that time of year again

The time of the pamie.com book drive, that is. I gave some classics this year -- The Outsiders, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Cat in the Hat -- to balance out that weird book about the Pakistani chicken I gave last year. They were from the Spring Valley Branch's wishlist, which, now that I glance at it again, is absolutely begging for someone to buy the Hulk Sticker Extravaganza.

And I'm still trying to stay apolitical, but my god does it suck that libraries have to rely on the fabled kindness of strangers -- even when it's a lot of kind strangers -- for these sorts of things. It does concern me that Those In Charge will look at things like this and think, "if private citizens will take care of community programs, the government can get away with slashing funding! Hey, could you hand me another tax cut?" while they lean back in their leather chairs and count their money like Scrooge McDuck. But then I picture strung-out school board members trying desperately to fight budget cuts and not knowing what to do, and I feel better.

Still, I hope Those In Charge realize these donations do not absolve them of one ounce of their obligation to the people of their districts, counties, states, country, damn it. I mean it.

This is appropriately timed, too, because I've been using the D.C. public library system more lately. Its main branch is walking distance from my office, and although it's sort of a depressing building full of people doing more sleeping on the tables than reading, which honestly I do not begrudge them but is really sad but that's another story, I've been shocked at how great its selection is. Almost everything I look for is there. I've been going down my Amazon wishlist and being pretty psyched… I love that library-shelf thrill of the chase…

Anyway. Help give that to someone else: Go donate a book. It will make you feel good, it will help nice librarians, and maybe it'll somehow stick it to Those In Charge, the greedy selfish jerks.

happy trails

The view from the next-to-highest point, I think. The pretty little river down there would be the mighty Potomac.

Putting the falls in "Great Falls." This actually was off the trail in a visitor-friendly section with ramps and railings and things near the parking lot. This was also at the end of the day, right before we got into the car; these are totally not in chronological order. Apologies if that ruins my journalistic integrity.

The mighty Potomac stops posing for the camera, looking less picturesque and more like the wretched, polluted, muddy swamp it really is. But still pretty, and the sky was damn blue.

Us. Note that the river settles into a nice medium level of ripply greenness.

My favorite picture of the day, for some reason. Mighty P smoothes himself out like glass in one of the many little pools off the trail.

sinking is all I have planned

I spent yesterday afternoon hiking at Great Falls -- the less-popular Maryland side, for you locals -- and it was wonderful beautiful wonderful wonderful perfect beautiful wonderful. More breathless praise and perhaps photographs to follow later.

But while we were walking through the easier parts, I was thinking about the Aimee M*nn show I'd seen at the 9:30 Cl*b on Saturday night. It was a great concert, and she actually seemed pretty relaxed. For her. Which is to say totally on edge, but at least interacting with the audience. The two other times I've seen her, she literally stared straight ahead and didn't say one word between songs.

What I was thinking was this: Shawn C*lvin would go hiking with you. Most of the other women singers I like, at least the girl-with-a-guitar ones, would go hiking with you. Melissa F*rrick would go hiking with you; she would bring beer and cigarettes and sit out on the highest rock she could find. The Ind*go G*rls would go hiking with you and then take you out to a nighttime bonfire at an Indian reservation in the back of their friend's pick-up truck. There would be naked children running around and many, many barking dogs, and Emily would give you her flannel shirt if you got cold.

Then I went down the whole list. All of us are already besties with Dar, basically, and would do anything with her. Antje actually kind of IS our friend, tangentially anyway, which is a bit surreal. Erin McK*own would totally go see bad movies with you on a rainy Sunday and then run around the supermarket with a watergun throwing grapes or something.

Even Beth Ort*n, who is sort of cool and remote, would have coffee with you at the diner in the middle of the night. You'd probably be intimidated, but you would be able to have a cool, remote conversation. And Liz Pha*r, Ms. "Fuck and Run" Herself –- you might only be able to discuss how she's such a HUGE SELLOUT, but you could concievably be with her in a bar at 3 a.m., drinking steadily while she furiously seduces men like a black widow spider.

But Aimee M*nn? Would not go hiking with you. Would not have coffee or talk or watch movies with you. I can't begin to picture it. I think she is so freaking fantastic and her lyrics absolutely blow me away, but she's kind of scary. I'm scared of people who are that intense in general –- they just burn so brightly and so angrily. The word "brilliance" comes to mind in both the intellectual and physical senses.

