My suburban style transition

"You know, most people have trouble picking out an outfit for a formal event, not a casual one," S said to me last Friday night over the trill of Joel McHale's impression of Kendra Wilkinson's laugh and the intense scraping of spork against an empty pint of Phish Food frozen yogurt, "honestly Johanna, this (motioning to the enormous pile of discarded outfit options at the foot of my bed) is ridiculous. Wear some jeans, wear a shirt, wear some shoes, a coat if it gets cold and get it over with. Hurry, 'Sunset Tan' is starting."

Until I’d actually begun the process of casual-ifying my wardrobe for a weekend in the upper-Midwestern suburbs – a three day stint where the majority of my time would be spent in lowkey social situations, not the biannual milling about my parents' home in size L JV volleyball sweats and the overpriced Hammacher Schlemmer Androscoggin Sheepskin slippers I begged and begged Santa to buy me and then only one of which I wore (purely for decoration) when I cracked my shin and fractured my ankle during my "crutch phase" of '95 - I thought, hey, no problem, just like transitioning from a Treo back to a regular ol' cell, taking a break from the thoughtfully assembled ensembles of gunmetals, blacks, wines, impractically tall heels, high-waisted this, and rosette necklined that I normally wear in favor of could-do-it-with-my-eyes-closed casual would be something I could achieve with relative ease.

After all, a t-shirt is a t-shirt is a t-shirt, right?

As soon as I delved into the pre-packing project, it became clear as Spencer Pratt's conscience the effortlessness with which I assumed I could scale back my day-to-day fabulosity was far more challenging than I'd originally thought it would be.

"Workout tee, workout tee, workout tee...do I have anything in here that hasn't seen a 10x10 set of squat thrust lunges?" I thought to myself, pawing to the bottom of the top three drawers of my dresser.

"The grey ones are too skinny, the red ones are too Fergie, these are too bootcut, these are too faded, these are too big, these are waaay too big...don't I own a pair of jeans that falls somewhere between hipster on U Street and Girbaud in the '80s?" I asked aloud in a pitch so acutely frustrated it incited Monte to give my aggressive hanger shuffling a lift-and-tilt so cartoon-like I could actually see the question mark hovering above his sweet, little head.

10pm soon became 11:30 which soon became 1am, and after S left and Monte had his final walk of the night, I looked at my very small "to take" pile, which included one set of running clothes, underwear, toiletries, my iPod and phone chargers and an Archie comic, and decided, despite my allegiance to all songs Dido, to raise that white flag, tuck three days' worth of DC style wardrobe components into my little Samsonite satchel and join my sweetpuff in the stretched-out spoon he'd been waiting three hours for me to complete.

The next morning, I applied my usual face (i.e., concealer, Eye Basics, wide swipes of bronzer, double coat of mascara, thin stripes of black liner on top and bottom, Kiehl's lip balm and Dior Ultra Gloss in "reflect") to polish the look I'd created with these, this, these (last picture) and something similar to this, gave myself an "uh-huh" up-and-down in my full-length mirror and set off for Reagan National.

Against my better judgment, I felt confident during the 13 minute cab ride to Terminal A in my decision to just be the 'DC me'. I felt good as I passed through security; I felt comfortable standing tall - very tall - in line at gate 4; I felt fine the entire hour and nine minutes on the plane; and as I made my way through Detroit Metro to the tiny corridor where those of us heading to America's more modest destinations are corralled, I still felt good. I still felt I'd made the right choice.

But then, just as I turned the corner and found gate A14, just as I took a seat in between a woman knitting an Ohio State hat atop her personalized Bible and another reading a Dora the Explorer book to her daughter in the no more 20-chair waiting area, the lump I thought I'd successfully averted came into my throat with full, guilty force.

I'm near sure my clothes and my obvious attention to trend and fit and color and cut didn't offend or make insecure a single person in that waiting area. No one was rude. No one shot me a who does she think she is? look. Quite to the contrary. The woman to my left (the knitter), in fact, used my knee to prop herself up and even asked if she could "fetch [me] a pop" on her way back from the restroom.

Upon seeing in her eyes the hope that I would, I accepted her offer and a few minutes later she handed me a 20 oz Diet Sprite, saying with wink, "I could tell you were a diet kind of girl."

For the first time since I started this blog last December, I looked down at the outfit I'd carefully chosen and felt a searing sense of regret, even embarrassment at my own hypocrisy. In wearing what I had that morning, I not only violated my wear what makes you feel most confident, not most comfortable dictum but perhaps infringed upon my venue-appropriateness rule as well.

A t-shirt may be a t-shirt may be a t-shirt, but DC is not Dayton is not Daytona Beach is not Durham. Now, I don't advocate dressing for others or choosing looks in an attempt to meet the expectation of what people in a certain city hope to see when they step out their front doors each morning, but I have to tell you, after my weekend, one that saw me anxiously reach each day for the same workout tee I'd packed for my long run instead of the cute trapeze tops and pouf-sleeved sweaters I'd planned to don Saturday and Sunday evening, I know I won't soon forget I need to shut InStyle every once in a while and listen more carefully to the Midwesterner inside of me who knows, when in my native fly-over land, I may be more comfortable in painted-on pants and sky-high stilettos, but I'm more confident in an beat up pair of jeans and a hoodie.

Sans the black eyeliner.