the guilt
i hate buying new clothes, especially when those clothes are rather expensive. today i bought this cardigan and i feel like i ought to return it, but i've been hunting for a black cardigan for months now and this is the nicest one i've found. i do have a small separate subaccount just for my splurges (so it's not like i took food out of my boy's mouth for this) and i know i'll get lots of use out of it, but...
i love eileen fisher, but i hardly own any of her stuff. (to be completely honest, it's at least partially because i don't feel old enough to wear bridge sportswear!) i feel like i don't deserve to wear nice stuff, though, because... well, just because. i also harbor feelings of inadequacy based on all the times i've gone into nicer stores and been snubbed by uppity salesladies. sometimes i feel like i ought to be equally uppity because -- after all -- they're retail and i have an eminently respectable office job, but the combo of innate shyness and low self-esteem sort of makes that situation improbable.
i know i mentioned earlier that i don't buy things that require dry-cleaning, so that also cuts out a lot of the nicer garments. i recently dropped my old standby dry-cleaners after they messed up the first order i've brought them in a long time, so i don't currently have one i trust. i needed wash-and-go clothes after paul was born (milk spillage. baby spit-up. leaky diapers. need i say more?), so i didn't even bother looking at anything i couldn't crumple into a tiny ball and shove into the washing machine. now that he's older i see that i was kind of foolish because i always change my clothes as soon as i get home from work, so it's not bloody likely i was ever going to be in a position to let the boy urp all over a suit or anything like that. i'm not a big fan of those home dry-cleaning kits, but that's because i didn't like how it worked the one and only time i ever used one (early nineties?).
the new cardigan doesn't require dry-cleaning, but it's recommended. maybe for the price of it, i ought to give in and take it somewhere when it gets dirty. can anyone recommend a good dry-cleaner in the south bay?