So yeah. When we organize a hiking trip with all these people, Aimee might have to wait and be brilliant by herself in the car. I sort of don't think she'd mind, though -- hopefully she won't be realizing the Beauty of the Rain any time soon...

trade routes

As though there needed to be another wonderful thing about Gmail: Gmail Swap. Basically, people with extra invitations offer to trade them to people who want Gmail accounts. Wanters offer things; sometimes physical things, although money's not allowed, but sometimes intangible ones. (Here is a list of the most noteworthy.) And seeing as I've already doled out about 20 invitations to everyone I know who's interested, I obviously -- obviously -- needed to try this.

In the last 48 hours, here's what I've received in return for an invitation:

1. one recipe for "prize-winning" salsa and five recipies for "family-secret" pies, one of which is called Durbin Hotel Sugar Cream Pie, which sounds oh so Jazz-Age chic

2. a marriage proposal, although that was from Anne's coworker and I had already given him an invitation and he was just thanking me, but I am still counting it in the tally

3. a Father's Day gift for a stranger, who said his father wanted a Gmail account more than anything else in the world

4. an Irish man's promise to burn a good-luck candle in my honor for two hours last night

5. another man's promise to donate his hair to Locks of Love, which I did around this time a few years ago (he sent me a "before" picture today and says he will follow with an "after" picture immediately following his appointment next Tuesday)

(6. should have been a note for Angie's mom in the Western Wall in Jerusalem, but that person never wrote me back, sadly)

And Lauren, who is similarly swap-obsessed, is doing even better than I am -- they are her own stories to tell, but they involve swing voters in Florida, long-distance lesbian relationships and handmade sock puppets.

Is it too much to say that my faith in the creative potential of the Internet has been restored? Probably, but it has been said And you're probably tired of hearing me extol the virtues of Gmail, but you'll have to get over it or I will swap you for a postcard from Cuba, a Britney mp3, a wink and a smile.

chim chim-i-ney

Wasting time online and I followed a link to the Clean Sweep Assessment. Unless you intend to follow The Program it suggests -- and who wants to follow scary Programs -- it's useless, but... er, no but. It's useless. Who can resist a self-obsessed pointless quiz, though? I got a 54.

more love for mr. j. stewart

From an LA Times story about last night's season premiere of Six Feet Under (by the way, apologies for the enthusiastic use of italics... I'm trying to wean myself off of quotation marks. Anyway.):

[If the show] feels more feminine than ever and its women oddly real, that's because three female writers make it a point to depict Ruth, Claire, Brenda and Vanessa as multidimensional characters who often do the wrong thing when they're trying to do right.

Well gee. Thanks, there. Hey, did you know that women have multiple dimensions? Just like men! Glad we gone and got us some of them WOMEN writers so we could go and figure that out, because god knows men can't write "oddly real" women characters! Only women even care enough about women to try! Maybe it's because in my own writing, I spend a lot of time trying to get into the head of a multidimensional middle-aged man, but I found that an insult to the show's writers, both male and female -- not to mention utterly asinine in general. Sometimes it seems like feminism fights the same old "hey, women are people too" battles over and over again. Why is this news?

To counter that, here's a really interesting journal from a woman serving in Iraq. She twists the gender paradigm better than my sarcasm.

To further counter that, anyone want one of these? I do. He would certainly make idiocy a federal offense. Combat the Axis of Assheads or something.

and the answer is...

... c. We had three clues left in the crossword puzzle, just a few too many empty spaces to fill in letters that seemed like they made sense and pretend we'd really gotten them all. (The three we had left were impossible, too, historical horse names and 16th-century Indian dancers.) All the rest of was true, true, true. Pickled cactus isn't bad; the swing voter was honest-to-goodness real; the visor is blue, with hearts and flowers; I was actually pleased when the Red Sox won. Fenway Park is pretty fabulous, and it was a beautiful day, and they were tied 7-7 the bottom of the 12th... that sort of thing, even from fans of whiners, is contagious.

So yes, I'm sorry. No candy for any of you. You're not missing out on much, though, because all I have left are one mff dvr gumball and a lone generic sweetart earnestly exclaiming, "Eat me!"

