Creeping Clothing Blight

As discussed (passim), I am an author, which involves much sitting around in my house by myself. Now, I don't want to ruin the image of authors, but it's fair to say that the clothing one might choose for sitting around the house is not quite the same as what one might choose for leaving the house and being seen by other humans. Essentially, if I am not going out, I tend to work in one of a selection of stretchy tracksuity type garments (cashmere in winter, cotton in summer), with one of those vests underneath that has the bra built in - so stylish! If the weather is really hot, I might wear a cotton smock, and if I am really lazy, I might just wear my pyjamas, and / or a dressing gown. When it's really cold, I have fingerless gloves to enable typing, and a little jacket that is essentially a cropped duvet with sleeves. Not directly relevant to writing, I also have a pair of Crocs, which I keep by the back door for when I need to nip out and water the garden. Bluntly, I look fucking dreadful in all of the above, but it doesn't matter, because the only people who see me in them are either peering nosily into my front window, or have come to the door because they are the postman, are selling me something, or are inviting me to join the a new religion. Happily, rarely all three at once.

Thing is, though, I should really not have used the present tense in the above paragraph. Because I am experiencing Creeping Clothing Blight. It started with the Crocs. First I wore them to water the plants at the front of the house as well - makes sense not to change shoes. Then I started going to yoga in them, because I am already looking shitty in my shitty yoga clothes, and also you have to take your shoes off at yoga and it doesn't take long to remove Crocs. Then I figured that if I was wearing them to yoga, which involves walking past all my local shops, there was no reason why I shouldn't wear them to go shopping as well.

This morning I had an optician's appointment in the highly chic optician at the corner of the extremely fashionable shopping street about twenty minutes' walk from my house. I'd had yoga that morning, and I thought to myself: well, there's no point getting changed. So I went in my yoga gear: frayed, and actually quite dirty, old tracksuit bottoms, so worn that the knees sag out, pulled up over shorts (waistband visible), pulled up over sporty underwear (waistband also visible), "secret" support vest, tatty hoodie that the flatmate I lived with six years ago nearly threw away before I rescued it from the bin, dirty yoga hair tied back, no make-up (ha! as if). I was, however, wearing Converse. Not Crocs. I am clinging to civilisation by my toenails, but can wandering the streets in a black bin liner, stapled to form sleeves, be far away?

(As an aside, I get far more attention from men when I go out dressed like a ropey old slattern. I don't know if I look like an easier target or if I am just deluded and this really is my more beautiful, au naturel self. Anybody who works in one of my local shops care to speculate?)