I been trying to do it right

song: ho hey – artist: the lumineers

Excuse me while I wax rhapsodic about another band… BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME! Have you seen the video for this song yet? If you haven’t, here, watch it now. And if you have, enjoy it yet once more. BECAUSE IT IS RAD!

The album is also AWESOME! If you were wondering. Additionally, Milo Greene and The Lumineers were both performing on late night shows tonight (or last night, what with it being after midnight and all), so the DVR is now full of exciting things! Or at least a few.

And now onto something other than me being SO TOTALLY STOKED about sweet, sweet folky tunes involving bearded men and guitars (and ladies, as it turns out, though they aren’t bearded). Oh, and since I failed to do it in the last post, a link to Milo Greene performing. (Do we remember when I was all, "1957 is making my ears SO HAPPY!!!"? That was them, too.)

Okay, now onto other things.

So, I have this friend who sells these skirts (that isn’t her site, btw) that go by many names, but most vendors choose to incorporate "magic skirt" somewhere in the mix. Except her. She goes with "wrap skirts," as this is what they actually are. Though I’m sure you could wear them and perform magic. The implied magic lies in their ability to be tied in various manners to achieve "100 different looks." Or, 50 ways to tie it up, with it being reversible, thus taking it to 100. Digression…

She was having a brief summer sale to get back in the swing of selling them again. (she took a break to grow and deliver her fourth baby. so, you know, she’s been occupied with other things.) I ended up buying three of them. They were delivered on Monday. And then that is when things got interesting.

See, these skirts tend to come with a pamphlet that diagrams (sort of) a handful of the ways they can be worn. But a quick search of "magic skirts" on Google will soon provide you with many more photo tutorials and a whole lot of videos. The videos tend to have this quirk, no matter who they’re produced by, of the audio simply being some weird, generic variation of Indian music. They each seem to have a unique version of this – some sounding more soft rock, others like a soft rock DJ decided to try their hand at an electronica-influenced remix – but, besides the skirts and the demo lady in a tube top or bikini, it is the constant of them all. I get it, in the sense that the skirts are produced in India and were inspired by the many ways a sari can be worn. However, it soon makes the muting feature quite appealing.

Having found a few decent photo tutorials and watching some videos, I felt ready to try my hand at making magic with my skirts. And not long after having freed them from their packaging, the reality that they were definitely fumigated before their journey to America set in. So they got a couple of trips through the washer and I waited for them to dry.

Rearming myself with the photo tutorials and rewatching some videos, I ventured to my bathroom with skirts in tow to set about making the magic happen. The demo ladies, aside from the occasional moment of trying to get a strap through a loop behind their backs that isn’t going as smoothly as they’d like, make it look remarkably easy.

The first attempt went fairly successfully, though I quickly realized I may have acquired a need for a bandeau bra when I got these skirts. The next several attempts did not go successfully. Plus, since I had not added fabric softener when washing, they were getting super staticy. While my arms were letting me know they weren’t used to all this finagling behind my back business, this realization suddenly dawned – this situation was beginning to give me flashbacks of learning to tie my shoes. This, my friends, may be where the "magic" in "magic skirt" comes from.

I did not enjoy the process of learning to tie my shoes. I got both the "bunny ears" and the "rabbit goes around the tree…" demonstrations. As I recall, my dad showed me the "rabbit goes around the tree…" method first. I watched. I tried it. It did not work. He showed me again. Again, I tried. And this was the moment, internally, I was all like, "There is no way that rabbit knows what it’s doing. YOUR HANDS ARE MAGIC AND YOU DID NOT TELL ME!" Externally, I employed my grumpy, little old person scowl and let it be known a.) it wasn’t working and I was very annoyed, and if THESE WEREN’T ALL LIES, then, b.) you’re surely holding out on me! At the wise age of 4 (maybe 5), I was pretty certain velcro shoes were the way to go. As I’d seen them in adult sizes, I wasn’t buying all this business about needing to learn to tie my own shoes. Digressing, again.

I did learn to tie my shoes (well before I made it out of kindergarten, even). I’m sure with some practice, I will learn how to ensconce myself in my skirts. Hopefully while figuring out how to do some of these maneuvers without leaving a weird gap in the back that is sure to give anyone taller than me a view down to my underpants (thankfully, I’m 5’8" and I’m quite fond of high heels – but that still leaves plenty of people taller than me, even in heels). Or without the compulsion to dress myself in a tube top (which I’d have to procure, as I do not own such an article of clothing currently) or camisole and leggings first, because, dude, there is only one or two ties holding these things up. One of those ties, whether it is the lone tie, or one of two, is A BOW! C’mon, as most, if not all, of us have learned to tie our shoes, we all know how easy it is to untie A BOW! Which is to say, I will probably not be leaving the house wearing them as anything other than skirts for awhile. Admittedly, I did wear one as a skirt today (I’m still wearing it, actually – and there was ample leaving of the house), and the bow has held rather nicely. And that was even with being out in a bit of bluster. So, you know, there’s definitely some hope there.

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