I have a bunch of links to put up here some day soon, but they will have to wait -- I must go attend to my My Seven Homeschooled Children.

never traveling again, part I

If I am ever tempted to set foot outside the DC metro area ever ever ever again, someone stop me. If it's not a 15-minute journey from my house by foot, car or public transportation that costs under $1.20 ($3 if it's rush hour) I'm not going. Actually, if it's rush hour, I'm not going period.

BWI, I give up. An hour delay on the plane in Boston because the engine isn't working, a 45-minute wait for a bus to return to Daily Lot B for the privilege of paying $35 to retrieve our car, a two-hour crawl through a Memorial Day traffic extravaganza -- that would have been enough. But just to cement the deal, there's a flattened rat in the parking space behind the house, apparently done in by my right front tire when I pulled in at the end of the super-awesome journey. I get it, BWI. I don't understand how you managed to put that rat there, but you win. Gwen 0, BWI 40 million + 1 dead rat. I'm never leaving again.

Here is a quiz for you. Ready? Find the statement that is not true. This weekend, I:

a) went to Fenway Park for the first time

b) actually cheered for the stupid whiny Red Sox

c) completed the Sunday Boston Globe crossword puzzle

d) ate pickled cactus

e) gave a stranger in a bar a piece of candy that said "blow me"

f) gave a stranger in a bar a piece of candy that said "nice tits"

g) gave a stranger in a bar a piece of candy that said "muff diver"

h) met a fabled swing voter -- a drunk fabled swing voter -- and discussed the voting record of Jhn Krry*

i) went miniature golfing wearing a visor with my name on it

Winner gets 1,000 prestige points and the rest of the box of X-rated candy from the bachelorette party, if it's not all smashed at the bottom of my suitcase.

---
*vowels removed so there are no hits on this page for people seeking "Jhn Krry mff dvr" -- that's not my target demographic

hauling up and down the east coast, part III

First Cherry Hill, then Hartford, now Boston. Gone 'til Monday night. I am tired. Happy memorializing. Take a nap for me if you can.

intimate strangers

I keep looking for a single story that will distill this weekend's reunion into a cogent thought, and I can't come up with one. There wasn't really any singularly representative moment or anything profound like that, and even the usual cop-out route I take with this stuff -- jamming sixty million snippets of description into one sentence and not explaining any of them -- isn't going to work. Summary: I had a really wonderful time. Chalk another victory up to low expectations, seriously -- it was a hundred times better than I imagined.

And it's not like things were perfect in my life when I lived there, and it's not like they were perfect when I went back this weekend. I'm not whitewashing. But something about being at Wesleyan... it was fun and funny to see the random acquaintences, but my college friends, including and almost especially the ones I don't keep in great touch with and don't really need to, make me feel more like myself than I usually do. They open me somehow. I feel grounded. Safe and whole.

You know what was the craziest part? The way everything smelled. UNBELIEVABLE. I know smell is supposed to be that kind of sense, that puts you right back where you were, but oh my god. The cafeteria, the hallway of my freshman year dorm, the mailroom, the courtyard in front of the COL building, the trees behind the hill in the center of campus. Incredible.

I'm totally blathering now. I didn't get eight hours of sleep if you add Friday and Saturday nights together. I'm going to watch crazy mobsters kill each other and then I'm going to bed. I wonder if some day a long time from now I'll walk into this house and it'll smell the same and I'll feel this way.

112 over 73

I had a routine physical last week, and the doctor did all the stuff you see doctors do in movies. He tapped my knees with one of those rubber hammers, he looked in my eyes and ears, he took my temperature and my blood pressure and my pulse. I even had an EKG, which was kind of cool. And I got the results of my bloodwork back today, and they are normal. In fact, all the rest of that stuff was normal, too. I'm normal! Even though I didn't really expect anything to be wrong, my inner pessimist was telling me otherwise, so now it's amazing how relieved I feel. One small step for Gwen, one giant leap for Gwen getting over her irrational fear of doctors. That doesn't even make sense, but I'm normal, damn it! The doctor said so.

