Ann’s Office Outfit Makeover: Jules Nolan

Jules Nolan sings a mean “Jolene” and other tunes when she guests with The Frye. She’s also a prolific travel writer who’s been a lot of places and knows when to dress up, or down, or barely. She’s also a publishing school psychologist who accessorizes with phrases like “aggressive playground behavior” and “dire poverty” and “I find this reality especially concerning.”

So I  shouldn’t really write about her so much as I should step aside and let her tell you what in eff she’s doing curling her eyelashes in the car. Jules, honey. Please explain.

So I am up at 5:30. Some days I sleep until 5:36 but that means shower cap to protect the ‘do and touchup with curling iron only. I try to keep the lights out, cuz at 5:30 it’s dark and lighting up the house would mean that I’m really up and doing this. I shower and brush and moisturize and make it to the kitchen, one eye open.  Then it’s coffee in the travel mug, bottle full of water and a tin of almonds in the bag for breakfast on the road.  Dress in the laundry room and do my hair in the downstairs bathroom. Out of the door by 6:15 and drive bare-faced through the dark accompanied by NPR and coffee and almonds. At Le Sueur I turn the radio to Cities 97 cuz I’ve had enough of violence in Syria and fiscal catastrophes and inert politicians. Sometimes the sky is orange or pink then and the music is good. That is when I wake up for certain.

Oh, good. Fellow commuters, are you hearing this? You’re safe by Le Sueur.

When I get to Belle Plaine I park on the street and face the high school, open the pink plaid kit and set to work. No MAC or Estee Lauder in this kit. Cover Girl and Revlon go with the austere surroundings.

Makeup takes ten minutes tops. Then to the school and to my office and to my students, some of who think that at 80 lbs. they are a fat mess and that the voices in their heads, that tell them they are stupid and worthless, can’t be sent packing.

Why do people tell young women that their emotions are “too big for their bodies” and that is why they are struggling? They would never say that to a boy. It makes girls feel more out of control and gives them anxiety about “going crazy” any time they feel something.

How do people complain that adolescents are rude and lazy when these kids grew up with Enron and doping and sex abuse in the GODDAMNED CHURCH? Who are they supposed to trust? 

I might be angry this morning.  

: )

On second thought, Jules, no makeover necessary. You can do your eyelashes on the fly and whatever else you need. Cuz these are uneasy things to wear to work, and you’re wearing them well.

Next makeover: Carrie Moore is new in town, you guys, and we have to let her know Oxford and Baraboo have nothing on Mankato.

Ann’s Office Outfit Makeover: Julie Fee

Forget for a sec that I never remember this woman’s children’s birthdays, or how to get to her house, or the anniversary of the date she got married in a gorgeous ceremony with black bridesmaid dresses we all honestly wore again. I’m wearing mine right now. Sequins! Forget my gross negligence re: the big things in my sister-in-law’s life, and join me in being furious that Julie Fee failed to tell me she was getting bangs.

I only found out when she sent me this photo. Julie, do we not spend every important family holiday hunched over eyeshadow tutorials and scarf tutorials? Debating skinny belts vs. wide belts vs. no belts vs. is there any leftover pie? Do “bangs” not fit in as something that requires a phone call? As a woman of faith, I know you’ll appreciate my decision to unload a dumpster of grace on this situation and forgive you, as long as I know it won’t happen again. Maybe you need some alone-time to reflect on that? I know you’re busy guiding the kids’ academic and spiritual growth, and keeping up a passionate blog that both terrifies and inspires me, but I’m thinking, you could quick go get that bottle off your counter and find yourself a corner of the house nobody else wants to occupy.

Inhale (watch the dust). Exhale. Think about when in life you should call or text your sister-in-law. If you get interrupted while you’re reflecting, you could put the kids away for a bit. Bye bye! Time to play jewelry-in-the-box.

Oh WHAT. Like we didn’t say worse than that last Christmas while we ignored all four (four?) of your kids plus Steve’s two plus mine, while we stood at the counter and checked out each other’s eyebrows and ate a Wuolette’s pear tart straight from the box. Gluten free! Or maybe that kind of thing only works when you’re with me? Maybe you should come over.

