Today was like a really crappy Family Channel movie about being fat and going shopping with your mother, who just doesn't get it, except without any of the emotional baggage. Flora took me today to buy a coat, because the past two nights have been the coldest nights of my life. No heat, bad-quality linens, no coat, sleeping-in-winter-boots kind of cold. So Flora became worried that I would become ill again, and took me downtown to the fancy, teenager-infested part of the city to buy clothes. We went to all these different department stores inhabited solely by hip, thin young Chinese teenagers. Flora and I both looked like we lost our way and wandered into another reality. It reminded me of how it felt for me when I was a tweenie to go into a place like Abercrombie and Fitch (which was huge in the mid-to-late nineties, wasn't it?), places where I knew I didn't like the clothes, and even if I did they probably wouldn't fit anyway. Flora would immediately go up to the sales girl and say, "We need your biggest coat, because she is very fat around the middle". This also instantly made me think of tweenie-hood, and how far I must've come, because if my mother had said that to a sales girl back then, I would have been mortified, but today when Flora said it, I just nodded in agreement and patted my belly, totally complicit. They all nodded in understanding. This is really a story about how I ended up with the most hideous coat in all of China, possibly the world. See, Flora has no taste. I only say this, because I feel I have been taking my own mother for granted. I was never one of those kids who was embarassed to be seen with my mother, but I did hate shopping with her. Now I see that this was not because she has no taste, but because I have none. It was also because I just hate shopping for clothes. It's all so much work. To be sure, you really do have to try it on, and that means taking the clothes you're already wearing off, and then putting others on, and then taking those off, and then putting your original clothes back on, over and over and over. It's really torture for someone who gets bored as easily as I do. And I was skeptical about buying a coat in China anyway, or any clothing for that matter, because someone told me that they don't carry any plus sizes. Which isn't true, actually, as I have been dragged shopping for clothes three times now (twice by my students, who I am beginning to realize see me as a massive doll that talks funny), and each time there are some, though not many, plus size clothes. So each place we went to, there was maybe one jacket that fit, and not at all well, but I hated them anyway. That's because the women's jackets that I've seen are all neon colors, or they're made out of that sateen sheeny material that was really popular a few years back. As far as I can tell, the late nineties are still really big here. So I would point out a simple black or brown coat, possibly red, warm-looking, not too noticeable, and Flora would be horrified. Apparently all of those were men's coats. That's another thing, I definitely have noticed that clothing is more ambiguous in the states. Though, obviously, men and women have different clothing sections, a lot of things are pretty gender-ambiguous. When I looked at these coats, I thought the men's coats looked that way, but a woman wearing a man's coat here is much more noticeable than at home, and Flora was scandalized I would even bring it up. I started to get bored and tired, and I decided that I was just going to buy the very first coat that fit me normally, no matter what it looked like. And I did. But I really shouldn't have. Let me lay this down for you: Bright orange. That should really be enough, but there's more. Fake zippers, you know what I mean, the kind where you unzip them and there's no pocket. Just a dozen decorative zippers. Faux fur-lined collar (of the kind that was really popular at stores like Old Navy back in the nineties). And the grand finale, folks, shoulder pads. Shoulder pads the likes of which I have never before seen on a coat. I look like a giant orange football player. I put it on, and some woman came up to me and said, "This is a very flattering color on women of your race," and I was thinking, "You must hate us." So let me recap: Bright orange. Decorative zippers. Faux fur-lined collar. Shoulder pads. I'm gonna have to find reserves of confidence enough for the entire suicide ward of a city hospital to fill the void this coat has left in my self-esteem. But I'm also not vain enough to be impractical, and it's only the beginning of November, just going to get colder and colder. So what the hell?
But I'm also not practical enough to avoid being just a bit vain, so I made Flora ask the sales girl for a warm vest as well. That is what I'm wearing now, and it's keeping me toasty so far. A nice, subdued hunter green. Average number of zippers. No fur collar. No shoulder pads. (No sleeves either, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.)
On another note, I want to comment on my night with the hot water bottles. It seems I never knew what I was missing. I filled the three bottles with boiling water from my kettle and then sat them under the blankets on my bed, evenly spaced, and went to finish up some e-mails. When I crawled into bed an hour later, freezing cold and dressed like an arctic explorer, I felt the most comforting, enveloping warmth spreading through me. It was like taking three shots of whiskey back-to-back. I snuggled my feet against the bottle at the bottom, I cuddled my arms around the one at my shoulders, I nestled against the one by my side. Who needs pets? Who needs lovers? I've got hot water bottles. If I were going to write a book about this experience, I would call it Extremely Warm and Incredibly Comforting.
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