The Tall Blog

I Quit!

2009-08-31T20:21:00.002-05:00

I said it and I did it. Friday was my last day of work at a public accounting firm. I woke up at 5:30 Friday morning in anticipation....I was like a kid on Christmas morning. The day was good and passed very quickly. It seemed very surreal to me though, especially as I was saying goodbye to all my coworkers (whom I enjoyed dearly) and started to realize that I would never be sitting in that cube or chatting with those people again. I started to get anxious about the new life I'd chosen for myself - a life without this place that I'd been a part of for the past three years. Not that I loved it here, but it was secure. Not that it was fulfilling, but it was comfortable. It had become who I was for these years, and I realized that I was actually leaving my identity behind. An identity that I never embraced, true, but nevertheless it had become the biggest single component of my life. I identified myself through my job and spent most of my time at that office and with those people. As I walked to my car Friday afternoon with the office at my back and looking out through my mind's eye with my future stretching before me fresh and clean, I felt like I was being reborn.

Not to say that it was all a bad experience. I did know deep-down that public accounting was ill-suited for me even when I chose to accept the job. However, I feel that these 3 years have been a productive experience for me. I certainly squeezed every benefit out of my job that I could. I have come away with a resume boasting three years of public accounting experience and a promotion to the next level as well as my CPA (paid for by the firm) which ensures that I will get in to almost any accounting job I want. And I do have the skills to go along with the resume; my time at this firm definitely honed those. In addition, I did a lot of growing up as a person. Being out in the "real world" and the "working world" opened my eyes to the way some of the world is, things I had never seen in my relatively sheltered experience. I encountered so many different people, personalities, situations; all a wealth of information for me to sift through, keeping the wheat and throwing out the chaff.

And now, I am looking forward.

Pajama Pants

2009-04-04T15:04:00.002-05:00

Some truths in life are absolute, and this is one of them: tall women cannot buy pajama pants from a store. Believe me, I've tried, but there's no fudging this rule. Even if you are lucky enough to find a store-bought pair that falls past your ankles, your luck will turn right around the first time you put them through the clothes dryer (or maybe I just have the unluckiest clothes dryer ever).

I'd completely given up pajama pants by the time I was 16; there was just no hope for it. Then one day the thought occurred to me, 'why don't I just make my own?' It was a perfect solution. Could there be a simpler item of clothing to make than pajama pants? You cut out two long rectangles and sew them together. I went to Walmart and bought the simplest pant pattern I could find. It wasn't even designed specifically for pajamas; it was just a straight, wide-leg, elastic waist pattern (fashions of the 90s you know). I spent quite a bit of time in the fabric section agonizing over the important decision of which fabric I should use. Flannel of course, but there were so many cute patterns! I finally selected a Blue's Clues pattern - yes, I am only mildly ashamed to admit that I liked to watch that show at my age. I decided to buy some backup fabric too, in order to try out the first draft of sewing. That way if I screwed something up, I hadn't wasted my good fabric. I did in fact make a practice version of the pants, and afterwards realized that I needn't have worried. It would be impossible for anyone over the age of 10 to screw up this pant pattern. It was just so simple! Cut, sew, thread the elastic.

But the best part was, I could make them as long as I wanted. Of course the pattern itself didn't allow for a 37-inch inseam. I think it only went to 30 inches. No problem. I just grabbed my handy-dandy ruler, and extended out the ends as far as I wanted. When I finished the product, I had the intense satisfaction of having pajama pant legs that extended almost to the floor, covering my ankles and heels and keeping them toasty warm.

I highly recommend this method to any tall women out there. It is simple and cheap. I can't remember at all how much the pattern costs, but it's not that expensive plus it is reusable. A couple yards of fabric and some elastic is $10 to $15. I always use flannel. Time to make, for cut, sew and finish is approx. 5 hours, so labor costs......well, it is a labor of love. I have made several pairs since, moving to the much more sophisticated smiley-face pattern, and most recently cute teddy bears.

Pajama pants....problem solved!

My Favorite Tall Clothing Store

2009-01-09T22:15:00.002-06:00

I was first introduced to it as a naive 17-year-old. I came to Chicago in my innocence and discovered the activity, the hustle-and-bustle of city life, and.....the Tall Girl shop. An actual store that I could go in and buy jeans that fit my long legs? What had I been missing all my life? I'd been subsisting on "tall" jeans from JCPenney and pants from the Long Elegant Legs catalog (which is also a great resource for tall women's clothing, but catalog shopping is too much of a hassle for me.) I remember that first night that I walked around the store in several different pairs of jeans just to get the sensation of wearing pants that dragged the ground.

