Who Wears the Pants?

Dear Ladies of Los Angeles:

“I see London, I see France … I see the entire outline of your underpants.”

Actual pants, the kind with seams and hems and zippers, seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur. They are rarely on display in this region of California. Leggings are worn instead. Super tight, squeezey pants which share a lot of—some might say too much—information about the wearer’s nether regions.

A few days ago, I was standing behind a young woman on the corner of Melrose and Robertson. She was clad in a pair of leggings made from some jersey knit fabric which left exactly nothing to the imagination. In one glance I was way too familiar with every detail of her young, bouncy backside. If her butt was arrested on suspicion of a crime, I could pick it out of a line-up. The garment in question was not even “leggings” - it qualified in my book as lingerie.

I blame yoga. It was for years an obsession for many Angelenos. Classes were sold out and over-crowded all over town. I guess it was inevitable that folks would leave class in their body-hugging outfits and just trip on down to the coffee house for a refreshment. I guess we should be grateful that the practitioners of “naked yoga” did not follow in their birthday suit. Yes, “naked yoga” was a thing. It might still be popular; I don’t know, and please don’t tell me because I shudder to think of it.

Eventually yoga had to share the spotlight with Pilates, Barre, Spin, and Cross-fit, to name a few of the ways folks work at working their asses off. Nonetheless, it was still, in my opinion, the biggest instigator of pants-less-ness.

Lululemon took that proclivity and ran with it. They are the purveyors of the squeeziest of the squeezey pants, and they are wildly successful. There are many stories of bizarre behind-the-scenes antics by the company’s owners/founders and many of its staff.

Maybe the culture would normalize a bit if everyone just put some clothes on.

The competition has taken up the mantle of tight-tight-too-tight pants, and they are everywhere in every store. I actually bought a pair in a lilac color that seemed to offer adequate coverage. I caught a glance of myself in a full-length mirror before I headed to the gym to heave some weighted objects about.

No. Just …. no. I am not walking around squeezed up in lilac, ‘not pants’ pants. Not appropriate. As I once remarked to a costume designer who was constantly dressing me in garments so form-fitting that they threatened to strangle my organs, “Just because I CAN wear skintight, orange rodeo pants doesn’t mean that I SHOULD.”

I am over 60, and my behind is entitled to some breathing room.

I almost—almost—didn’t vote. I have been scrambling to pull my apartment/life/world together and had not found time to get my driver’s license. You don’t actually need one to vote in California, but you do need to be registered, and they do that automatically when you apply at the DMV, so I somehow conflated the two activities.

It is well known that a jaunt to the DMV in LA can take the better part of a whole day. I knew it would mean getting up early and lining up outside the building in the cold rainy weather, and that did not sound fun. So I set about trying to make an excuse to put it off. Me. After all the years I have spent fundraising and canvassing and begging and cajoling folks to vote, I admit I thought about skipping it just this once …

And then I put my Big Girl pants on and got up hella early. I walked the dog, then ate some breakfast for fortification, and headed out to endure the hassle of all hassles.

It was okay, not great. Not my favorite way to spend three-plus hours, but it wasn’t terrible either … except for the part where I failed the dang exam not once but twice. That was a shock to the old system. I had aced every practice test but suddenly faced questions I had no answers for. I was not alone in this. The woman at window 24 was very well versed in the frustrations of CA testers.

“Just take the booklet and go back to the lobby and study it some more. You’ll get it. “

Everyone who worked there was kind and mostly patient dealing with the wildly diverse set of folks who were full of questions and frustrations and just general anxiety. I heard accents from all over the world. One girl sounded Eastern Bloc. A very tall gentleman seemed … Dutch? Swiss? The older man to my right .… Italian. Definitely. I love the melting pot of folks here. It’s inspiring to be amid such diversity. People of every creed and color and persuasion were there; all of us waiting, waiting, waiting for our number to be called.

That’s when folks find out that they need to supply not one but two forms of proof of residence to get a “Real I.D.” No one, including me, knew about that new fly in the ointment. Moans and loud anguished sighs could be heard. Foreheads were slapped. The lady at window 3 waited while I ran to my car to get a copy of my insurance which blessedly had my new address on it. I got through that gauntlet, then pressed on through the photo line, and finally to the testing room where—on the third try—I finally prevailed.

All done.

Now to find a polling place. Total snap. Just ask Google, and she will tell you. I found one quite near and got into yet another line. This was a happy wait. I loved seeing the variety of folks who showed up to be counted. I found out that they can register you to vote right there on the spot at the polls in California. How wonderful is that? You still need proof of residence of course, but unlike our red-state brethren, this blue joint wants you to exercise not just your body but your voice.

California has its troubles, but unlike what you hear in the relentlessly negative press, it gets a lot of things right. It is the fourth largest economy in the world—so a little respect, please. A little credit where it is due.

Now if we could just solve the climate crisis and the homeless problem—and the twin engines of crystal meth addiction and lack of affordable housing which drive it. If we can build enough water treatment plants to flood the farmlands and reforest the mountainsides. If we can hold back the rising tides and survive the next BIG earthquake … the one that’s always coming … any day now.

We can, of course. We just have to harness the collective will to do it. Just need to put our biggest He/ She/They pants on and get to work.

On we go …