My kitchen is a wreck* so we could go in there and nobody would bug us. I have no working appliances but I do have martini-makings. We could talk about your next move, with the hair, or better yet, we could just do it. Julie! You can’t tell me you don’t love this now that you see it. How good would a hot blue afro look on your tawny skin? Tawny. Yes. See why you should call me? I think this is a scriptural thing, like an in-law thing. I’m sure it is. I believe it was Naomi who first trusted Ruth to give her a Hot Topic dye job and a home perm in her kitchen. A kitchen which would have had NO RUNNING WATER – Julie. I’m serious. Let’s act while my kitchen is rustic and my grace is in full swing and you’re on a roll pulling off your nicely arched eyebrows + knee high shoes + repentance + faith + bangs, as only you can.

*Clarification: My kitchen was “a wreck” at the time the bangs photo was received. At present, I have cabinets and appliances and they’re beautiful. It’s ok, Julie, it’s ok.

Next makeover: Dr. Julene D. Nolan doesn’t 100% have her doctorate yet. If she did she might know that getting dressed while driving in the dark is not, like, advisable.

Ann’s Office Outfit Makeover: Posthumous Amy Rosenquist

Amy Rosenquist is doing quite fine in terms of dressing like the organic urbanite authority-on-all-things she’s always been, here in the minimalist confines of Chicago’s organic urbanite Harold Washington College. You should see her ratings. Students love her because she makes them feel as if they’ve just asked the most brilliant question in the world and then proceeds to explain some basic rule of grammar as if, like, “I respect that serial commas cramp your style, I really do, but we’re in this together and if you’ll trust me I will make it worthwhile that you dangerously escaped gang membership to come to city college this morning.” Her hair is eternally naturally blonde and I don’t know how it’s so healthy because we have identical thyroid problems.

When I say she’s always been like this, I’m serious. Look how confident she is explaining the nutritional properties of cotton candy. Look how conceding I am there in the stroller.

Also this.

Wrigley Field, Aug. 8, 1983.

Amy is also a singer and a writer with significant powers to pierce and haunt. Which is where I think her potential lies, in the haunting. What I like best about Amy as we get older, besides the bossy benevolence and the hair, is that our shared preoccupation with death, and how to do it with style, seems more reasonable. I mean, more reasonable than thirty years ago when we had the same conversations we do now (“Can I borrow that cardigan for my funeral?” “No.” “But it looks so good on me.” “No.”), but without benefit of thyroid issues or other reminders of our mortality. So Amy, now that you have your city artsy smarty look locked in, let’s get you ready for the next big thing.

Have you thought about how to take your general silhouette and reinterpret it as a translucent shroud? That would look so good against the atmosphere-colored pillars of an astral classroom. You would still want a podium but probably a gilded one. There’s probably more budget for that kind of thing there, compared to what’s in the city college system. You would need to bring more of a Catholic statuary aesthetic to your hair and garments, generally, if you’re going to have the same levels of likability and authority with the student population. I mean talk about diversity. I think the only thing that’s going to make you as popular there as you’ve been here is to take your usual deal and ramp it up in equal parts Minerva, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Michelle Pfeiffer. Also, have you thought about me as a decorative element?

I mean, not long ago, you said:

And we didn’t really pick that up and map out a plan, but I’m thinking, isn’t that how it worked with pharaohs? If you tote me around as a backdrop or some type of accessory, constantly, starting now, then I’ll carry over with you and it’ll be an easy thing for us to stay in touch. I would just lean over from the depths of the valley of the shadows of whatever and say hey, could I get that cardigan? And you’ll be like, oh Ann, that’s the most brilliant question in the world. Let me beam you some spiritual cotton candy.

And I would notice that you hadn’t given me the cardigan.

P.S. My mom made those matching outfits in the 1970 shot. Amazing. 