I went home and got on the internet to discover the whereabouts of the rest of these precious stores. Unfortunately, they were only located in select cities in the North, such as Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle. And I lived in Arkansas. Fortunately for me, my brother lived in Chicago, so every year for the next 8 years I would make my yearly pilgrimage up north to visit family and to shop at Tall Girl. There I would spend obscene amounts of money buying all the pairs of pants that I would wear until they wore out the next year and I made my next pilgrimage.

So I had a routine that served me well, and I didn't think things could get any better. Until a few months ago when a tall friend informed me that Tall Girl had opened up a new store in a totally new locale....none other than sunny Dallas, TX! Which is not 3 hours from where I live! All of a sudden a world of possibilities opened up. I imagined a world where I could go shopping anytime I wanted, without the obstacle of a $700 plane ticket. I daydreamed of taking weekend jaunts to the City to do a little shopping.

Well folks, the dream finally came true when I went to Dallas for New Year's. And I'm looking forward to many more happy shopping trips.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-01T15:10:00.002-06:00

A fresh new year, new start, new resolutions......

I don't think I'm feeling the "fresh new year" vibe, because I didn't even remember yesterday that it was New Year's Eve. However, I do have a list of goals for the coming year. Now is as good a time as any to formalize them.

My New Year's Resolutions:
Learn yoga
Take a vacation to Hawaii
Learn piano-tuning
Eat healthier

What are yours?

At the Airport

2008-12-29T21:03:00.002-06:00

I was flying home last week after visiting family for Christmas. Waiting in line to board the airplane, I asked about some information from a fellow passenger, who happened to be a tall young gentleman. He answered me with a much friendlier smile than the question warranted, and I could tell that he was obviously appreciative of seeing a female of his stature. He got in line behind me.

"Hi."
(Hi? hmm, he must be interested). "Hi."
"You know, you are very-"
"No, don't say it. Don't say it!" (I was feeling a little playful)
"....Beautiful. You thought I was going to say tall, didn't you?"

Ha! Not a bad pickup line actually, but I wasn't swooned.

Tall Girls with Short Hair

2008-12-10T21:31:00.003-06:00

Woohoo, I got my hair cut....just in time for winter, hehe. It was short before, but now it is shorter.

The irony of it is that I adore long hair. I just love the images of young maidens with their long tresses blowing wildly about them in the breeze.....but the fact of the matter is that I look better with short hair. Every couple years I forget this fact and try to grow it out long, but then the sight of it shocks me back into reality. Oh well. On the plus side, it is a lot easier to manage. :)

Tall Equality

2008-12-08T18:36:00.002-06:00

As a tall girl, people ask me all the time about my height. Apparently, it is very unusual for a female to be so tall. But what about tall guys? Is it unusual for them to be so tall too? Do they get all the questions like I do? I often wonder about this. My educated guess is that for guys of my height (6'3") people probably don't think anything of them being that tall. However, for extremely tall guys (6'8" and above) maybe it is a different story. Any tall guys out there feel free to weigh in on this.

At the Grocery Store

2008-12-01T18:31:00.001-06:00

Today as I was exiting Walmart, an obnoxious lady noticed my height from the entryway where she was getting her cart. Even though I hadn’t even noticed her, she started talking to me as if we were in the middle of conversation.

“Well, look at you. You are damn tall.”
She was definitely not humble, she was rude. So I ignored her and kept walking.
“Hey! Excuse me!”
I continued to ignore her and walked on past and out of the sliding doors. I could hear her muttering behind me.
“Well, she’s too damn tall.”

The more I thought about this encounter, the more upset it made me. What had she expected me to do? She was the one who had called out to me in such rude fashion. No doubt if I had stopped to talk to her she would only have said more rude things. And what the heck did she mean that I was too damn tall? Like it’s something to be ashamed of? Like something’s wrong with me? Like it’s something I had any control over?

It took me a while to cool down from that one.

Renting a Video

2008-11-30T18:37:00.002-06:00

I saw Wall-E in the theatre and loved it. I had an urge to watch it again this weekend, so today I went to the video store and grabbed the last copy. Lucky me! As I was reaching into my purse to find my credit card, the clerk asked somewhat timidly (or perhaps in awe),

"How tall are you?"
She sounded appropriately humble, so I decided to answer.
"6'2"
Sometimes I say 6'3". I like to vary it.
"I know what it's like to be tall." She didn't look tall to me. "I'm 5'9" and I remember the things the kids used to say about me back in school when I was taller than everyone else."
She sounded like she wanted me to commiserate with her, so I commiserated.
"Yeah, I know what that's like."

I shouldn't have said it though, because it's a lie. I never got made fun of in school for being tall, at least not to my face. I was known as the smart kid, or the bookworm, but never the tall kid. Oh, people recognized that I was somewhat above average in height, but I can't recall a single time anyone in school said anything negative about it.

