04 January 2008

head too tired for a title

When I walked outside this morning, it was bright and warm. The sun shone through perfect wisps of cloud, and I was wearing too many layers. By the time I came home, the wind blew so hard that I staggered against it, moving my legs just to stand still at a stop light. The leaves behind a tall building scuttered in little tornadoes. My hair whipped about so wildly that even I could hardly tell which side of me was the front. I peered through little gaps in the mess of hair and lost my way, stumbling into the edge of a parking lot when I should have been firmly on the sidewalk.

In between, I went shopping. I bought dress trousers, on clearance, and a puffy orange jacket. Black would have been better, but they were out of my size in black, and the jackets were also on clearance. I've been shivering away in a slightly-warmer-than-a-fleece black coat of the sort I've been envying on the rich girls since college (NOT as warm as the rich girls seemed to pretend, or else I'm cold-blooded like a LIZARD), and a down vest. It's not Michigan cold, people, but it does get shivery. When I bought the coat, the girl behind the counter said, "Well, happy hunting in that coat."

"The good thing about this coat," I said, "is that I won't get SHOT."* The better thing about it, really, is that it makes it more difficult to get run down on a street corner at night. That's the one downside of my propensity for dark jeans and dark outerwear, a propensity which I intend to remedy now that I've discovered that all future lawyers have it. (Bar class, remember? You've never SEEN anything as boring as the attire of an entire room full of future lawyers. I think maroon was the brightest color in there other than my, eh-hem, bright green sweater.)


* One could dispute this. I meant that in the context of hunting, I would be less likely to be mistaken for a deer or the various other things one can shoot here in the Pacific Northwest, which seem to include several types of bears and mountain goats. In the city, however, I don't think wearing orange is going to have any bearing whatsoever on my likelihood of getting shot.

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