{"id":476,"date":"2014-07-09T10:37:25","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T15:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/?p=476"},"modified":"2014-07-09T10:37:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T15:37:25","slug":"july-9-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/july-9-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"July 9, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a year ago my friend Linda and I agreed to be at an event to promote a grantmaking group we’re in. In return for sitting behind a table right near the bar and smiling at people for a few hours, we’d get a donation from the organizer and maybe drum up some interest from a few attendees. We’d gone to a similar event in October and had a lot of fun despite sitting much farther from the bar, so this didn’t sound like a bad way to spend an evening.<\/p>\n

As the day got closer, though, the prospect grew less and less appealing. First, I had to miss a performance by some friends that I’d really wanted to see; second, the event ran from 9 pm to 4:30 am, so there was the whole staying-awake thing. But the biggest problem was the fact that it was the annual White Party, which meant I had to wear, well, white. All white.<\/p>\n

Now, white is a perfectly nice color on the right person, but that person is not me. I do have white linen pants but I almost never wear light colors next to my face, and on the rare occasions when I do, it’s usually something pink. White looked bad enough when my hair was dark but the grayer I get, the more washed out I look in it, and not even bright red lipstick and black-framed glasses really compensate. So it was no surprise that when I went through my closet and dresser I found nothing that would pass muster with the host.<\/p>\n

I figured I’d just head over to Marshall’s and get a tank top that I could toss the next day, but first I sorted through a pile of old t-shirts, where I found a few that were primarily white: one from a conference, another from a cable TV show called “Three Guys Talk Hockey” (long story), and one that looked like it had come from an airline, maybe in a goodie bag or perhaps from that time my bags got lost coming back from somewhere. Unlike the other two, which seemed to be gigantic, the airline shirt fit like something a person might wear out in public and it looked as good with the linen pants as anything I was likely to buy, so I put it on, along with a printed shawl that I could drape over my shoulders or wind around my neck to break up the monotony.<\/p>\n

As predicted, we had fun people watching, drinking, and admiring the truly amazing footwear. The shoes were so wonderful that after a couple of hours Linda started jumping up from behind our table and asking if she could take pictures:
\n\"copyright2014LauraStempel_whitepartyshoes_300x2251.jpg\"<\/a>\"copyright2014LauraStempel_whitepartyshoes1_300x2251.jpg\"<\/a>
\nThe place we were sitting was relatively dark and with all of those fabulous shoes, no one was really paying attention to what I was wearing\u2014which was a good thing, because at about midnight I brushed my hand across part of my shirt and suddenly realized from the odd texture that I’d worn it to paint my living room. And about an hour after that I remembered that I actually own a black and white sleeveless top that would have been perfect\u2014and that I’d have been happy to wear\u2014if I’d only thought of it at, say, 8 pm.<\/p>\n

There’s a lesson of some kind here, although I’m not sure what it is. Keep better track of where I’ve put my clothes? Check everything for paint stains? Always sit in a dark corner so it doesn’t matter what I’m wearing?<\/p>\n

Or maybe it’s as simple as this: keep a few pieces of clothing you hate, just in case, and never wear them unless you have to.\"orangeB15\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a year ago my friend Linda and I agreed to be at an event to promote a grantmaking group we’re in. In return for sitting behind a table right near the bar and smiling at people for a few … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurastempel.com\/matchorclash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}