P.P.S. While I had nothing on Ms. Sunglasses in 1980, I did have a strong signature look:

Next makeover: Homeschooling worship-leading inked/pierced mother of four Julie Fee got some NEW BANGS.

Ann’s Office Outfit Makeover: Meghan Cadwallader & Brian Calhoon

Meghan Cadwallader is messing up the natural order of things by dressing this way for work and I want her to stop.

Her colleague Brian Calhoon is just as guilty.

These two work at The Boston Conservatory. Brian is an admissions counselor, and also a wickedly soulful percussionist and vocalist. Meghan is the director of admissions, and also a writer of sharp and luscious poetry and nonfiction, and a singer when she has time for that, which is not much lately, which irritates me, Meghan, because there’s probably no shortage of fellow musicians around town who would love to harmonize with your sapphirey vocals. Yes. I called you sapphirey. There’s probably also no shortage of band-friendly bars there in Boston.

Which, back to my point: You two are already in Boston. you don’t need to dress in urban muted tailored things. It’s redundant, and it makes life difficult for those of us in the Midwest where basic black is our single thick-muscled farm-fed leg up on sophistication.

And yes, just last week I told a fellow writer/musician/dayjobber here in Mankato do the opposite and wear some color, but speaking in general terms, a lot of us here rely on the sleek darks and preppy neutrals at Casual Corner or whatever to make us feel like we’re slightly elsewhere, and I think I have to protect that right. The last thing we need when we check out people from ACTUAL ELSEWHERE is to see you wearing that same stuff. Although I’m sure neither of these outfits came from Casual Corner. They came from boutiques next door to fromageries and genuine non-Pier One ethnic artifacts stores. Yes?

Meghan. Brian. Get out of your offices and go walk down the exotic block I’m sure is outside the hallowed oak-trimmed halls of the Conservatory — I’m pronouncing that right, “blahk,” right? — and stroll into the nearest salon and tell them you need to be citified in a way that  makes life clear and simple for your friends on the prairie.

Extensions are a great start. You’ll also want color, color, color. Stripes. Metallics. Levitation! The Tupperware can stay but I want it filled with something that’s visibly heavy on saffron, not the macaroni salad Brian clearly appropriated from a Minnesota Unitarian church potluck.

Truly, you guys, if I understand university admissions — and I must, because for about ten years I worked in university marketing, and who loves each other more than admissions and the overpromisers? — you have to appeal to the demographic you’re after. You have to know what they want, and then be that. And I’m telling you, you are never going to meet your quota of middle-aged Midwestern cubicle workers who spend all day dreaming bigtime conservatory dreams, if you don’t start dressing how we very much want to believe it feels to be you.

Next makeover: Amy Rosenquist, everyone, the woman who taught me the art of writing down what I wear every day so I don’t repeat that same thing the next week. God, no, I don’t do that any more. I just do this blog which is obviously less obsessive.

Ann’s Office Outfit Makeover: Chris Fisher

It’s Sunday morning and this is Chris Fisher and he’s going to tame your unruly manuscript without changing a damn thing he’s wearing.

Except the thermal. I suggest he switch that out to blaze orange in order to be fair to his opponents. Not that his clients at the author services firm The Editorial Department are opponents, but then again they are, kind of, and you know what I mean if you’ve ever been critiqued. Especially a paid critique where you say “here’s my $xxx go ahead and tear me apart” but what you really want is “Dear Writer, we cannot believe this, honestly, there’s nothing to change or add, nothing, we envy your work, thank you for allowing us to read.” Which, I don’t know, most of us have never received that kind of thing but Chris may have.  He’s good.  So let’s give him a challenge.

Let’s get him out of the spotless home office with not so much as a pile of laundry as an opposing force (did you catch the laundry? Bottom right, with a shirt or something artfully spilling out the top but I think that’s just for show, mostly it’s all tucked into the basket) and put him eyeball-to-eyeball with something worth his time, like blasphemous voodoo powder. Or a house of God crumbling in the crush of sun and abandonment.

See, then, how the jeans and thermal and the impassive stare take on an entirely fresh new look? Like, oh thank goodness, denim! Something to save us from this exotic and austere evil force. Thank goodness, flannel, a shred of compassion in the midst of devastation.

