Avoiding Dates Like The Plague (But Not Dressing The Part)

Uh-oh. I'm thinking I might be dressed to sexy for the office.

This morning in the breakroom, a female co-worker was giving me the up-and-down-times-ten. The kind of look I get when I'm working on the corner of Two-dollah and Me-Love-You-Long-Time Streets. Not in, you know, my day job. And this contemptuous look was accompanied with, "Wow." (Not exclamation wow but ironic wow.) Believe you me, if I had a button to button, I would have buttoned it. Instead I said, "I know my heels are really high!" and kicked my leg up like a reject for the Rockettes. (Forward extension of the leg, Original Me. Forward.)

For the rest of the day whenever one of the girls in the office would give me that look (that "how much?" or "work it!" look), my insecurity would take hold and blurt out, "I know I am probably too sexy for the office." Which comes across like: I'm too sexy for this shirt (so sexy it hurts) ... too sexy for your love...and, perhaps, I am too sexy for this song. (Which did you know has a guitar riff straight from Jimi Hendrix, "Third Stone From the Sun." Just to show you I am a fact-finder and not a poster child for lycra tube dresses leaning into car windows or face down in men's crotches. In my day job.)

Perhaps I should not have put together a new ensemble of existing pieces from my wardrobe, thrown them in my gym bag, and then dressed AT the office. You sample the recipe FIRST -you know, before you share it with the people. (Southern Living, Vol. 1, No. 1)

Is it that my silk blouse (Shakesperean-esque in its bustier-clinging empire waist and princess neckline) gives way to a cinching of my tiny-tiny little lady bits thus giving the appearance of a girl who carries the world in her bosum? (Lipstick? Check. ID? Check. Two dollar bills? Check. Small baby? Check.) The suppressed rack makes me look like, well, I have a rack. I could get on board with that. Is the pencil skirt too flirty with the little dip in the back hem? So the silhouette is more va-va-voom (and actually begs for fishnets)? Are the shoes - the shoes! - in their 3-inch platform leapard print heel too bedroom-sexy for the boardroom? I wanted to wear my hair in a bun but I needed the hair on my back since the blouse kind of dips in the back. Yeah, kinda lower than I anticipated. I don't like wearing my hair down in the office. That's street-wear.

Edited to add: OK, in all honesty, after all is said and posted, I just now looked at myself in the mirror (Confidence, you know, giving myself the one-over), and it MAY appear that the blouson-effect of the princess- empire- seaming of the blouse?...yeah...I may appear pregnant. Soooo, the up-and-down body-to-shoes-body-to-shoes-body-to-shoes look MAY just have been: she-looks-pregnant-but-fuck-me-shoes-say-perhaps-not confused look of someone who may just be ready to ask: When are you due?