I’ll start with the good: four of the five pieces in box 2 were tops to go with the leggings I kept from box 1, as I requested.

It’s all down hill after that.

The wind chill was 14 degrees the evening I opened box #2. So imagine my surprise to find this:

Item #1: Loveappella Dooly Knit Tank

I don’t know what about my “I will not wear sleeveless” feedback on the first box led Stitch Fix to think, “I’ll send her a paper-thin tank top.” I hate this top. I don’t like showing my whole arm. I hate tank tops…no one needs to see my arm pits. The colors are drab and wash me out. The fabric is the flimsiest I’ve ever felt. It is FEBRUARY. I’m cold just looking at this picture. I don’t even think this top goes well with the leggings I kept from box 1 (what I’m wearing in the picture). Also, this is 48 dollars. Unbelievable.

Item #2: Daniel Rainn Newport Tie Neck Blouse

The Pioneer Woman called and she wants her flouncy country blouse back. Seriously, what am I supposed to do with these goofy-ass tassel ties? Lasso cattle? Hell no to this top.

Item #3: Renee C Landry Abstract Dot Print Blouse

This blouse is OK, but I don’t really like it that much. The wrap part doesn’t stay and my right boob keeps falling out. The pattern is really busy and I don’t like the brown. My mother and my husband both like it (I think Dave only likes it for the potential of wardrobe malfunction). Since they like it, it’s the least expensive thing in this box ($28), and I hate the idea of “losing” the $20 styling fee, I’ll probably keep this and never wear it. Joy.

Items #4 and #5: Papermoon Cresson Knit Top and Liverpool Shania Stitched Detail Jean

I think the top is kind of cute in theory, but not on me (again with the horizontal stripes!). Also, “Papermoon” could just as easily be called “paper-thin,” seriously I have no idea how Stitch Fix finds such flimsy tops. This top almost looks like a sweater, but it’s gossamer-thin and made of holes. That glare in the picture is my nude bra, because this top is see through.

This isn’t a great shot of the pants…if they look the same as the black leggings I was wearing in all the other photos, that’s because my fifth item was the same pant in denim. The leggings are the “Madonna leggings.” These jeans are the “Shania jean.” I wonder if my next box will include this same cut of pants in “Lady Gaga meat.” The denim is less forgiving than the leggings. They were a little hard to button. The leggings were a big departure for me, and I mostly bought them so I wouldn’t lose the styling fee. I still haven’t worn them (as evidenced by the tag still hanging off them). So I think one pair of skinny cut pants is enough for me. I tried on this top with my own jeans to see if I’d like it better (see below) and I didn’t.

I had no expectations going into the first box, so I was pleasantly surprised even though I only kept one thing.

But their sophomore effort was disappointing. I hope they start learning from my feedback soon, or I’m going to spend most of my gift certificate on the styling fees.

Of course I know how to apply articles of clothing to myself so I don’t leave my house naked. What I don’t know how to do is recognize items that will fit, look good, and still be comfortable (as opposed to just being comfortable, which I easily and often achieve through butterfleece and other elasticized pant options).

Since I hate shopping, a friend of mine recommended an online personal styling company, Stitch Fix. My lovely mother got me a gift card for Christmas so I signed up and filled out their style profile. They smartly have a very low character limit on their “final comments” section. I could have written a book, but there was only room for this: “I have no idea how to dress myself. I like being comfortable, I would wear sweatpants all the time if I could. I can dress pretty casually for work. What I’d like most is to look more put together when seeing friends-but still comfortable.”

I was hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. But either way, it’s a win/win. I don’t have to buy anything I don’t like. Even if I never like anything, I won’t be any worse off than I am now and I will feel oddly gratified by stumping them with my special arrangement of figure flaws (“see, professional stylists can’t find anything that looks good on me either!”)

My first box arrived today and I’m going to share full body photos of myself now. Viewer discretion is advised.

