Of Dotage

So I work in a nursing home.  I like my job and I love my residents, so please believe when I tell you I write this not to complain but because it's simply true: nursing homes are to fashion what black wholes are to the universe.  Full as they undoubtedly are of a splendid cross-section of society, and vivid as the people in question may be, if fashion is matter then nursing homes contain the blackest anti-matter known to humankind.  And like black holes, nursing homes embody the inevitable truth into which we are all inexorably being pulled.

Seriously, long life is not all it's cracked up to be.  We may wish it for our beloveds, especially when candles are involved:

...and pray in our darkest moments for deliverance - in whatever shape that may take - from the unknown and the unknowable.  But just quietly, extreme old age is another kettle of fish.  Dear friend: may you slip into oblivion somewhere before panic and confusion, but somewhere after you get to wear trakkie daks all day and refuse to eat anything except hand fed desserts and fun-sized kit-kats.

Like my sweetheart clients.

Not that the nurses are any better!  Even if in, private life, they are sartorially gifted, there's very little opportunity to express this on the wards.  Firstly, any nurse worth her salt wants some thick-soled shoes.  And tailored trousers are for pen-pushers...  What any decent health professional needs are some wide, comfy, stain-resistant, polyester pants.  Unfortunately most of those pants answer to the title 'slacks' and have a perma-crease ironed down the middle.  Secondly, time is, like, a pretty big deal?  So a patient doesn't get, like, a triple does of Endone in an hour and go rampaging through Saks like Winona Ryder?

Haha, I love Wino forever but that girl was seriously interrupted by her immoderate consumption of barbiturates...  So, timing is, I'm sure she would agree, everything.  Hence nurses favouring the perennially awful 'watch-brooch'.  For some reason all modern fobs are rubberised, functional and day-glo, and dangle from our (practical) shirts like loveless tamagotchis.  So I simply cannot bring myself to call them fobs.  To paraphrase Mick from Crocodile Dundee, "That's not a fob!  This, is a fob":

Sigh!  Anne of Green Gables!   I think an entry dedicated to her fashion is just around the corner... and maybe Winona in Heathers while we're on the topic:

But I digress.  The point is: gasp, the sexy nurse myth is totally a porn thing!  It makes for cute Halloween outfits (and attractive blog pics):

...but it bears no resemblance to my reality.  So surrounded as I am all day by Tena stay-ups, practical singlets and flannelettes of questionable origin, you can imagine how delighted I was to discover this stylish blog.  Now, I'm not suggesting that these elegant women are of a one with my darling dementia-sufferers, gosh no.  I'm simply noting that as long as you have a sense of self, you can have a sense of style.  These women are an inspiration and I hope to one day hold my head up high amongst their ranks.