From Ma'am to Miss in under 4 hours

A few weeks ago, I was over at our local art museum because I am working on a blouse and I just had to see a Chinese robe there for some reason. I knew I needed to be there later in the day but I was driving by anyway so I stopped in.

I was wearing sandals, cropped jeans which displayed my henna lotus tattoo around my left ankle quite nicely, a blue sleeveless shirt, my blue sun jacket and my hair up in a twist. After seeing the robe, and visiting my favorite pieces, I wandered over to see where the event was to be set up. A couple cute catering guys came over and explained what was going to be there and as I was leaving they said "see you later, Ma'am." I noticed it mainly because around here its unusually to be called anything, esp. by 20 somethings working in the museum.

So I went home, took a shower, washed my hair, the usual stuff. Put on a blue floral Liberty lawn skirt , a light moss colored silk sweater, my favorite necklace, a lighter pair of sandals and went back to the museum in a few hours. Went to the annual meeting, said "hi" to everyone, and ran into the caterer guys again. This time they called me "miss" and didn't seem to remember speaking to me earlier. I looked around me, I wasn't the youngest person in the room, but many of the people there could have been my parents or grand parents, but that didn't seem to account for it. I wasn't wearing make up in either occasion, nor I wasn't wearing form fitting clothes.

I saw a lot of these two guys because they kept bring me plates of stuff I liked and could eat. I had so much shrimp, polenta, buffalo cheese bacon wrapped figs and I don't know what else, I didn't want dinner or anything until breakfast. They also had this non alcoholic pear cider, which was actually de-alcoholized. Ikea has it, and I really like it. Its so much better than the usual stuff at parties. I was pretty thrilled food and drink wise because for years, decades even, I have been requesting that they have non-alcoholic drinks that are not just club soda or fizzy water and food that is dairy free and gluten free! I wrote the museum a nice note after wards, of course :-)

I started really thinking about the clothes I was wearing and started experimenting. After a couple weeks, I concluded it was the jeans. Most of the women around here who wear jeans like that are my age or older, or at least look older. Younger women around who wear cropped jeans pants wear skin tight pairs. I don't particularly like cropped pants in general but they were what I could find when I needed something, cost about $7 on sale and met the needs that I had at the time. They are great for working in the garden and food coop.

This has begun a general experiment with clothes period. I like experimenting, and I also practice things a lot. The route I walk everyday through my neighborhood is great for experimenting since you run into a a wide variety of people. The past couple weeks I have been testing reactions to t-shirt colors. Now when I walk you can't see more than 12 x 18 inches of the t-shirt since I wear a sun jacket open on top which is blue, kind of like this one only longer parka length and no gathered bottom. I tried the following colored t-shirts, all of which are in my colors and look nice on me, salmon, moss green, various blues, red and a nice brown. Nothing else in the outfit was different. Oh I also wear a hat outside , pretty much always, this hat which I attach various scarves to sometimes, this time I wore it unadorned.

I made no approach to people other than to briefly look at them the same way I always do. I found that if I wore the blue t-shirts, medium to lighter blue, people would say hi to me, other colors they might nod or smile but not the same reaction. Also if I knew them and I was wearing the blue shirts, they would stop and chat, otherwise they didn't. I remember reading years ago that variations on sky blue and light lemon yellow were friendly colors, but I never tested it out before.

I am going to put on the Ma'am pants and go volunteer at the coop now, it will make me appear more stern to the kids, and stop the younger guys hitting on me, except of course the "I like older women" ones, what is it with those guys anyway?


Ha! Cotton Incorporated "The touch the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives" basically says they are for the mature market!