First of all, let’s keep it real (can we keep it real?) with evidence of what I’m usually wearing at home. Add wool socks and waterproof New Balance sneakers and I’m ready to leave the house!

For a little flavor of my non-fleece wardrobe…here is what I wore on New Year’s Eve (and the previous New Year’s Eve because my wardrobe is really that lame). Just imagine the jewelry I was too lazy to put on for this re-enactment and the shirt in black because laundry.

On to the Stitch Fix items! First two items up for bid: Collective Concepts Cynthia Graphic Print Mixed Material Tank and Liverpool Tallulah Faux Leather Detail Pants.

Let’s call these pants what they are. They are leggings. I never thought I’d be caught dead in leggings, but they fit pretty well and look kind of nice. I don’t think I’d have the balls to actually wear these though and none of the tops I tried on with these did it for me. Leading me to the tank…while the color and pattern is a good match for my taste, I don’t like the cut. I’m not big on sleeveless (particularly not in winter) and there’s a billowy quality to this which makes it look like I’m trying to hide a pregnancy. And heaven knows, I don’t want anyone to think I look pregnant. 

Stitch Fix didn’t suggest (nor would I!) wearing this together, but this is the best picture I got involving item 3, the Stellan Draped Cardigan.

I didn’t care for the cardigan. I’m relatively long waisted with shorter legs, so I feel like this length engulfs me. Also, my Mom made it known that she hates the stripes. With a passion. Seriously.

Because my self-esteem had to this point in the photo shoot remained in tact, I thought I’d include this picture of the same ensemble at a different, horrifying angle.

Item number 4 was the Andrew Marc Ren Mesh Shoulder Dress. This dress was super comfy and even though it was sleeveless, I wanted it to work. I tried it on with the cardigan, but not so much. I also tried it on with a jacket I already own, but the length of it was wrong for the dress. Truth be told, I would never wear this. Too cold without sleeves in winter and fabric too heavy for summer (in D.C., there are two seasons: chilly and sticky).

Item number 5 was a malfunction on my part. I’m not a bag person and somehow I neglected to mark bags as an accessory they should avoid sending me. When I first saw the grey (they say it’s blue but it looks grey to me) leather poking out of the tissue paper, I got all excited that they’d sent me a bad ass grey leather jacket. Then I unfolded it and saw it was a massive tote bag.

The good:

• I was pleasantly surprised that all of this stuff fit me. None of it was too small/tight. None of it was too big. When I go shopping I end up exhausting myself trying on multiple sizes of each item without success.
• I found most of the stuff visually appealing in theory (i.e. “on the hanger”).
• All of the stuff in the bad list below seems like it could be easily fixed over time with my feedback.

The bad:

• I had asked to focus most on casual clothes and clothes for going out with friends. The stylist indicated that she tried to keep things casual and that the little black dress was for going out with friends and date nights. We have different definitions of casual!
• Sleeveless.
• Need clothes, not handbags (again, this was my mistake).

The decision:

• I didn’t love any of the items. While I’m infatuated with the leggings, I don’t have anything obvious in my closet to pair them with and the last thing I need is another article of clothing hanging in my closet that I’ll never wear.
• Definitely sending back the bag, dress, cardigan, and tank.
• Waffling about the leggings. I have three business days to decide.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?

Enrolled in some adult education, started making ice cream, created an ice cream blog, published a memoir piece, gave up trying to de-link my name and this blog (note to co-workers: while I mutter profanity under my breath at the office, I write it out loud here), “won” a craft contest, and had a tarot card reading.

Yes and no, and not really. The monster in my head set 30 goals for 2012. You can see them here. I have a different mind-set about goals right now (stay tuned). I have no desire to paste my 2012 goals here and painstakingly document which I met and which I did not. Does it matter that I didn’t run a 5K in under 30 minutes when I trained really hard, completed two races, and ran faster at the end of training than at the beginning? Does it matter that I went to bed an average of 20 minutes earlier in 2012 than 2011 or that I got 33 minutes extra sleep per night on average when I’m still tired a lot? Isn’t it disturbing that I can tell you those figures?

