I recently transitioned from a staunch backpack wearer to someone who wears a stupid little bum bag/fanny pack that isn’t big enough to hold anything.
I was at a bar with some people, and one of my boyfriend’s roommates turned to me and said: Ok. I have to ask. What is up with the backpack?
It was, I think, the first time we’d been in a bar together, usually crossing paths at my boyfriend’s house, so I guess until that moment he had assumed the backpack was filled with necessary items for my overnight stay; tampons, or a hunting knife. But we had come to the bar from my house, which was only a five minute walk away. I assume he was wondering what I could possibly need that required the presence of the backpack, since I would presumably return home after the bar and would have no use for a hunting knife on the walk home, and surely no one person could need an entire backpack of tampons for a single evening out. I assume this is why he asked. I quoted it back at him later and he said I was misremembering what he said but I wasn’t.
I considered the question. What is with the backpack. Or perhaps more specifically, what is in the backpack that means I must carry it with me everywhere, even though it ruins literally any outfit I pair it with apart from maybe that North Face fleece I got at a thrift store in Japan instead of wearing my Dad’s actual North Face fleece from the 70s (coz then I can’t say Oh I got it at a thrift store in Japan), which that guy from Hinge told me that I ‘couldn’t wear in Bushwick’ which is exactly the kind of stupid statement that someone who lives in Midtown would say about what you can and can’t wear in Bushwick. I don’t even live in Bushwick. What is in the backpack.
Mostly assorted debris. Pieces of administrative paper folded in half that were important enough to keep instead of throw away, but not important enough to ever remove from the backpack and put in some kind of folder, so instead they gradually osmosed into the very fabric of the bag and their text became illegible. Important paper. And gum. Gum which continues to work its way out of the stupid little paper fold it’s sold in and then transfers itself to everything else in the backpack so that the grooves of my apartment key are filled with sticky green specks of crap that make it difficult to open the door with it. Evidently, things I couldn’t possibly leave my house without.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to get rid of the backpack. I have numerous handbags, actually, mostly given to me by my sister, who has a much higher opinion of me and my style than I or it deserves. They even have their own hook inside the wardrobe: the handbag hook. They never leave the handbag hook.
I’m just not the sort of person who can pull off a handbag. Yes, a handbag, pretty much the most universal accessory: I am the only person in the world who can’t pull it off. Obviously untrue and laden with self-importance. But it just feels weird when I put one on my shoulder, like I’m trying to convince everyone in the vicinity that I am a serious person who carries a serious bag filled with serious items, and that façade will crack the second I open my mouth and say something inappropriate or stupid. It’s a style I covet constantly, that kind of camel coat, tiny gold earrings, Cuban heeled-boot wearing girl you see on the train who is dangling a handbag from the crook of her elbow and answering work emails on her phone. She is not listening to reruns of My Dad Wrote a Porno on her phone, she is answering work emails on her phone. She has her hair slicked back (with what? Seriously, with what? Hair gel? Is that a thing people are still using?) into a low bun and layers of thin gold necklaces and she makes me feel like a fucking piece of crap even if I thought I looked hot as shit right before I got on the train. I hate this woman, and yet I try to emulate her constantly. I actually own all of the things listed above – except hair gel, although my old roommate did try a slick-back on me once when I had short hair and I looked like I was running an unsuccessful presidential campaign – and I’ve tried wearing all of them at one point, in combination or as a ~statement piece~, and I always end up taking it/them off and putting them in the back of a drawer, shaking my head at my own presumption. I cannot use a handbag. I dress like a man I would want to date.
I see the clothes in the store, these simple, clean-cut clothes, and I think they look boring as fuck. I breeze right by them and buy yet another white T-shirt with a picture on that doesn’t fit in a flattering way. I bought a bra once (three actually) from one of those organic cotton, natural dye places where all the models are lounging in and around waterfalls, but none of them have fit since the first time I wore them (which is why I kept buying new ones, obviously). They’ve all stretched. Oh, is it because I didn’t HaNdWaSh OnLy? Fuck you.
In lieu of having any idea how to dress myself I have resorted to copying people in my immediate vicinity. When I lived with two architects I filled my wardrobe with clothes from Cos. When I lived with a dancer I bought coloured jeans and the aforementioned organic cotton bras. Now I live with an effortlessly stylish girl with gigantic curly hair like a lion, except actually like a lion, not like when people say like a lion but what they actually mean is like a Tresemmé advert. She wears tiny little tank tops with stringy straps and jeans and jams a baseball cap on her giant hair and looks ridiculously cool. She wears sunglasses inside. I got a perm once and was informed by the hairdresser: It’s not going to look like that picture. Thanks pal, here’s $200. The girl in the coffee shop I go to was wearing and In-n-Out T-shirt once so I bought one from Etsy. I wore it the next day and she complimented me on it, and I told her I had bought it because I saw hers. A fancy girl would have managed to parlay this interaction into a meaningful friendship. The next time I saw her she misheard me saying ‘Cold brew with a little bit of milk’ as ‘Cold brew with oat milk’ and I said ‘NO!’ with a fervour disproportionate to how I actually feel about oat milk, which is indifferent. Now our interactions are mostly silent. I am not a fancy girl.
One good thing:
I am writing this way ahead of schedule because I’m going away tomorrow on a backpacking trip in Washington state to potentially get eaten by a bear. That’s probably not something a fancy girl would do either, heh. Point being, it’s been a short week from which to choose one good thing, but when I was packing earlier I found a bunch of hot chocolate sachets stashed in a pocket of my backpack (a huge travelling one, not the abandoned everyday one). I think they’re left over from when my pal and I hiked the West Highland Way in Scotland approximately three years ago. Since we were going to Scotland we assumed it would be Scotland weather, but as it transpired they were having their hottest week in history, clocking in at about 30 degrees Celsius. It was so hot that we could barely bring ourselves to eat the military ration packs we had bought, which had a terrifying contraption built into them that would heat the food up when you cracked it or dropped it on the ground. So I never used them. I probably won’t use them on this trip either, but I might, because my preferred evening tipple would be whisky but I’m probably going to be informed that we can’t take whisky because it weighs too much. Stay tuned.
One bad thing:
I was doing laundry ahead of the backpacking trip when it started raining torrentially, so during the ninety second walk from the Laundromat to my apartment the clothes all got wet again. This is not something I used to have to worry about because I didn’t used to live in a city where having an in-unit washer dryer is such a commodity that people list it on their Hinge profiles. It is better in some ways though. If you only have an in-unit washer (which is mostly the case in London unless you’re rich) then your apartment will be perennially draped with sheets and underwear hanging off every surface until you realize it’s never going to dry because it’s freezing cold and raining outside, so you give up and fold it and put it away anyway, so you always smell slightly of mould. Giving up one convenience for another, I suppose.
I viscerally FELT this cold brew order friendship meet-cute gone askance. Also, glad to know I'm not the only one who aspirational clothing buys. I own so many brocade shoes you would think I was Dorian freaking Gray.