My gender-inverted version of the famous Babylon 5 "Fasten then Zip" scene from the episode Babylon Squared.

Garibaldi: Mind if I ask you a question?
Sinclair: Sure.
Garibaldi: Okay, it's morning. You get ready to go to work. You put on your bra. Do you clasp in the front and then twist it around or just clasp it in the back?
Sinclair: What kind of question is that?
Garibaldi: Look, we got two hours to kill...
Sinclair: Forget it!

Sinclair: Why do you wanna know?
Garibaldi: Why do I wanna know? Because I think of these things sometimes. I was getting dressed this morning - then I stopped and started thinking about it. Does everybody do it the same way? Does it have to do with cup size? Band size? Wrist strength?
Sinclair: Do you think about this stuff a lot?
Garibaldi: Yeah.

Sinclair: *sighs* Clasp, then twist. You?
Garibaldi: No twist, just clasp.
Sinclair: Huh.

Garibaldi: Do you put your arms through the straps first?
Sinclair: We're done.

I've begun to notice a pattern with business trips lately. As the trip approaches, I get increasingly worried about if the clothes I have to fit the venue fit me. This can be in the least, a subconscious stressor, and in the worst, outright panic. Each time I manage to get through the business trip, but it often takes a toll.

The problem is that now that I work out of my apartment it's easy to build a wardrobe of comfortable, geeky T-shirts and jeans. Then when I actually need to go to an office, everything I have is almost two years old. In those two years, I lost a lot of weight, had major surgery, and gained much of it back albeit in different places. The long skirts I used to wear five days a week now seem too obscuring and don't reflect my more attractive attributes (as my spice like to remind me). 

I other words, I need a new wardrobe. 

Furthremore, I need a new wardrobe with a style that better corresponds to the circumstances of my daily life. Button-down blouses are practically unsuitable for anything other than going to an office. Replacing those with new blouses wouldn't solve the problem, as they would sit in my closet or my luggage until the next business trip. Instead, I need something that's dressy, but comfortable enough to wear out with friends, as well as to a business casual venue. 

Complicating this is two factors. First, I prefer simple clothing. Few patterns, colors, and no requriement for layering with the exception of the occasional cami. Second is carry-on capacity. If I cannot pack five days of clothes in a piece of luggage, I'm in trouble. I loath checking luggage and certainly do not trust the airlines. The two factors combined -- to say nothing about the money involved -- will make this a long process. 

Nevertheless, it's time to go exploring. 

It's been several months since I had been on a business trip, and the first time to a new location in over a year. The combination of a new location and a week of solitary time have conspired to make me introspective.

While it's nice to be on the road again, things are certainly not the same. For one thing, I need a better work wordrobe. Since I work from home, I've grown accustomed to T-shirts and jeans as my daily attire. While it's nice to dress up once and a while, I'm beginning to realize just how much it no longer suits me. For one thing: Skirts.

Skirts were my daily attire back in my consulting days. Rarely would I ever break out a pair of slacks, or Universe forbid, jeans on a business trip. I simply wouldn't feel "professional". Since surgery last year, however, I've grown a bit more comfortable with my butchy side. I find that I actually look better in jeans. Given the right pair of slacks, I'd probably look better in those than a skirt.

Skirts no longer show off my figure well as my figure has changed so drastically in the last year. Many of my curves appear only when viewing me laterally rather than head-on. Skirts tend to emphasize body outline when viewed face-to-face; my outline is rather poor in that angle. Tighter fitting clothing tends to negate that problem, while skirts tend to emphasize it. I'm unsure if long skirts versus short skirts has any effect as I only have long skirts with me on this trip. 

Many of my blouses are rather tight given the changes in my body shape. Several are practially unwearable, others mearly uncomfortable. Before the trip I was in a near panic about this. I was afraid that none of them would look good on me, and had taken the tightness as a personal failing. Pazi had pointed out to the contrary -- that the tightness was actually a benefit in disguise. At the time, I couldn't see past my own embarassment. 

Thoughtout all of this, I'm beginning to realize that I lack a lot of processing time at home. This processing time is critical for my own emotional well being as I tend to need a good amount of time to think things through. When I was living alone, I had that practically every night that I had free time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not denied processing time now that I'm sharing an apartment. My own behavioral pattern tends to push that needed processing time away until some assumed time when I would have the privacy to think more clearly. It's hard to say to my partner, "I'd really appreciate some quiet time," when it's so easy to simply put on a movie and distract myself until bedtime.  This is a subtle behavior that will require a lot of reprogramming on my part. 

There's more, but lunch is over, and I really should put the blog down.