Ready to scruffle
We return now to the annual fret-fest known as Oh, no! The Emmys are next weekend and I have to figure out what to wear.
There was a time, say when I was 23, when I could have flitted into a thrift shop, grabbed the first spangly thing I could find in my size (6, ah the memories), plop down 15 bucks, and show up at a black-tie gala looking like a million bucks – OK, a hundred thousand, but the point is it took no intelligence, sense of style or emotional energy.
Now, all these years later, the Emmy Outfit has become a burdensome task fraught with anxiety, self-doubt, impostor syndrome, indecision and a small amount of not really wanting to go. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmy Awards will be held in Pittsburgh tomorrow night, in a gala that has special meaning for me. Two beloved friends will be inducted into the hall of fame, and I want to be there to celebrate them.
Those two handsome guys will be wearing tuxedos. Yes, there is some work that comes with wearing that, but unless they are going to go with a getup like some men wore to the national Emmy Awards last weekend (kilts, shorts suits, snake-like scarves), they will put on four or five pieces and then stop worrying about it.
For the rest of us, it will not be an easy night.
Let’s skip across the whole “deciding what to wear” drama and get to what happens once we’ve entered the ballroom. After a quick scan to admire all the beautiful gowns, I will have a moment of relief that I wore a jumpsuit and didn’t go for the backup outfit: black pants and white jacket, which would have allowed me to match the wait staff.
And then the scruffling will begin.
Scruffling is the term I invented to describe the adjusting required when one is wearing uncomfortable garments in a public setting.
Most of this happens while we stand up: shimmy dress back down, readjust waistband of skirt so that zipper is where it started when the night began; re-tuck blouse into pants; put on high heels that we’d kicked off under the table; pull hem of pants out of shoe strap; flop arms to release sleeves from underarm crumple. It’s like setting up the tower for round two of a Jenga game.
There are a lot of moving parts. And they come into sharper focus when your name is called to come up on stage. Maybe I’m hypersensitive to this because of that thing that happened the last time the regional Emmys were in Pittsburgh. I wore a velvet suit (stupid in September) and by the time my category was announced, I had sweated through the waistband of the pants. As I sat there waiting to see if I’d won, my pants grew, expanding in length and width as the synthetic fibers absorbed my perspiration and stretched.
“My pants are getting big,” I whispered to my friend. “Do you have a rubber band?”
I pulled at the extra waistband fabric and made a pony tail of it while hoping the man would not call my name. But he did, and as my team stood on stage, I held tightly onto that pant ponytail like it was the trophy itself.
I’ll wear a black jumpsuit tomorrow night – because it fits, but mostly because there’s no waistband and less adjusting. But still, if the person calls my name, I will give things one last scruffle before I walk up to the stage.