Looking at last year’s goals cracks me up now. How did I get to a point in life where I could suggest “scheduling weekly unstructured time” without irony? How did I type “go cold turkey on perfectionism” as one of 30 goals with a straight face?

One of my goals was to “locate my inner voice.” Wait…shh! What’s that? I think I hear something…

“ENOUGH WITH THE GOALS…TAKE A FUCKING NAP ALREADY.”

I like my inner voice.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
I’ve been meeting quite a few childfree people lately. And I’m getting old. So I’d be really shocked if anyone close to me got pregnant/gave birth.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
I spent several horrible days believing one of my in-laws was not going to make it, but thankfully (and possibly miraculously?), he did not die.

5. What countries did you visit?
If the U.S. doesn’t count, then 0.0.

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
Enough money to retire. Not kidding.

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I could talk smack about the ice cream class or some other happy event, but the only day from 2012 that “will remain etched in my memory” (which I interpret to mean “never going to forget the date of the event”) is November 6. That was the day my Mom told me she had cancer.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I guess I’d say making new friends. I had really started to worry I wasn’t capable of doing that.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Negativity? Not being a good-enough listener?? Not getting enough sleep??? Tracking my failures so vigorously???? Fuck this question.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Ice cream machine!

12. Where did most of your money go?
Seriously? Mortgage. It will always be mortgage (or rent), won’t it?

13. What did you get really excited about?
Ice cream!

14. What song will always remind you of 2012?
A whopping 9.5 percent of my music collection came out in the last ten years. Here is the only new music I bought all year even though I’ll almost certainly not associate it with 2012 long-term.

a) happier or sadder?
Both. The more I know, the harder it is. The closer I get, the farther away it seems. You know?

b) thinner or fatter?
Fatter.

c) richer or poorer?
Richer, bitches (it’s all about retirement, baby).

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
What I wanted to do.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
What I didn’t want to do.

18. How did you spend Christmas?
In Erie with my family. Spent the first few days of my vacation frantically trying to finish my first cross stitch ever. I won a Subversive Cross Stitch in the Craft Whores contest and selected the bad boy below for my brother, only to be surprised (and horrified) that it was a kit I had to make myself. This was one of my brother’s favorite phrases in our misguided youth. By the time I got this in the frame, it also turned out to crystallize my thoughts about cross stitching eloquently.

19. What was your favorite TV program?
I’m addicted to watching House Hunters International while saying “fuck you” with jealous venom. You guys need a vacation home in Belize? Of course you do. Fuck you. Accountants can easily find work on Grand Cayman? Fuck you. You’re really going to complain about the lack of double sinks in a vacation home? Fuck you. Special shout out to the guy with a 2 million dollar budget who expressed disappointment that there were no windows in the closet: OMFG, FUCK YOU!

20. What were your favorite books of the year?
If I wanted to read, I’d go to school.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?
Holy repetitive quiz, Batman. See #14.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?
Jesus, I don’t get out much, do I? We streamed Moonrise Kingdom for our 2nd annual pajama night and were not amused (we have a 0% success rate for avoiding movies in which a dog bites the big one on our “happy family PJ movie night”).

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I guess I’m too old to remember what I did on my birthday. I know I ate cake, but that’s only because I have a blog. I turned 39, and I don’t plan on aging further.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Errr! How does this question differ from #6? 

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Not naked

26. What kept you sane?
Fear of anti-depressant side effects.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.
A lot of the stuff I thought was important (or at least devoted a lot of time to) is really, really not. Like tracking every last detail of my life…ahem…like end of the year surveys such as these.

