And the Dorks shall inherit the earth...

The wonderful Rhian has created a new award, and I'm lucky enough to be one of the first recipients,

Now some of you may be wondering about what makes me so special, but of course, this is not my only claim to dorkiness... I'm such a uber-dork I have my own categories.


Dancing...
There's the How I was a Human Bowling Ball and lived to tell the Tale...story that was my award winning entry.

And there was my tapdancing debut. Do you remember The Village People's Do the Shake? Now, imagine a 38 year old, little fat girl, dressed as a cow, tapdancing badly to this song. We stomped onto the stage, and at one point I was so nervous, that I had disorientated myself, and instead of ending up with the rest of the troops at the back of the stage, I had moved forward, so doing an involuntary solo... another couple of missteps and I would have gone over the edge of the stage!

Year two wasn't any better... doing a gangster/ showgirl routine to Madonna's Hanky Panky. Except, I'm not showgirl material, so instead of a gold, tinselly sexpot I looked like a gold, tinselly sausage... crammed into a dress that shed all day in a major heatwave in a theatre without air-conditioning. That was ok... but a fellow dancemate and I, losing our place, and jumping 2 verses ahead of everyone else wasn't... and with my teacher's mantra running through my head of whatever you do, don't stop dancing... I made up my own little interpretive dance that was a mix of Shirley Temple and whirling dervish.

Fashion...
Those of you who have been reading the Tales of Miss Frou Frou from the beginning will be familiar with one of my earliest posts about my various fashion faux pas...

Dating and Food...
Sigh... I'm the girl who always manages to miss her mouth when eating and trying to make an impression. Two examples that spring to mind, going to take a drink out of a megacup of Coke at the movies on a date once and squeezing the cup just a little too hard and ending up with half the cup in my cleavage.... or even more embarrassing, laughing at a date's joke just as I took a sip of hot chocolate and ending up spraying it out my nose... and no, surprise, surprise... never had a second date with either.

Slips, Trips and Pratfalls...
Apart from my human bowling ball routine, I also regularly trip over ants...

Fell down a flight of stairs at Flinders Street Railway Station once... one step, and I bounced all the way down and was still hanging on to a suitcase and a shoulder bag when I hit the bottom... actually they were the cause of my, minor, injuries... a bump on the nose from the suitcase hitting me in the face all the way down and a twisted finger as my denim shoulderbag straps had twisted around my finger.

But the most uber-dorkish moment was arriving for a football match that MFL was playing in on a day when it had rained incessantly. Walked up to the car my godmother was sitting in, and did the big dramatic 'ta da' and went arse over tit in the mud. My godmother burst into laughter and the woman sitting in the drivers seat was asking 'where did she go...?' My beautiful new red chenille top was covered in cold, wet, sloppy mud.

But that wasn't the worst... luckily I was going to stay the weekend, so had a change of clothes in the car. Took my young godsister with me, while I changed in the car, she was supposed to play lookout and let me know if someone came along who could see. Got stripped down to my undies and changed and only then noticed the man sitting in the car parked in front, looking avidly into his rear view mirror. My godsister's response when I asked why had she not told me he was there... you said, tell me if someone comes along... he's been there all along!

There have been way too many examples of tripping both up and down stairs, or slipping on uneven floor surfaces too keep track... my knees and shins have callouses.

I'm not going to award a Uber-Dork award to anyone else... not sure if there is anyone else beamed down from my planet... but feel free to share your own uber-dork stories.

I will regard this great honor not so much as an award for what I have achieved, but a standard to hold against what I have yet to accomplish...
Eve Harrington, All About Eve, 1950

The Empress' New Clothes...

I've been shopping a lot lately. Haven't bought a great deal, but not through lack of trying. I don't think guys understand how truly frustrating it can be shopping for clothes, especially clothes for me... here are some of the reasons why:

The Land of the Giants... I'm 5ft 2, so a bit of a shorty. A guy once told me I was almost a dwarf, which was a bit extreme, but I'm little, and I compound that by never wearing heels (that's a life-preserving technique as I've been known to trip over ants). So I'm pretty low to the ground and as previously mentioned, I'm also someone that will never, ever be called slim.

