The Jeggings

From the title you may wonder what spiritual insight I am going to weave in to a blog post on jeggings. Stop wondering. I'm not. I just wanted a light-hearted whinge for a change.

Since the dragon re-appeared in my life shortly before Christmas (oh, and I've decided to stick with the Titanic theme and nickname him Leonardo - he is 'hot' after all) one of the things I decided to further punish myself with was to stop eating.

I find that depressives tend to fall in to one of two categories - those who get low and stuff their faces with chocolate and ice-cream, and those who get low and turn pale at the thought of the merest of morsels passing through their lips. I fall in to the second category. I drink lots of cups of tea, smoke copious numbers of cigarettes and lounge around looking wan and pale. And after a few weeks I realise that I am fitting in to clothes that I was close to throwing away.

So I've lost a bit of weight. The interesting thing about this is a phenomenon called Body Dysmorphia - people start pestering me to eat, telling me that I have clearly lost weight, my clothes start to hang off me, but in the mirror I cannot see the difference - I look exactly the same. Sometimes the 5 senses defy all logic.

Well, you know what they say: "Anorexics, when your knees are bigger than your thighs, start eating cake." And believe me, I'm not quite there yet. Not with my thighs.

Anyhow, I digress. With the January sales in full swing, I decided a few weeks ago that it was the right time to buy some new clothes, given that the clothes that were hanging off me were also falling apart. Call it one small step to boosting my Ego, if you will. The only thing worse than being depressed is being depressed and looking like a tramp.

So I went shopping. I found some cheap trousers in Uniqlo and took my usual waist size to the changing rooms. Oh. Big gaps around the waist. I delighted in the fact that I needed a smaller size, but after buying them felt rather sad that I was only going to fit in to them for a limited amount of time. But after making one purchase, I got the bug, and soon I had a few new outfits all fitting the new teeny-tiny me (surely someone marked the sizes up wrong?) All at bargain prices. Marvellous.

Only one item of clothing was missing to go with the tight, bright sweater dresses which looked awful over trousers: Jeggings.

I decided to shop online and ran a search on eBay. There were jeggings and leggings of various colours and prices. And me? Rather foolishly I went for the cheap option.

"Great Quality!" They promised.

"Fantastic value!" They boasted.

"These items have a lot of stretch, so choose a size smaller" They advised.

I looked at the sizing - no problem with the width, but the length was designed for someone no taller than 5'5". And I am a shade over 5'6". Hmmm. With trepidation and visions of waltzing down the street half-mast, I clicked "Buy Now", deciding that they were cheap enough to take the risk.

When they arrived I realised that I needn't have worried about the length. Each pair are long enough to completely cover my feet, and probably someone else's feet as well (if you're in to that kind of sharing).

But what they make up for in length, they lose in quality. Oh, they have stretch alright. Quite frankly I've seen more resistance in candy floss. I've worn thicker tights. My net curtains are less transparent.

I can get away with wearing them. Just. Unfortunately I have the feeling that these will probably be the last things I grow out of...