Dressed for Success

This is an update from my Crisis of Style in November.

Everyone knows that old adage “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.”

My problem is that the job I want is writing from home. Or the beach. Or from my home at the beach. For that I need jeans and flip flops.

But my problem is I have to go through a job where jeans and flip flops aren’t appropriate in order to get to the job I want.

I’m okay with my current day job. It’s by far not my dream job and one I would never have imagined I’d be doing for, gulp, almost 15 years now. But it’s secure and pays well.

And in 905 days I can take early retirement.

That’s the plan anyway. To retire and write full time. Or at least part time enough to make ends meet.

Still, for now I have to make the day job work. The better position that I’m in when retirement actually does come the easier it will be to make that move.

That’s why at the beginning of the year I started wearing a tie to work every day. I have no illusions about a promotion or a raise. It’s simply something I’m doing to make me a better employee, or at least to make me feel like I’m one.

When I worked in Washington, DC a suit was standard attire. And even for several years after I moved to Richmond, I had a closet full of suits, shirts and ties.

Gradually, however, my office shifted to more casual attire. When that happened I stopped replacing the dress clothes and opted for more business casual attire. Nothing wrong with that.

At least there’s nothing wrong with that until you decide to change your dress habits for work.

I still have some of the suits I used to wear. But they’re woefully out of style now. Funny thing is, they apparently made men’s clothes a lot smaller in the 1990s.

So, I’m finding it a challenge to show up in shirt and tie every day. I’m not even trying for the suit every day.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself without a clean dress shirt on a Friday. Dry cleaning is picked up and delivered on Fridays (as well as Tuesdays). That’s when I made the decision to keep Fridays as business casual. That’s how this whole mess started anyway.

But it as a little disturbing to find that I no longer have enough dress shirts to make it through two dry cleaning cycles. I used to be able to do that with just white shirts.

Then there’s the shortage of ties. I still have a few ties bought at Nordstrom in DC some 20 years ago. A couple of them are classic enough to work today. I’ve added to that over the years, so I have a decent selection. But I also have a rather extensive collection of novelty ties.

There was a time when I would have worn Charlie Brown or The Cat in the Hat to work. But I’m beyond that now. So, while those ties have their place, around my neck in the office is not one of those places.

Complicating this, as if it it wasn’t complicated enough already, is the fact that I want to, no make that need to, lose a good amount of weight. Reality is I could drop 30 pounds and be comfortable in a couple of old suits. At least for a while.

I am not, however, inclined to go out and rebuild a wardrobe in my current size. What kind of incentive is that? If I feel too comfortable in my clothes, I’m going to be less inclined to want to do something to make them fit better.

All this is coming from someone who used to measure the value of things in terms of how many pairs of Levis he could buy with the same amount of money. These days I have one pair of comfortable Levis in my closet.

So I’m working on that style thing.

While I’d like it to be a world of denim and sweaters, I see some suit shopping in my future.

Just as soon as I get back from the gym.

Without question, I need to lose weight. But in the process I need to update the wardrobe.

How Obama May Lose the Catholics


Actually, more correctly How Obama Should Lose the Catholics

The Obama administration’s contraception mandate has awakened the American Catholic church, or at least stirred things up. Last weekend Catholic churches across the country read to their congregations a letter that outlined the Church’s position regarding the federal requirements.

In part, the letter read:

In so ruling, the Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Obama Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.

We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League said this week, “Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church. This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets.” [The Blaze]

Today 65 Orthodox Church bishops call on Obama to ‘rescind’ the ‘unjust’ contraception mandate [LifeSiteNews.com]. Their statement said “The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. This freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to pay for ‘contraceptive services’ including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services that directly violate their religious convictions.”

Todd Starts at Fox News Reports, “The Obama administration has been accused of telling Catholic military chaplains what they can and cannot say from their pulpits after the Army ordered Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners from their archbishop.” Fox Reports that no other branches of the military issued such orders.

Bobby Eberle at GOPUSA says, “These actions go way beyond any particular religion. They are a sign of Obama’s disdain for people of faith. His religion is the radical, left-wing agenda, and he is high-priest.”

The Heritage Foundation says that Obamacare Awakens a Sleeping Giant

The Catholic Church is not alone in its opposition to Obamacare’s onslaught against religious freedom. David Addington, The Heritage Foundation’s vice president of Domestic and Economic Policy, details the growing ranks of the faithful who say the Obama Administration has crossed a very dangerous line. The National Association of Evangelicals commented that “The HHS rules trample on our most cherished freedoms and set a dangerous precedent” and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America stated, “In declining to expand the religious exemption within the healthcare reform law, the Obama Administration has disappointingly failed to respect the needs of religious organizations such as hospitals, social welfare organizations and more.” The Agudath Israel of America stated its opposition, as did the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and theAssembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America.

Will the Obama Administration back down? Or will they do as they have almost every other time they’ve been cornered and double down?

They’ve already had to respond. On Sunday HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote an Op Ed for USA Today.

But even USA Today said “in drawing up the rules that will govern health care reform, the Obama administration didn’t just cross that line. It galloped over it, requiring employers affiliated with the Catholic Church to include free birth control in their health insurance plans. That’s contrary to both Catholic doctrine and constitutional guarantees of religious freedom.”

It is a given that there is no friend of life in the White House.

It’s beyond time for people of faith who believe that life is sacred to recognize that.

And then to act accordingly.