NEEHU 9 Recap: The Tie
I’m going to start writing up my NEEHU recaps, which has never meant a full day-by-day recount of the event (though I initially tried to, I quickly realized it was not for me). Instead, it means I talk about certain things about the con that stood out to me most!
Which means I have to start with the tie, right!?
In the days leading up to NEEHU, I realized how…lacking my wardrobe was. Being that I’m a girl with absolutely no fashion sense and low-effort in what I wear, I had like…two, maybe three shirts. I’m not kidding. I’m like, the worst. I do laundry pretty frequently! But still the worst. So the week before NEEHU was a mad scramble to find clothes to wear so I would have at least enough to actually go through the NEEHU weekend. Unfortunately, for absolutely NO REASON at all, given that it had been like 70s-80s F where I was, stores were only really selling winter clothes. Which was like - yeah, I knew Connecticut would be cold (AND THERE WAS SO MUCH SNOW) but I didn’t need to wear a parka everywhere I go.
I expressed my worries and fretting, and @soundshypnotic suggested I look around Men’s sections for collared shirts (which was what I was looking for). Me being me, I was too shy to actually do it and kept sneakily looking around the outskirts of said sections for seconds at a time. Then on Thursday, I went shopping with @soundshypnotic, @fallinginward, @hypnosophist, and @herrozodtheblogless where we went to the Men’s section! @soundshypnotic ended up finding a perfect dark blue button-up shirt that I fell in love with, and wore later that Saturday.
Then we walked past the ties. Ties!? I hit the brakes and reversed. There’s this long-running joke with certain friends that I’m secretly a Daddy Dom, and it’s been mentioned on numerous occasions that I needed a tie to really perfect the image. I laughed about it at the time and teased people about needing to gift me ties, but then I like realized… that I could BUY. MY OWN! TIE!! Why hadn’t I thought about that before?? It’s like in the past, I could play it off as a joke, but I could always just…have my own tie! And the idea hadn’t occurred to me until recently when I kept stealing glances at Men’s sections, and I certainly hadn’t thought about buying it here until we walked past them. But. Like! Then I had to have one. Right? It was so meant to be, right in front of me. @fallinginward picked it out for me ❤️❤️❤️ It wound up being more expensive than the shirt, but I didn’t care.
I wore it all around on Friday and Saturday. I think I had a permanent smile on my face. I don’t know! I just really enjoyed it. The shopping group said I was adorable, and for the first time in a while hearing it made me happy (instead of indignant and non-believing). One person said that they loved my outfit, and when I expressed to them that it was new to me and a bit nervous-making and that I had literally just bought it two days ago, they said that they would never have known because it looked so natural on me and I?? Uh??!? Was amazed!? That was probably one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.
Anyway! I just wanted to talk about something that I really liked and meant a lot to me, but I didn’t realize exactly how much it meant to me until I really sat down and started writing all of this. Overcome with emotions aaahh! Though that’s also probably residual emotions left over from the con itself, and maybe a little bit of con drop, and maybe a little bit of remembering happy things and good people.
My parents kind of go through all my stuff generally and would go ballistic if they knew I had a men’s shirt and tie. If they do find them, I’ll probably make up a lie about them belonging to a friend who left them behind.
Anyway, the long story short is that now I have my first men’s button-up shirt and tie. And I think having those around will make me so happy. ❤️ I’m not quite able to wear them out and around here, but. I’ll keep them safe and sound. Thank you for the memories.