Dress up!

As a little girl, I didn't play dress up (although I went through a black phase, and then an everything-must-match-including-my-scrunchy-and-socks-and-it-all-must-alternate-between-colors-in-a-parallel-fashion phase). I dressed up my barbies and stuffed animals, and gave them complicated relationships and lives. My sister and I would even make water beds for our virtual world (We used Zip-Loc bags and even filled them with warm water so our barbies wouldn't get cold). The funnest part was setting it all up. After it was all done, Emily would usually wander off, and I would be left to manage the farm.

Years later, it would seem that I have become my own barbie doll.

I came to this conclusion yesterday as I was playing dress up by myself.

I sing with a group, Musica Antiqua. We sing all sorts of period pieces, most of which you have probably never heard of. Mostly we sing stuff written by various Kings and Queens of England who lived several hundreds of years ago.

I dig this kinda thing. In college, I had to complete a whole wad of Literature courses, and my favorite were British Literature. So, I guess you could say I was destined to sing with other Old Literature buffs like me (and just so you know, Lancelot was a French creation to make Sir Galahad and the other British Knights look bad...Just so you know...)!

Anywho, every fall and spring, Musica Antiqua gives various performances and we all dress up. After exponentially gaining weight, I decided that I should probably make a new costume (plus the fact that I washed my other one and it shriveled into a stringy mess.). So I wandered over to Wal-Mart yesterday and drove my children crazy by staring at brocade for 2 hours. Both of them were trying to end their misery by attempting to cast themselves out of the cart. After chosing a nice (meaning cheap) fabric, I went home and proceeded to spend the rest of the day under my sewing machine.

ALL DAY

Five hundred pattern pieces and 12 episodes of "Bonanza" later (yes, I am hopelessly addicted to "Bonanza." I can't help myself. Maybe it's that the Cartwrights are Knights in their own right...maybe it's the good vs. evil...or maybe it's because Michael Landon is SO CUTE! Woo Woo!) I had me a dress.

I finished my project at midnight, and figured I should try on my medieval creation. It actually fit, and I was a little surprised, and as I looked in the mirror, I suddenly felt very silly. Here I am, a grown woman, playing dress up in the middle of the night. It was a mix of elation and embarassment as I woke my husband up to show him. He thought it was "very nice" and promptly went back to sleep...Well, he actually sat up and said "that is very beautiful! You did a good job!" A few minutes later, I quietly walked into the room, gently touched him and said "uh, Jeremy? Can you wake up? I am stuck in my costume." A true Barbie to the core, I couldn't change my own clothes.