Here is a commencement address Jon Stewart gave at William and Mary. We watch "The Daily Show" every day at work at 10 a.m., so the Jon Stewart bandwagon -- driven by my fanatically Jon-Stewart-worshipping coworkers -- would have run me over if I didn't learn to love him. But how could you not: "We declared war on terror -- it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui."

a deluge, both traditional and footnote-al

Last night, headachey and strung out after a long day of painting and baking in the sun and turning green at "Super Size Me," roommate C. and I set out for a party given by one of my new coworkers in Georgetown. The sky had that weird thunderstorm-threatening tinge to it, and we were smart enough to bring a huge umbrella before we set out for the bus stop.

We, of course, were NOT smart enough not to wear a white tank top and the new white-and-black-striped skirt that we had just bought. In the middle of Dupont Circle 20 minutes later, as the half-dollar-sized drops turned into a solid sheet of vertical rain and the skirt clung to my legs and dragged on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum, as we tried to hold the sides of the embattled umbrella out with our hands and became increasingly incapacitated by hysterical laughter, as we were literally brought to a full stop and couldn't go another step -- then it felt like maybe good things can happen, sometimes.

please excuse the interruption

Remember how they used to say that on the intercom at high school? Is that was it was called, "intercom?" I don't remember.

Anyway -- there's a slight possibility that access to leafygreen will be interrupted in the next few days, because the credit card that keeps us in pixels is gone and the new one has not yet arrived, and the bill-collectors are pounding at the door. As soon as the updated information is in my possession, we'll be back in black -- but if we're lucky, it'll never go away at all. And as for take it easy, it will return soon too. (Because apparently when I take a little random break, Blogger decides to hideously overhaul its interface. It's still free and relatively reliable and I'm grateful for that, but I feel so disenfranchised. What's up with the wide-eyed, disingenuous "what's a blog?" on the login page, and aren't web designers over the whole rounded-corners phase yet? What is my dashboard and why do I want to go back to it? Am I in my car? If so, why are there so many gigantic cheesy graphics everywhere? What?)

Something nice from The Sun's Sy Safransky: "I'm less likely to judge another person when I remember I'm always working with insufficient information. Just as every tree has roots that are out of sight, underground, so does every person have roots the eye can't see. It's important for me to remember, when the hanging judge enters the courtroom, that this is equally true about me."

g-happy g-accidents

When I went to click on my weight-training site this morning, I missed the bookmark and hit Blogger, the one above it, instead. And this little Gmail icon caught my eye.

Do you see where this is going? I have Gmail. Rejoice and make merry, fair citizens! (If you are a Blogger user, I'd stop reading this immediately and go sign up for one yourself. If you aren't a Blogger user, I apologize, but maybe you could start a new account if you feel it's worth it...)

I was just discussing how Google's marketing hype is so good that I want the damn thing even though I barely know anything about it, and apparently all of California is screaming about privacy rights because of the AdSense text search, and Alissa read me the part of the service-terms agreement about how machines will read my email, and woo! Who cares! Now I know some things about it: 1000 MB of space! Search function! Cool labelling system that lets you group all your messages! Clean, spare, lovely Google-esque interface! Automatically generated contacts list!

Honestly, the privacy thing does trouble me, but deep down I don't believe there's privacy on the internet anyway -- this is just putting my metaphorical nonmoney where my mouth is. Not like I say anything so controversial in my email anyway that Big Brother will really be interested. Big Advertising Brother doesn't fool me, and he doesn't distract me from not ever buying whatever he wants me to buy. I know that's not the point, and I respect the point, but the point doesn't let me save all my email messages. The point doesn't let me never again have to call up a publicist, shame-faced, to ask her to resend her author's phone number because all messages older than 30 days are automatically deleted and I didn't know.

Speaking of Verizon and its evil email from hell, surprise surprise -- none of the "advanced" (ha) features on my account are working right now because they're "doing service" (double ha) to the e-mail "program" (triple ha). Which means that I'll be changing my email address again, and for that I sincerely apologize, but not that sincerely, because I have Gmail. To make sure all is well with the account, I'm going to wait a few days to send the official address-change email, but the new address will be g[mylastname] at gmail.com. Sadly, I couldn't do gg at gmail.com because it had to be six letters long, but it's still g-tastic.

to go, to go, whither or no

My five-year college reunion is at the end of May. It doesn't really make me feel old or anything, as I think cliche dictates, and it actually feels like I've been away from W*sleyan longer than five years. Which is not to say I don't miss it at times, but I'm pretty mixed on this reunion thing -- I had decided not to go for a variety of reasons/excuses and was comfortable with that decision... until I talked to someone who's excited about going, and now I'm torn again. Let us list pros and cons, shall we? We shall.

pros

· Seeing good friends, specifically Former Roommate Emily (moved to L.A. the day after graduation; haven't seen since) and Former Israel Roommate Tara (moved to San Francisco; have seen her a few times but would love to see her again).

