i’m generally pretty tolerant of hodie’s wardrobe choices; clothes need to be clean, free from rips or holes, and fit properly. the only issue on which i am a stickler is an appropriate amount of exposed flesh. i’m not raising a prostitot, thanks much.

as a result of this, i sometimes don’t immediately register what she’s wearing. like the day she ended up going to school in what i thought was a white dress which, in reality, was an underslip. whoops.

yesterday when i got home however, something seemed awry. she was wearing a black garment which didn’t as far as i could tell, resemble anything i had ever seen before. it was almost tunic length, but ragged about the edges, with one sleeve longer than the other, and a neckline that extended past her breastbone. she dressed herself after i left for work, so i hadn’t seen her outfit all day, but the longer i looked, the more obvious it became that i knew that neckline from somewhere…

because it belonged to my favorite shirt. sonofabitch.

turns out, she found it in a box of things she thought belonged to someone else, and decided to alter the shirt to her very particular, if bizarre, specifications. what i object to most (apart from the fact i have no hope of replacing this profoundly soft, exquisitely cut & clinging top) is that she decided to execute her design vision without permission. with scissors. normally, if the garment is hers, and she asks, i’m actually happy to let her have at it, or if not, offer something else she can alter. this time, without consulting me, she laid waste to one of my favorites. this did not equal happiness. also a source of consternation, her father’s total lack of attention to the fact that she was wearing this ragged, ill-fitting thing that left her exposed almost to the navel. his response when i asked him about it: we didn’t leave the house, i didn’t think it mattered what she was wearing.

oh, how i recall why he is my former spouse.

so. this little outcome made for a cranky me. the top is irreplaceable. i got it over a year ago and banana republic isn’t exactly archiving their work. frustrated, i abandoned my plans to take the child swimming and instead ditched her to go shopping to salve my wounded wardrobe.

my initial plan was to try and find something similar, but hodie wrecked my shirt out of season. it was a spring weight sheer long sleeve t, and we are full on summer stock at this point. setting the task of replacing this sad lost friend for the moment, i returned to another long standing search: finding the heirs of my lamented steve madden heeled sandals. i misplaced them after a trip to chicago almost two years ago, and haven’t been able to find anything to rival them. i had very particular elements i was looking for in the shoe: narrow heel, open toe, buckle at the ankle, and a degree of strappyness that isn’t quantifiable per se, but like obscenity: i know it when i see it.

but lo, in the mythical land of beautiful shoes (ie, Nordstrom) there they were…


and now, i am smiling again. if wobbling a little. we have a very high heel on our lovely new shoes. and the sucessful end to this search has given me hope that maybe someday, two or three years from now, i’ll find a new t shirt too.