Oprah hasn’t asked to interview me yet, but my fellow Precipice author, AmyBeth Inverness, has! She publishes an interview every Friday and I was thrilled when she asked if I would participate. You can read the interview here. AmyBeth asked great questions and I really enjoyed answering them (I suppose if I didn’t enjoy talking about myself, I wouldn’t have a blog, eh?). Also, getting to discuss my Precipice piece allowed me to bask in the afterglow of getting something published one last time before turning to the decision of whether or not to push my luck for the second go-round of the literary anthology. Interesting that I just wrote “push my luck,” since the theme for Precipice this year is “luck.” 

The second announcement is that I’ve started a new blog about ice cream. As I wrote more and more about my ice cream hobby here, I started to think it would be nice to have a special place to focus only on that and keep Logy centered on writing and humor and, well, everything else. You can check out the new blog and my first post about ice cream inspired by the buckeyes I “enjoy” making every year for Christmas at Get the Scoop.

Stephen at Company of H helped me out again with the blog design and I’m pleased with how it looks and functions. I think he believes I’m crazy for not building the site on self-hosted WordPress (especially since my Logy host would let me add a second blog for free), since it limited what we could do with the design a lot, but I wanted to have the built-in community of WordPress.com. I’m so happy with the new look of Logy Express, but I miss how easy it was to connect with other WordPress users on the free hosting platform. If I had it to do over again, I don’t think I would’ve moved Logy Express, I would’ve just tried to tweak the design to make it prettier.

So there’s a blogging tip in addition to my two announcements. Don’t say I never give you anything.

We took the 2012 photo during our Thanksgiving trip to Erie, where the world’s best Christmas card statue lives. I don’t see how we can possibly top this one. Because nothing says “Merry Christmas” like Jesus in a Santa hat. Nothing says “I’m going to hell” like the cursing I did in front of Jesus when I realized I’d forgotten the wireless remote for the camera (the photo shoot can’t go smoothly, it’s part of the tradition).

My brother-in-law doesn’t believe this is Jesus. He’s convinced it’s Copernicus. But I assure you, there is a statue of Jesus at Gannon University and we put a Santa hat on it. I’m a little disturbed that my brother-in-law thinks we are weird enough to put a Santa hat on Copernicus, but lie and say it’s Jesus. But now I feel the need to find a statue of Copernicus for a future photo.

Santa hat difficulty: easy, except for the arctic wind that kept blowing the hat off Jesus’ head.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM TRACY, DAVE, CHUCK, AND JESUS!

I told myself a relationship with this guy was risk-free practice since he already had a girlfriend (long-distance, “agreed to see other people,” blah, blah, blah). I was sick of the lateness of my blooming, I needed to get my mind off of an unrequited love interest, and this guy’s attention was intoxicating. These are shitty reasons to date someone. I can admit I was a hypocrite (neither of us were in it “for the right reasons”).

But just because I was a hypocrite doesn’t mean my ex wasn’t a douche.

I was naive. But it didn’t seem possible that he could just want me for sex, especially since he wasn’t getting any. Even looking back on it, I’m still amazed by his patience and persistence. Good for you, buddy. You had a goal, and you went after it with single-minded determination. I over-analyzed everything he said to me, searching for deep meaning that wasn’t there. I didn’t understand the male mind…yet. How could I have known so little rattled around in there?

The good news? You don’t need to date a douche to learn what you need to know about men. Just read my Man-English Dictionary.

I’m not saying men aren’t capable of love and commitment. I’m saying even then they’re still thinking about banging you 97 percent of the time. The other 3 percent of the time they’re thinking about food or banging Kate Winslet (exact percentages and celebrity fantasies may vary).

Here are some phrases in “man-speak” and their English translations. If you have more to add, please share in the comments because I’m finding this very amusing.

The pinnacle of my ex’s douchiness came during his rehearsed “letting me down easy” speech. We took a walk around campus late one evening right before the end of the semester and he offered, “if you want someone to notice you, get him to see you in the moonlight.”

It was the night of a new moon. I shit you not.

