SelfAbsorbed.ME : ‘It’s Your Life, We Just Write it Funnier’

This past weekend, I treated myself to an afternoon of shopping. It was a reward for potentially ruining someone else’s life (by accident, obviously!), but managing to get through a week without completely screwing up my own. Now, given these desperate times of financial instability for both myself and the world at large, this was mostly an outing of window shopping and you-can-touch-but-you-can’t-buy browsing. I imagine I experienced the same emotional highs and lows of a desperately single man spending his afternoon in a strip club. However, I did manage to come away with some loot.

I bought a skirt, two dresses, a shawl, a shrug, and four scarves, among other things. You must be thinking, she really broke the bank with this one. But you are wrong! Because all of these things are actually one item! Amazing! It’s like a thneed from Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, except I’m pretty sure its production isn’t single-handedly killing a beautiful, magical countryside–after all, the item is made in L.A.

Obviously this article, the circle scarf, comes from American Apparel, a store that continually dupes me into buying shapeless pieces of fabric promising that they will transform into whatever accessory or apparel my heart desires. In this case, American Apparel cites TWELVE different examples of how to wear the scarf/shirt/dress, but states confidently that the possibilities are ENDLESS. Since I am living in what my roommate jokingly describes as “povo” (the heavily exaggerated and highly abbreviated form of the adjective “impoverished”) conditions, the idea of an endless-for-the-price-of-one-deal is impossible to turn down.

Realistically, if I had a sewing machine and any sort of practical life skills, I could make most of what I buy from American Apparel. My endless-for-one find is basically a HUGE piece of fabric sewn together at the ends. But, as I have neither a sewing machine nor practical skills, I looked at the circle scarf and chose to see infinite possibilities rather than a bulky mass of nothing. A smart man’s trash is an idiot’s treasure.

However, I wonder if it’s the same lack of practicality that causes me to FAIL so miserably at creating any of the endless possibilities the scarf has to offer. I’m beginning to realize that my purchase is kind of like a game and I don’t have the skills to get beyond level one: Scarf World. My attempts to create anything else have been, well, less than impressive. My roommate documented the series of attempts.


There’s a part in Disney’s The Little Mermaid when Ariel washes up on the beach totally naked because her fins have been transformed into legs–which means she also has human reproductive organs and a bottom! They must be covered immediately! So she manages to dress herself in some kind of sheet–maybe a part of a sail–and rope that she finds on the beach. This scene was the only thing I could think of while I was furiously working with the circle scarf. And the final product is pretty reminiscent of Ariel’s beach attire (that she got for free, the tiny, usually-mute practical voice yelped in my head).

Whatever. Ariel looks hot in that scene.

Work it, girl.

Photo Credit: americanapparel.net, students.ou.edu/P/Lesley.B.Pierce-1/littlemermaid.html