out of his shell beautifully.

We talked to the woman and watched the kids play for a long time. She was very friendly, and introduced us to a very nice man named Big Al, who lives by the park, and was out walking his golden retriever, Dante. Liam LOVED Dante (he loves dogs), and Big Al let all the kids pat him. He was a very well-behaved dog! Liam was so talkative, and wanted to talk to everyone, including the adults, which he never does. He would run excitedly up to baby Jersey, waving his arms around, babbling up a storm. And his smile. It was so nice to see him making a friend.

Unfortunately, the older of the two girls put a bit of a damper on our playtime, as she kept pushing her baby sister away from Liam, and demanding that he not play with them, because he was a stranger. Their grandmother tried to reason with her, and I would smile and re-introduce Liam, telling her that everyone starts out as strangers, but she had some serious attitude, and was a bit mean. She actually tried to trip Liam when he was running by her on the slide, and later slid down and almost hit him when he was standing at the bottom. She glared at him the entire time, and tried to steer her sister away. I was a bit annoyed, because the grandmother was fine with them playing, and Liam and Jersey were having fun, but it wasn’t my place to correct her behavior.

After a while, we said our goodbyes, and continued our walk to the store, where we picked up some charcoal for our grill, and some yummy treats. It was starting to cut into Liam’s nap time, so we reluctantly headed home. It was so beautiful out, and sunny, and I wanted to stay outside all day! Despite being sleepy on the walk, Liam refused to take his afternoon nap, and was a fussy little dude all night, resulting in an early bedtime. I think he is finally teething again (he is 13 months, and still only has 4 teeth!), because he has been fussy, drooly, and has been biting me every chance he gets.

Overall, it was a perfect day. Kyle works a 12-hour shift today, but has the next THREE days off, which has never happened. Ever. I’m looking forward to getting out of the house some more, even though it will be really cold, and we won’t get to take our walks to the park.

Hope you’re all having a great day today! How did you all spend your extra day yesterday?!

Thanks for reading!

Jan