#regency mall

cullum's / upton's, regency mall. augusta, ga. september 2024

augusta, ga. august 2024

1978 - 2002, 2022.

from the days of howard johnson’s and montgomery ward to the days of nsync and the backstreet boys the mall was there and open to all, only to die a quiet death when wards left

I want some electric blue skinny jeans.  I need to buy them oversized though so they still look like GUY'S skinny jeans, because skinny jeans in my actual size are so skinny you can tell I have the ass and legs of a chick (I'm pre-t despite the beard).  The chances of finding large-size MEN'S skinny jeans in something as faggy as ELECTRIC BLUE is pretty slim.  I have been looking everywhere.  They don't make skinny jeans for men in anything bigger than a 36" waist, and I would need them much bigger to fit me loose in the ass/thighs and tight on the calves.  I'm sure if I actually found an electric blue pair of men's jeans in some hipster joint in Carytown somewhere, they would be 26" waist little drainpipes.  So that pretty much resigns me to looking in women's departments for these jeans.  But I can't even find them there.  It's like they had electric blue on the racks for 3 weeks and they all sold, and now it's just primary blue and primary red.  Eh.

I went to Regency Mall looking for these elusive jeans, and I started at Forever 21.  I hate patronizing a store that prints bible verses on the bottoms of their bags (major disappointment, kinda like when I noticed CookOut had bible verses on their bags).  But my friend Mallory told me she had seen some there, so I looked.  Nope. Now all they have is NEON YELLOW jeans.  That's... um... well, OK, I'll try them on.  Maybe I can pull them off?  NOPE.

So I try JCPenney.  A man is pushing a cart covered in tall piles of clothes out of the JCPenney.  A diminutive woman rushes out after him.  "Where did you get those, sir?"  He pulls out a receipt about 3 feet long.  He has bought all these clothes.  Interesting.

Then I see what he did... there are racks of nice stuff for $1.  A DOLLAR.  Holy crap.  I find a pair of nice, dark brown Haggar cords for $1.  In my ACTUAL size (29" inseam, so hard to find).  AWESOME!  I don't really find anything else I like though.  Kinda sad when shirts/pants are not even worth a DOLLAR to you.

I hike up to the second floor to look for the skinny jeans in the Women's section.  They have these primary blue ones.  I try them on.  They are OK.  But when I say electric blue, I'm talking about that bright-ass slightly teal blue, like a neon blue I guess.  If you google "electric blue jeans" it appears that this bright primary blue is what most people mean by electric blue.  I disagree!  They are primary blue, like, straight from the three primary colors.  Nothing electric about that at all.

Since I'm obviously not gonna find these jeans anywhere, I go check out the dress shirts.  I need a nice dress shirt and tie for interviews anyway.  And the color palette available for these cheap broadcloth shirts is immense, and *INCLUDES* the blue I'm lusting after.  I was under the impression that I was a 17 1/2.  I tried one on and stepped out to ask a sales floor lady if it fit.  She plainly said no, and escorted me back into the dressing room with a tape measure.  She took a couple measurements and came back with a 16/32.  It fit!  Better than any of the gigantic dress shirts I had bought at Marshall's and thrift stores.  I looked around and found a matching tie for $5.  Nice.  And the bright blue broadcloth shirt was just $15, less than Target or Walmart even.  JCPenney, you are doing right on the prices now.

I'll also note that the woman who measured me did so while I had no shirt on, just a binder, and she didn't give me any weird looks or subsequently misgender me.

I also dropped by Sephora to check out the colognes.  When I first started transition, I went out and bought a little bottle of Drakkar Noir because it was the first men's cologne I ever wanted, back in the 80s.  Then I quickly realized that it was a dated scent, so I went out a few months later to get something more contemporary.  I guess I was high or something because what did I buy?  CK One. From the 90s.  Not much more contemporary, still dated.  So I was in need of something that wouldn't make me smell like an old guy.  The chick who helped me recommended a few, and I ended up going with one of her recommendations: Versace Pour Homme.  I found out today that it came out in 2008, so I think I did all right this time.

No one misgendered me anywhere, even when I tried on those women's jeans.