What a douche.

For the record, he still owes me $105. And I want it.

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For auditory learners, here is what men want:

Earlier this year, I submitted a memoir piece to the lovely people at Write on Edge for the first edition of their literary anthology. As I mentioned here, I spent quite some time mining my memory reserves in service of the writing. I’m thrilled that my piece was accepted and to announce that the anthology, Precipice, is now available for your reading pleasure. I’m honored and, quite frankly, surprised to be in the company of such talented writers.

You can click on the link above or on the picture below (Amazon) to obtain your own copy of Precipice. For a low fee, you can read my teenage angst in print or on your e-reader.

Last Wednesday was my 13th wedding anniversary. Dave had his usual Wednesday night jam class thing, and that means on Wednesdays, Dave is gone before I get home. This means that Wednesday is not the night we make sweet weekly love, but rather Wednesday nights I have to not only walk the dog, but also provide my own dinner (my life is hard).

But I found these on the counter when I got home.

I assumed there were 12, because a dozen roses is a thing, right? Later Dave told me there were 13 because we’ve been married 13 years and I was touched in my cold black heart by his  uncharacteristic romantic symbolism. But the best part of my anniversary present was the note on the counter saying “Chuck walk: check.” When I realized I could report directly to the couch, plant my ass there and watch TV, my eyes welled up with tears of joy. ‘Twas a happy anniversary indeed!

Last week was also our 20-year dating anniversary which, holy crap, is a long time, no? We celebrated by seeing Peter Gabriel on his last “Back to Front” tour stop. He performed the album “So” in its entirety in honor of the 25th anniversary of its release. Which occurred when I was FOURTEEN years old and Peter Gabriel didn’t look like an elderly Druid. But he sounded awesome. He also played two other non-“So” sets, including songs from the album “Us” that came out the month I met Dave (11 days before we officially started dating, not that I looked it up and counted). I assume he played “Come Talk to Me” in honor of our 20th anniversary, right?

As I rested my head on Dave’s shoulder and listened to the song, memories of that CD playing over and over as we fell in love came flooding back to me like 20 years hadn’t passed. How the hell did 20 years pass so quickly? Add Peter Gabriel to the growing list of bastards who made me cry at a concert.

Please to enjoy this video (this wasn’t our show, but the only video from our show on YouTube gave me vertigo). Song starts around 2:15:

As you may recall, I am not at all crafty. But I do make ice cream. While ice cream didn’t seem like a craft to me, Suniverse said she wanted to see filthy ice cream. So everything’s about to get funky.

I give you: Fifty Shades of Grey Ice Cream with Pearl Necklace Swirl. Made with the finest cream imported from Houston, Texas.

So for those men out there: the next time the question of what a woman really wants confounds you…when she’s upset with you again because you didn’t give her what she likes…just ask her what she wants, you might get really blown away. What she wants doesn’t cost that much. Of course, sometimes you’re simply not available to give her what she needs. You know she has a sweet tooth, so why not provide her with some ice cream that reminds her of you and is somewhat less foul than the use of ice cream in Fifty Shades of Grey? This ice cream is sure to satisfy her hungry heart.

If you’re not familiar with the ridiculous song I’m making fun of, check out this video:

Although ZZ Top released this song in 1981, somehow my virgin ears were not defiled by it until recently. So much for my memory of the 80s as a time of innocence, when Madonna managed to shock us while remaining 80 percent clothed just because she writhed around a little and implied she’d had sex before. This song also shattered my image of ZZ Top, which previously had been informed solely by the “Legs” video in which they were the tough, but lovable guardian angels who helped that mousy woman at the shoe store prevail over her oppressors by becoming slutty. Texas rockers with hearts of gold, man.

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UPDATE: The lovely ladies at the Craft Whores contest had to invent a new award category just for my repulsive, yet strangely fascinating entry. This ice cream was named “Most Jizztastic.” That’s my new favorite word.