However, I have heard this sentiment from several other tall women. A lot of them were talked about or made fun of in school for being tall. And honestly, probably also for being large, a logical side effect which sometimes comes with being so tall.

Do people really think that their height/size is something these women had control over? To anyone who ever did this, shame on you.

Do I Embrace my Height?

2008-11-22T14:44:00.004-06:00

A friendly commenter wished me well on my new blog and said that she hoped I embraced my height. This got me thinking, and doing a self-analysis that I haven't done in quite some time. Do I embrace my height? I'm sure that everybody has something about theirself that they need to learn to accept. And I know that I have met other tall women who it seemed to me were struggling with this very issue. For my part, after a very short analysis, I already knew the answer. Yes, I do.

Now this wasn't always the case. I distinctly remember being uncomfortable with my height during my awkward teenage years. I was very, very shy, and I hated that people always stared at me because of it. I also remember feeling clumsy, as if my soul wasn't big enough to fill up the body that it was in. But somewhere along the way, as the years passed, I finally grew into my skin.

I don't even think about it, really. It's just who I am. And to be honest, most of the time I even enjoy the attention it brings. I usually find myself walking down the street with a confident step and head held high, because I know that people notice me. And from the many comments that I've heard over the years, I figure that it's the good kind of noticing. Who doesn't enjoy a little attention? It's the same sort of confidence as knowing that you have dressed particularly well today.

It's just who I am. It's my share in life. And I have to say, it's not half bad.

Say What?

2008-11-19T17:22:00.003-06:00

As I was walking the 4 blocks from my work to my car downtown this evening, a scruffy-looking man fell into step beside me. He turned to me and eyed me from head to toe and back up again, and then remarked "I bet when you was in high school your nickname was Shorty!" This sort of remark falls into the category of the "less-annoying" things that people usually say to me, so I laughed cheerfully and kept walking. Then he eyed me again and said "But I bet you changed all that though" before he walked on.

I generally brush off these sorts of encounters as they are very brief, but I couldn't help wondering as I walked the rest of the way to my car: what the heck did he mean?

Sitting Still

2008-11-18T20:02:00.002-06:00

I have been working in my office job for a little over two years now and noticing that more often than not during that period, I just feel worn out after a day of work. Sore neck muscles, back hurts, just tired. At first I thought that my body was getting worn out before its time. I'm only 25 after all. Then I decided that the cubicle life of an office worker just wasn't for me. Sitting and staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day was driving me mad (anybody seen that Hoops & Yoyo e-card from Hallmark? Classic.) Then I realized that it was in fact the sitting that was driving me mad, but not in the way I thought: its the chairs. Chairs that are not designed for tall people.

Granted, I haven't sat in a chair that has been designed to accommodate my height since I was 12, but this is also the first time in my life that I have been confined to a chair for 8 full hours (and sometimes more) out of my day. It's never exactly been comfortable, but usually I don't have to sit in the same spot for more than an hour or two. Except at work. Imagine that you are sitting in one of those kindergarten chairs where your knees are taller than the seat of the chair so they kind of stick up in your face when you sit down. That's what it is like for a tall person. I only had this revelation a few months ago, but now I find myself gazing enviously at seated people. People who can comfortably sit up straight in their chair because their legs fall naturally to the ground and balance them out. I cannot sit up straight in a chair for any period of time because it is too short for my legs, so my body wants to naturally slouch in order to balance out the weight. Which is what I find myself doing at work.

Now as soon as I identified the problem I began working on a solution; namely, how to sit in a chair so as to maximize my posture and reduce soreness. So far, I haven't come up with any solutions that are ideal, but I intend to study this problem diligently at work on a daily basis. I'm hopeful that given enough time - which I have plenty of - I'll be able to come up with something that I can sit back, relax, and enjoy.

Hard to get out of bed today

2008-11-18T08:53:00.001-06:00

My blankets just wouldn't let me go. I have pretty poor circulation in my hands and feet (I'm not sure if this is because I am tall or not) which means that I am generally cold all the time, and especially in winter. So I finally went and invested in a down comforter. I've only had it for 4 days, but I'm already sure that it is one of the best investments I've ever made! Cold air is powerless against its defenses. Ahhhh……

2008-11-17T23:32:00.002-06:00

Hello to anybody who has stopped by to read this. I suppose the title of this blog is self-explanatory. I am tall, and I am female. For those of you not blessed with an overabundance of growth horomone, you may not realize some of the subtleties of how my life is different from yours. So I have created this blog as a place for all my rants, musings and amusements of being 6'3" in a 5'6" world.