Finding clothes to fit me, is almost as difficult as finding clothes that suit me. I don't know why the assumption is that just because you've got an ample bosom and a big bottom, that you're also tall. If I cut the excess fabric off a pair of trousers I tried on the other day I would have had enough material to make myself a vest!

And in most cases the trousers are so full, that if I took them up to where I need them to be, I'd be wearing clown pants...

You used to be able to buy trousers in different lengths, short legged, regular and long legged. Now, all I can do is buy what are meant to be 3/4 pants and have them sit just above my ankle.


Did someone mention clowns?.. For the first time in several years, the colours that are in this year are colours that I love... greys, black, white and red, red, red...

Except when you go into the big girls shops, were the majority of clothes are bright orange, lime green, purple and a particularly virulent shade of turquoise, and sometimes that's all in the same outfit.

Those Frills and Things and Buttons and Bows... why do they assume that big girls all want to audition for jobs at Darryl Lea? Remember those flowery smocks with the big floppy bows... well that's mostly what you've got to deal with. Or frilly bits, particularly around your cleavage... or sequins... I'm only wearing sequins when I accept my Academy Award for best screenwriter/ actress/ director!

And more on buttons... this is not an exclusive to big girls gripe... this applies to all women's shirts... we know what you're doing, so you better stop it right now, you dastardly bean counters, who have decided to decrease the number of buttons on shirts in an attempt to keep costs down. So instead of the required number of buttons, you've removed the odd one or two, and then spaced out the buttonholes with the end result being, no matter how big and loose the shirt, as soon as you sit or move your arms, you end up a with huge gape across your chest...

Size does matter... these are real experiences I've had in the last few weeks.

An itty bitty thing, probably all of 16, and about size 4, with her spakfilla makeup and braces when I asked if the store had leggings in my size, gave me the look up and down and said 'not in your size we haven't'.

My mum got very enthused over a lovely cardy for me in a well known store recently, and when I said there's no point looking at it as it won't fit, said but these go up to an x-large. When I said, an x-large in this store is probably a size 16, she didn't believe me, until we asked a shop assistant, only to have her say an x-large was a 14!

And then the polar opposite... a friend from work had great fun throwing clothes at me over the top of the change room door at a major department store last Friday night. Try this on... now try this on... She was surprised when I said, this x-large is going to be way too big... I'm going to need a small! She didn't realise that most big girl labels also use the small, medium, large, x-large sizes, but in this instance the x-large meant a size 24+. She cracked up when I opened the door clutching a skirt at my waist, and then let it go, and watched it fall gracefully around my feet.

And don't get me started on lingerie... I want to be able to wear every colour of the rainbow under my clothes... was very keen on a set of red velvet bra and knickers until I realised they weren't in my size. Doesn't matter anyway, as I think they were designed for boys in mind, as the velvet was on the outside...

Fashion...turn to the left... Fashion... turn to the right... We are the goon squad and we're coming to town...beep, beep

I have a confession to make... I'm an uncoordinated, fashion tragic... I shouldn't be let out of the house without a keeper... sigh...

Yesterday I was on an interview panel. Have only been at my job for 5 months, so still finding my way, and getting to know people and them getting to know me. I was the token chick on a 4 person panel, and was joking around prior to the first interview...contradicted one of the guys when he introduced me as the OH&S guru, and said no, I'm the OH&S Diva!**

Things going swimmingly until we stopped for a loo break after the 2nd interview. Washing my hands and looked at myself for the first time in the mirror and realised I had my top on inside out... the print on the inside was similar to the print on the outside, but I've got seams running down my arms and across my shoulder blades and the tag hanging out on the back...sigh...

This will teach me to wear things that don't need ironing, and to be such an undomesticated goddess that I drag clothes out of the basket of washing I've taken off the line a week ago that is still sitting in the middle of the kitchen table as I stagger bleary eyed towards the kettle and the caffeine.

But in driving back to the office afterwards I started to remember the number of times I've had a 'wardrobe malfunction'. What is it they say about humans... we're the only animal that blushes..or needs to... I do a nice shade of blush!

So here is recorded for all posterity, Miss Frou Frou's advice to avoid fashion faux pas:

Before making a grand entrance always look down - Fronted up at a party once, and didn't realise until I'd arrived and was inside that I was wearing one brown shoe and one white... same style, hence I hadn't noticed when I was walking, just different colours...as I was wearing a brown dress with white spots, bluffed my way through and said I had planned it.

