The Domestic
Outfits feel redundant when you work from home, says Sophie White — but it’s important not to fall down the rabbit hole of all-day pyjamas and internet
Apple and honey cake
‘Are you going to sleep in your clothes?” Himself sounded both concerned and confused as I hopped into bed in the items I had spent the day in. “No, I’m not going to sleep in my clothes. These aren’t clothes, they’re pyjamas. I just never got dressed today,” I happily reply, switching off the light and cuddling into the extremely versatile loungewear that had virtually become grafted onto my body.
He’s been dwelling on the admission ever since. The next day, as I bounded into the car once again in the same ‘outfit’, with a few accessories to elevate the PJs to ‘day wear’, he quizzed me. “So how long have you been wearing these now?”
“Ehhm,” I consulted my Instagram to check on the last pic I’d posted which happened to feature the pyjamas — in their day-wear guise, complete with trainers and jacket. “Four days?”
“Is this a cry for help, Sophie?” Himself asked with uncharacteristic tenderness. I was indignant. “No.” I scrambled around for a better comeback. “If anything, it’s a brave rejection of our society’s ridiculous obsession with appearances. Why must we conform and get up and get dressed day after day? Death is still coming. Changing out of our lovely cosy pyjamas isn’t going to change that.”
Shite, this rant was sounding even more like a cry for help, thanks to that little outburst.
The problem I have — as illustrated by the pyjamas as day-wear (or round-the-clock wear, as Himself is so quick to point out) — is that I work from home, alone, and, as such, certain standards start slipping. Also, as particularly evidenced by the paranoid rant, I don’t really see people that I’m not related to that much on a day-to-day basis any more.
I’m like one of those bachelor uncles every family used to have who only came down from the hills for wakes and weddings. The one someone in the family would be assigned to mind for the duration of the family occasion, lest they do or say something inappropriate. Of course no one is minding me, hence the four-day pyjama party.
Going to work each day keeps us plugged in to society in a way that is probably good for our mental state. Left to our own devices with our main source of socialising being the internet, things can get a little... odd. I haven’t become a full-on survivalist — I’d need to actually get dressed for that. But it is, perhaps, time to revisit traditional modes of operating. Getting dressed to go gather these apples for this autumnal cake was a start.
“Why must we conform and get up and get dressed day after day? Death is still coming”