· Seeing random acquaintences, especially old newspaper people.

· Spending time with people whom I do see but never for long. Especially the Boston people, whom it turns out I will not get to see this summer because I'm going to the New York convention instead... if I do go to this stupid thing, they'll be a big part of the reason. I actually can't think of much I'd rather do than spend 48 hours doing nothing with them again.

· Writing. I hear reunions are unbelievably excellent fodder for fiction. Something about past and present colliding.

· Sleeping in my first-year dorm. This would just be funny.

· Wandering around campus, which I did love quite a bit. I would love to visit the new building the newspaper is in and see what happened to the old one.

cons

· Money. I have none. I am already buying at least three sets of plane tickets to New England this summer. This is bad.

· Seeing random acquaintences. Just... I don't know. And now I am giving in to the cliche, but in the five years since college, I have not become fantastically successful. I have not fantastically saved the world from poverty and disease. I have not completed a fantastically wonderful trip around the world. I have not forged a fantastically perfect relationship I can show off revoltingly. I have not even become fantastically beautiful, witty, charming, intelligent or interesting. Maybe no one else there will have done these things either, but it could feel weird.

· No professors. At least not the two I'd most want to see -- one died two years ago and the other didn't get tenure, which I will hold against W*sleyan's asinine administration forever.

· Weekends. Committing to this means (I think) I'm away every weekend in May, and that makes me a little stressed out.

· The idea of reunions. I don't like it. Something icky and rah-rah cheerleader-y about it. At the same time, there's something catty and judge-y and negative about it, too.

· Haircut. I need one.

· "Grosse Pointe Blank(e)". I didn't like this movie and didn't understand why everyone else did. What if someone there is a hit man and I don't get it?

a link in time saves, um, time?

Don't worry, have cookie. Me want you have cookie. Have new archive and link page, too. Mm, archive and link page. Tasty treat.

Here is an interview with Nellie McKay, for those of you who may be interested. She comes off sounding extremely freakish and arrogant, but I think that might be the reporter's fault and not hers -- when I heard her on XPN, she was very random and intelligent and curious. Bizarre as hell, yes, but freakish in a good way. Mr. Reuters seems to have edited out her better qualities. Her best quality, in my opinion, is her album's anti-Norah Jones title, "Get Away from Me." Makes me happy just thinking about it.

Most of you know I'm not big on the dietary rules of Passover -- and don't particularly think God would care if I ate a giant statue of bagels, ham and cheeseburgers that I had carved in his/her/its image while coveting my neighbor's wife -- but I do like a lot of the traditions that go along with the seders, and I found a reading this year that I really wish I had taken to my family's seder (where they love to hear me talk about slavery and genocide!). I've been reading recently about the civil war in Sudan, and it's so appalling. I don't even know where to start. Maybe here.

On a lighter note, you've all seen the Subservient Chicken, right? I recommend yoga and tango.

And to conclude our Thursday links roundup, some ancient Weight Watchers' recipe cards. Anne forwarded this the other day -- I'd actually seen it about a year ago, but I clicked on it anyway and rediscovered the beauty. Here's a teaser, and this isn't even the best one, because you really need to see them in context: "The one on the right is skim milk and orange pulp. The one on the left is made with water, sherry extract, and two beef bouillon cubes. No, really. Well, there's also celery in it. Oh, and SELF-LOATHING. "

spring has sprung...

... at take it easy. Thought maybe it would be a refreshing change if this page were actually legible to most of you.

Confession #1: This is the same font-family/font-size/line-height combination that I used on Angie's redesigned webpage, which--

Confession #2: I lifted directly from Reuben in the first place. I was going to be all trendy and use some weird serif-y thing, but I had to recover from that ill-fated foray into Courier with something nice for a little while.

Confession #3: I also stole the pattern from Squidfingers, although you're supposed to steal them, so that's not much of a confession.

