5 December 2003

I've got the pants thing figured out!

Not where I can buy pants. That would be the useful pants thing to have figured out. (Gosh, I hope you're not all British. I'm talking about trousers, outerwear.) But why none of the pants I own fit me.

This is, of course, an exaggeration; two of the pairs of pants I own fit me. Plus most of the leggings and some of the jeans. Here's the thing: I ran out of jeans that fit me yesterday. I hadn't done the right laundry at the right time, and I ran out of jeans. So I started putting on my trousers one pair at a time. (Actually, one leg at a time. Naturally.) Exactly one pair fit. Now I remember why I wore my Good Khakis until they were no good any more and then after that: because they fit. But why were all my pants too big? Maybe they'd grown a little in the wash, and I did shrink a little when I got sick a few years back (but not too much), but...it just seemed unreasonable.

Then I remembered buying one of the pairs, and I remembered the stuff I bought with it: a big heathered brown sweater and a brown and white flannel button-down. Ohhhh. Well, yah: if you're wearing tights underneath and tucking a T-shirt and a big flannel button-down into a pair of pants, it's going to fit a little differently than if you're wearing it with a fitted sweater. Silly me.

Happily or sadly, it's no longer the '90s, I'm no longer a physics geek, and I own a car. All of that contributes to not wearing things quite so big. When I got dressed in January in college...uff da mai. I would start with bra and panties, then layer on tights or leggings in some warm material, wool stockings, and a T-shirt; then a flannel or a mock-turtle or a Henley; then the pants or long skirt and the sweater over top of it all. At that point, you need the room! I didn't do this every day, mind you, but the very Januariest days, definitely. We had to walk everywhere, and the wind up the Hill was harsh. I think if I get a little one leaning on my knee saying, "Momma, what were you like in college?", the people who were actually there are going to chime in, "Cold!" I always sat in the middle when we went somewhere in someone else's car, because I was freezing by the time we got to the car in the first place. (Also because usually it was Jess' car, and she was the only other small female person likely to go along.) I went through cocoa and herbal tea as if my life depended on it.

(Some of my older relatives say "as if it depended on my life." I hope the herbal tea production of North America doesn't depend on my life, or it will have been in dire straits in the last four years. But it's coming back now! Don't worry, Chamomile Growers Of America! I'm home now!)

If only I could see my way clear to tucking two or three layers into my slacks now, it'd be easier to solve the useful problem of them, which is the acquisition thereof. Sadly, I just can't see that as my style right now. And wearing baggy things over top still makes the pants pooch funny if they don't fit. We Are Opposed to pooching. We also Are Opposed to being able to store Stephenson novels in the waistband of our pants with us.

We Are Picky Like That.

Other areas of pickiness: domain name. Yarg. So instead of letting me know that my domain name was about to expire, my hosting company just let it expire, and I found out when someone who knows my backup addresses got a bounce message and couldn't get to my webpage. So I renewed the registration, tra la la, and now it's propagating. If you get a bounce message, use my hotmail backup or try again later. It should be fixed soon. Silly internet peoples.

So. Yesterday I worked and fixed the toilet and worked, made stout gingerbread while working on Reprogramming edits and singing Jethro Tull songs. (Songs from the Wood, still, and "Another Christmas Song" from Rock Island, thanks to Bear's reminder.) My mom was in town for a board meeting, so Mark and I went out for some pie with her in the evening, and I got to meet a couple of the other board members (with whom I'd e-mailed but never met in person) and also slid down the driveway on my butt. Whee! See, this is why I wear jeans and boots all winter long instead of yesterday's pants and ballet flats. And if I wear my ballet flats, I wear skirts, usually short ones, and it is clear to everyone including me that I am Not Dressed For It. I have obscure little twinges popping up from where I landed or twisted not to land worse. But it wasn't too bad, and at the time I was laughing and shouting, "Wheeee!" instead of sniveling. So.

I started a short story yesterday, quite gratuitously, not the one after which I'd been yearning, not for an anthology, not for a particular mag I really feel I should submit to. No, this was a Sleeping Beauty story, "Awake," and also a little bit of a King Arthur story, and a near-Czech story, so who knows? There it was, and there it needed to be, so there it is now, a file called "Awake," and I think it's both the command and the adjective. But most of my work yesterday was on Reprogramming, so -- still no significant deviation from the Plan, right? The Plan is sound. We trust the Plan.

A Sleeping Beauty story, though. Who knew? And then there's "The Beast's Apprentice" that still hasn't gotten done...maybe I'm going to have to have a fairy-tale weekend one of these weekends. Maybe not this one, though.

Soonishly, I'll be heading out to have lunch and go to the Eighth Floor with Stella and Roo, and I think it'll be muchly fun, and I'll try to remember to take a picture or two. We already have a picture of Roo, on the very top of our Christmas Card Holder Tree Dealie. But really, can one have too many pictures of adorable sprouts? One can. But I don't.