Bleux Stockings Vol 1: Rita Leslie
We are delighted to reprint Rita Leslie's piece from our January show.
BLOCKED
Leggings are pants because I look good in them; they are my best feature and I’ll wear them until my legs begin to atrophy and I finally turn into the mermaid I was meant to be- they’re ridiculously comfortable and I’ll likely be buried in them.
Q: You know what’s not comfortable?
A: Minimizers made of medieval Valyrian steel.
Moving to a place where no one knows your story and you have the option to change the narrative should be a required life experience. Las Vegas is the place you date but never marry and it’s only a matter of time before General Electric realizes they’re playing fast and loose with the power grid and people are forced to gamble by candlelight again, like Rasputin. (What?! He had an addictive personality.)
Working at a PR Firm sounds glamorous to people whose favorite character was Samantha on Sex and The City. It’s a cut-throat female dominated industry, so cut to when we clog up the plumbing en masse because we’re all on our periods at the same time. Yeah, it’s just as ridiculous as it sounds.
PR is the awkward cousin of advertising, you know, the cousins that talk too close and hug too tight? Mmmhmm. That’s us. We lie like rugs, spin stories, bend truths and decide what’s need-to-know and what isn’t- “curating reality” as my boss likes to call it. Public Relations is like being a surgeon- everyday that someone doesn’t die because of gross negligence is a win-win.
It wasn’t unusual to see a gaggle of women dressed to the nines donning a mix of severe buns, fancy blow outs, red bottoms, pencil skirts and Elie Tahari blouses, eating leftover tiramisu while hovered over a stack of gossip mags and cackling as if they have just in that very moment become unhinged- not unlike an elegant murder of crows.
They’ve definitely dropped more than a few hints about their disapproval of my appearance. So whaat?? Target is my Nordstrom, sue me- just because my priorities require the steady acquisition of shrooms and Madewell boots doesn’t make me any less responsible; I mean, can I live, damn?! Besides, bullying doesn’t work on weird people anyway, we tend to lean into that shit pret-ty early.
You learn so much about yourself when you’re the main source of your own entertainment. It turns out uncontrollable sobbing is frowned upon in public spaces, unless you’re a newborn or anyone related to Donald Trump.
As an only child you learn how to entertain yourself. Parents never had any interest in helping you fix the swiveled neck piece on your Barbie- it was through sheer ingenuity alone when you finally decided to just smash her head all the way down on her neck so that she’d have a new lease on life as Special-Needs-Barbie.
This was also about the time she broke up with Ken, realizing things had become routine and slightly codependent.
I could never quite get the hang and vibe of the city though, my only solace was coming home to dish with my bestie about those wretched cows at work. Nothing says, “too damn comfortable” like listening to the drunken marathon horse pissing of your friend while on the phone at 3 in the morning. The mute button is for new people and conference calls.
Egyptian cotton sheets and an impressive assortment of no less than 25 pillows was my version of self-care: I was cocooned in Tempurpedic body pillows with memory foam for that “back to the womb” feeling. They say that “too hot” showers are a loneliness indicator- my skin grafts tell the story. But truth be told, it’s hard to make friends as you get older; people are hesitant and generally less receptive.
Whatevs. When your feelings are a food group, who needs friends?! Amirite?? The fools who said, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” have apparently never challenged their digestive system to break down and process ½ pound of bison and garlic parm wedges in less than 10 minutes. I felt fine until my chest got tight and my left arm began to tingle, which all happened on Google Hangout mind you, so no one was actually able to verify the burning-toast-smell-slash-death-knell.
But it’s like I always say, “If you can’t have a mini-stroke without judgement, they’re not your real friends, anyway."
Work had become unmanageable, and masking my contempt for my co-workers was nearly impossible. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when I revealed that I had put in for a transfer back to the Beast Coast.
They insisted on throwing me a going away dinner that I really didn’t want and things began to ‘tetris’ from there. Fast forward a couple weeks. We go out and had just ordered our second round of drinks when Jackie and Heather decided to take a selfie (with a bedazzled selfie stick no less) using the hashtag #PRPrincesses #Vegas #TashaIsAbandoningUs #OhNoSheDidnt #kalecrisps #ProcescoBitch.
They then tried to upload and tag me in said photo, and that’s when shit got real different. A little backstory, Jackie’s sleeping with a guy from IT and basically walks around like she’s Steve Fucking Wozniak now. So she was super determined to get to the bottom of why the pictures wouldn’t post; after diagnosing Heather as, “white-girl-wasted” and snatching the phone from her manicured, yet woefully inept hands the slow and horrific realization that I had blocked them all on social media became apparent. An avalanche of hushed disappointment swept through the crowd like wildfire, unbridled, untamed and irreversible- yet wholly necessary.
I tend to laugh when nervous, and this was no exception. I laughed like no one was watching. Y’all, what I’m saying is that my inside voice lives outside, chained to a fence, surviving off a daily diet of demented schadenfreude. . . Oh I’m loud, I laugh like no one is judging. And my whisper-yell is the stuff of legend.
Ultimately, Las Vegas is "just kidding”. you go there to make ill- advised life choices and zip line through gaudy hotels. Comfort isn’t stagnant, sometimes it’s just relative to the nearest bed, bathroom and exit.