The whiteboard (from an alternate shot Chris sent from his office, which showed more of the room and honestly the only thing close to chaos was whatever was scribbled on the board, which was probably in alphabetical order) is optional but I favor accessories and in this case I think the board is better than a holster or hatchet or something more obvious. Anybody can look terrifying with an actual weapon in their hand. It’s the better writer/editor who can strike fear and inspire ambition without much ornamentation.

So, Chris, you’re mostly good to go. Just switch the undershirt and wander the wildnerness till you find a more suitable workspace.

God, seriously. Do you not love how those orange sleeves make the hopeless hell of life on earth really pop?

Next makeover: Boston Conservatory’s Meghan Cadwallader and Brian Calhoon. That’s THE Boston Conservatory, but it’s ok, Midwestern readers, I’m prepared to explain prairie aesthetic and why the East Coast must yield to it.

Ann’s Office Outfit Makeover: Amy Kortuem

Amy Kortuem slings hot copy.

Right, she’s also a concert harpist and she’s a rising literary starlet and blahblahblaaah. Everybody knows all that. It’s what she does in her day job writing catalog copy that’s the real juice, the real thing to envy. The thing you can’t do. For a whole lot of hours a week, Amy starts with nothing and turns it into this:

And this:

Amy Kortuem, I got your destiny right here.

Let’s start with some lucky color. I get what you’ve been going for, wearing tasteful black to work, because how else do you class up a cubicle? That’s what you think, yet the actual effect is just that you coordinate with that paper sorter. You can do better than that. If you dress right, you can turn the cubicle itself into a hot leather patio couch. I think that’s the big bold something fortune wants to hand you, and it’s going to require primary colors and a bare midriff and a cigarette.

I know you’re asthmatic. I know they probably don’t allow halfshirts in your workplace, whateverwhatever. Not your problems; your problem is figuring out how formidable champion greatness can overcome you and those plastic gray partition panels.

Get to work, Amy. I’m only coming to your March 16 pub concert at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild if you’re wearing primary colors, smoking a cigarette and dazzling with the unmatched fleeting greatness of hot scripty strength from deep within. Beret would be good too.

Next makeover: Libertarian gun-toting fire-brimstoney writer/editor Chris Fisher. This is Ann’s Office Outfit Makeovers and we are not messing around.

Ann’s Office Outfit Makeover: Cindra Kamphoff

Cindra Kamphoff is the academic and spiritual leader of the new Center for Sport and Performance Psychology. She’s not saying the spiritual part; I’m saying that. It’s an entirely secular state-funded center, let’s be clear, in a really nice freshly painted office space in University Square which is the classiest of retail hotspots. This is no flake place. But its director is a pulsing beaming force with a superpretty aura, and I’d kind of like to see her dressed accordingly.

Here she is right before the decor was complete, the week of the grand opening. Texture + pattern + leather + graduate students, all very strong and good, very nice.

Premakeover Cindra in her prefinished Center.

Here she is at the opening. Powerful. Branded. Shiny!

Scarf matches the podium sign!

Cindra, though, I’m thinking, would you just go ahead and wear your chakras on the outside?

I think it would help the rest of us figure out what foundational pieces we need in order to dress appropriately for all this mental strength you’re talking about. I mean, maybe it would be useful to your clients to see your jade-green heart chakra constantly orbiting your chest, like the performance psychology equivalent of a basic silk shell? If that’s the case, some of us might go get such a shell, or a green sports bra. Not to be too matchy with your auras, just, like, aligned. Or maybe your light pink crown chakra is exceptionally huge and beaming, and that’s why you feel taller than you are? I’m not sure how we’d cop that, maybe pink Bondi Bands. Anyway. Some of us would appreciate knowing what to wear to complement the mantras you’ve got us all writing on our arms.

Give it some thought. It would be low-maintenance, it would look great in all seasons and you could accessorize with at least one grad student.

Next makeover: Amy Kortuem has left the building.