Binky Goes to Bensenville (Part 1)

The always and impossibly elegant Johnny Weir.

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"Hmmmm..." I frowned at the array of clothes on the bed. What to wear? What to wear? What does one wear when one goes to Weir, as it were?

Suddenly I wanted to forget packing and go read Dr. Seuss books.

"Mom, what IS your problem?" my daughter demanded, striding briskly into my room. "All your clothes look alike. How hard can this be? Just pick something already!"

She had a point. My fashion choices are informed by three factors:
(1) When in doubt, spend the money on the kids; (2) comfort; and (3) rheumatoid arthritis, an unwelcome and surly guest who arrived five years ago and remains to this day, eating my favorite leftovers, hogging the remote, and leaving wet towels scattered all over the bathroom floor.

So, in fall and winter, I live in denim overalls; in spring and summer, denim shortalls. I have a weird thing where I don't like stuff that's tight against my waist. Actually, I have no waist, so waist-borne clothes just perch hesitantly on me somewhere above my worn hip joints, wondering where they're supposed to BE, exactly, and why it's so hard to meet nice people who are willing to make a commitment to having a waist these days.

I also have a thing where I don't like it when my neck is cold, or when Evan Lysacek unexpectedly appears in my field of vision. There I was last week, trying to tune into part 1 of the serial-killer episode of Castle because really, what better way to spend an hour when Johnny isn't available than with the charming Nathan Fillion, but GAAAAAACK! I accidentally arrived at the tail end of Flailing With the Mongeese to see the Orange-Glo-Rama himself, all decked out in the same damn tux he wears for everything. I quickly averted my eyes in order to preserve my retinas ("No, dear! Never look directly at it!") and waited for the Castle theme to begin.

Now my daughter could have solved my packing problem before I even realized there was a problem. She's quick that way, and by "quick" I mean "impatient with other people's fashion issues but for whom time stands still when we are already fifteen minutes late and she needs to choose between the black pencil skirt and the red pencil skirt"--both of which look fantastic on her tiny size-4 self, by the way.

Me, I'm a taller girl, as Johnny would say. I've always liked my height, and I do stand straight and tall, but there's a secret fear in the back of my mind that the word "burly" could someday be used in the same sentence as "Binky." My kids always crack up when I say this and assure me that that will never be true. But I'm not sure they even really know what I look like as a person--who picked up a pound or two along the way--and not as their beloved parent. Which actually is OK, because I still remember their little voices telling me I'm "the prettiest mom and the best mom in the whole world, the mom of wonders."

Anyway, so my fashion sense is somewhat limited, in the sense that I have no actual fashion sense, so I have this dilemma: I am really, really hoping to meet Johnny at the VIP party after Ice Dreams (and by "meet" I mean "stand awkwardly somewhere near him looking hopeful"). But I don't want to appear as if I just wandered in after having taken a seriously wrong turn somewhere on my way from a western Illinois cornfield. I'm afraid that Johnny, all slim elegance and Balenciaga and Galliano and lots of other fashion-y names I can't pronounce, could actually be allergic to something so plebeian as overalls, and then it would be my fault that his sinuses started draining and he developed that odd rash that prohibited him from getting to ride a yak in Mongolia after all. I don't want to be responsible for some sort of international incident just because I dress like Bill the Yeti.

So my daughter reinserted her iPod earbuds and left, and I sat on the bed and pondered the light blue overalls and the dark blue overalls and whether there's enough money in the plastic Coke bank to maybe buy an actual pair of, say, khaki pants.

On the other hand.

If Johnny stands for anything, it's this: Be yourself. And own that self. All the way. Be who you are, in whatever packaging works for you. It's one of the qualities--on a long list of really admirable character traits--that I most appreciate about him. Funny how a kid of 25 could make this middle-aged mom (middle-aged because I'm planning to live to age 96 so really, I'm only halfway done and don't rush me, please) suddenly rediscover the confidence she never had at 25.

And if anyone in the world were to host a party and say, "Come as you are!" and REALLY mean that, it would be Jesus. Or Johnny Weir.

So: Problem solved.

Look for me in Bensenville. I'll be the tall woman in the dark blue overalls she loves (the smallest ones I own, because I've lost all those pesky extra pounds recently by following a Johnny-inspired meal plan of not really planning to eat any meals) wearing a sparkly "We Love Johnny Weir!" button.

And a really big, confident smile.

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Special thanks to Lizzy Pine, Johnny Weir Facebook fan,
for the mongoose repellent!

copyright 2010 / Binky and the Misfit Mimes / Lynn V. Ingogly / all rights reserved