If you must wear a bathing cap make sure it's not red - went to a fancy dress as Raggedy Ann once. I loved that outfit, red tights, black mary-janes, white pantaloons, with a white with red hearts smock, and a white pinafore. As my hair was short, I'd made a red crepe paper wig, and cause my hair is dark, bought a red bathing cap to wear underneath it. I looked cute as, and was having a lovely time dancing energetically. Took a toilet break and discovered to my horror that sometime on the dance floor I'd lost my paper hair, and there I was in all my bald glory... I looked like Telly Savalas with a bad case of sunburn.

Don't ever go to costume parties organised by boys - same costume, different party. Invited to a BBQ Costume Party at a friends. This time, no wig, as my hair was long (half way down my back) so I tied red rags through it. Except, only person in costume was me, and for a brief time the host, dressed as a footballer - what kind of a costume is a footballer anyway... To add insult to injury, he went and changed when he realised none of the other guests were dressing up... and I'd driven from Heidelberg to Keysborough dressed like this...

The gothic look is fine but take an umbrella - once arrived for what was thankfully a telephone job interview at an agency after being caught in a sudden downpour. I knew my clothes and hair were sopping wet, but was surprised at the look on the receptionist's face when I introduced myself and thought how nice she was when she went away and came back with a clean handtowel and a key to the bathroom and said you've got time to dry off before the call comes through. Until I looked in the bathroom mirror and realised my mascara had run to such a degree that I looked like Alice Cooper/ Marilyn Manson's love child... streams of black running down my face...

Weddings are hideous and always make sure your underpants are nice - I once walked across a crowded function room and stood with my back to the room at a wedding with my skirt tucked into my underpants. Not sure what was more embarassing, standing there with my bum hanging out for all to see, or the frantic manouevres trying to extract my dress from my knickers and stockings after the waitress whispered quietly into my ear.

Weddings are hideous, elastic is the bane of my existence and it can always get worse - picture this... my one and only experience as a bridesmaid. Bride, ex-fashion model, 5ft 9 in her stockings, slim and gorgeous. Other bridesmaid, about the same height, slim and very proud of her recent boob surgery to lift and separate. And me...5ft 2, almost as round as she is tall dumpling. Bride, in her wisdom, decides that the 'maids will wear burgundy Scarlett O'Hara style dresses, complete with wide off the shoulder flounces and multiple petticoats and pink stilletto heeled shoes (remember, for a girl who trips over ants regularly, any heel is a health hazard).

So, pick up the dress the night before the wedding. Already very anxious as I'm going to have to go braless. While the boulder-holders might be the first thing that comes off of an evening when I get home, I haven't been braless in public since I was 10!

Put the dress on morning of the wedding, only to discover the elastic in the off the shoulder neckline has gone... and I'm thinking I'm going to have to tuck my boobs into my underpants! Some needle and thread and I am literally sewn into the dress with very strict instructions not to move my arms too high or too wide.

It got worse... the bride decided to have Jaguar wedding cars. Gorgeous cars, but you try and look elegant while climbing out of a jag in an off the shoulder dress with hooped petticoats, held together with thread and a prayer, at the same time that you're trying to get a 3 year old flower girl to stop pulling her dress up over her head to show everyone her pretty knickers (heah that's my gig). I ended up flashing major cleavage at the collected wedding guests waiting on the church steps... talk about upstaging the bride.

It got even worse... wedding over, photo's taken, Toast to the bridesmaids, and I'm sitting with the now exhausted almost asleep 3 year old flower girl on my lap whose got one finger up her nose and the others clutched around the edge of my dress. As I start to stand up with her in my arms, the top of the dress starts a slow descent down... . The groomsman saved the day, with a frantic whisper from me, he wrapped his arm around me, clutching acres of cloth (and breast, come to think of it) and held on for dear life.

And then there is the whole 'if you don't want them looking at your feet, look ridiculous' school of tap dance costumes - I'll have to save that till another time, better go and organise something to wear to work tomorrow.

** Wonder what an OH&S Diva would wear? Rhinestone/Cats Eye Safety Goggles, with a orange flourescent hazmat suit with purple safety boots?