A Quest

Me, resting.

I know that I should be on a quest for something substantial: enlightenment, maybe, or adventure.  But no--I'm far shallower than that.  I have been wearing boot-cut jeans for fifteen years, dammit.  I want something else.  So I'm on a quest for non-boot-cut jeans that don't make me look like I'm walking around on two state-fair turkey legs.  Because y'all: I am pear-shaped.  A size medium top at J. Crew fits like a dream, but I have to wear pants so big that they can barely bring themselves to carry them in the store.  It's ridiculous.  And the conventional wisdom for pear-shaped people is that we must wear boot-cut jeans to balance ourselves out.  I get it.  But...fifteen years.  I need a change.

So the quest has begun, and I have actually made some decent discoveries.  First of all, I decided that I was prepared to actually spend some money on so-called premium denim if it meant I could find something flattering.  I also decided to say screw my pride and went to the plus-size section.  I figured that since fancy-pants jeans run small, that their plus-size counterparts would too.  And for the brands that are democratic enough to even acknowledge that women over a size eight exist, that turned out to be true.  The smallest pair of plus-size Lucky Brand jeans looked amazing.  That's right, amazing.  Of course, no one is perfect; though Lucky Brand gets that people are allowed to have big hips, they don't seem to realize that people can be short, so the jeans flap way down over my feet. This is serendipitous, though, because the only ones I could find in my size were boot-cut. Once I have them hemmed, the flared part will be gone, and I'll be left with a lovely straight leg.  Nice.  (And did I mention that these $128 jeans were on sale for $36? Because they were.  Woot!)

My other find is from J. Crew.  Despite what I said above, they do make my size. It's not fictional, like a sasquatch; it's endangered, like a Tenino pocket gopher.  It exists, you're just not terribly likely to see it. I wanted the navy matchstick cords, so I tried the biggest size I could find.  They almost fit, so I asked a sales associate for the next size up.  Well, you would think I had asked for a gown of dragonfly wings.  She checked, though, and like our friend the pocket gopher, very few were remaining in the wild.  She called the warehouse, and I took a leap of faith, ordering expensive (for me, at least) pants in a size I had never tried.  Fortunately, they arrived at my house two days ago, and I'm pretty sure they look good.  I say pretty sure because I so badly want them to look good that this may be a case of mind over matter.  We shall see.