Confession #4: Once again, I have lazily resorted to a messy HTML/CSS combination that, sadly, has a table in it. Only one table total, no nesting, and all the div stuff is relatively well-organized, but I still feel chagrined in a 1997 sort of way. I know no one cares about this, but I must come clean.

None of the links above are updated yet, so consider them a sneak preview. And as usual, let me know if I didn't meet the legibility goal -- also as usual, I haven't looked at it on a PC yet.

city as (not too literal) metaphor
I went to see "The Eternal Sunshine Whatever Whatever" last night, and we had extra time between dinner and the movie, so we walked around the neighborhood for a while. The theater, which itself is pretty new, is in a part of the city near Metro Center that's being redeveloped at an unbelievably quick pace -- new buildings in; abandoned buildings out -- so naturally there's a lot of construction.

On F Street, in the middle of the block, there are these old facades of buildings that are being preserved. They're very cool-looking: rows of pillars, beautiful old stone and brick, old-fashioned lettering on the signs. Masons and carvers made the fronts of banks and federal buildings and whatever else beautiful during a time when the fronts of buildings were naturally beautiful, I guess, because every one had to be done by hand, so it wasn't cheaper and more expedient to make things homogeneously ugly the way it is now. I like that the facades will stay -- the metaphor isn't about how surface-level beauty is overly important or anything.

But the insides of the buildings aren't useful or structurally sound or whatever, and they're all totally knocked out, so the facades stand in front of huge pits of rubble. They're supported only by scaffolding. It doesn't look too sturdy. The doorways and the windows just lead to the space where the substance of the buildings used to be; you could see the empty sky through them last night.

And I feel just like that. We all hang on so narrowly.

who, meme?
[Please just pretend that you are now reading the obligatory statement about how I never do these things because they're pointless and self-centered, but this one seemed fun, and what's the harm since I never manage to write anything here anymore except paeans to my anthropomorphized clothing. Thanks! -- Ed.]

Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says.
"Slowly the sand grew more luminous, and along the edges." The sand grew more luminous? Why do I keep getting Umberto Eco books even though I know I don't like them? But it has such a good title...

Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?
A blue curtain. If I reached past that, I'd be touching outside.

What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Ten minutes of "Drumline" while I was eating dinner before yoga.

With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Sarah Harmer singing and street noise, as usual. There's also the most amazingly wonderful smell coming in from the window -- I don't know if it's a certain kind of flower or tree or just your basic spring or what, but it's amazing. It's the smell that every scented candle and jar of potpourri aspires to be.

When did you last step outside?
Ten minutes ago. This is starting to feel stupid.

Seen anything weird lately?
Now I'm editing it by skipping half the questions and it still feels stupid. Um, let's see. I hung a "Sharpton 2004" poster over my desk at work today -- does that count?

What is the last movie you saw?
I watched the whole first season of "Sports Night," if that counts as a movie. Liked it a lot. I think the last actual, full movie was "Spellbound" and I liked that, too.

If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?
Aside from peace, joy and eternal harmony for all god's creatures, and we're talking for me and me alone, I'd say a hybrid car. Or else a house on a lake somewhere in New England. Or Vancouver. Or a dog. Or I guess all of those, which are sort of pedestrian, huh... a literary agent for my book, that's the ticket. No, wait -- my own publishing house, so I wouldn't need an agent. And I'd buy a million people to read it and then I'd pay them to like it.

Do you like to dance?
Indeed.

George Bush.
No comment. Ha.

an open letter
Dear My Favorite Gray Yoga Pants,

I just wanted to write and tell you how much I love you. I apologize for my recent underappreciation. I'm not sure why I sometimes put you away and forget you exist... it might be because, like so many other things and people I like, you're somewhat unclassifiable.

You don't belong with the pajamas because you're more versatile than their modest reach; you don't belong with the work pants because they're terrible snobs; you don't belong with the gym clothes because, despite your name, you are not really worn to yoga -- you are a little too baggy for that, but don't take it personally. You are perfect just the way you are. You should have your own section, your own special unclassifiable shelf lined in raw lavender silk and cedar panels, labeled "Perfect."

Don't tell Best Black Work Pants or Fuzzy Blue Pajama Bottoms, but you are the crucial pants component of my post-nuclear-holocaust clothing set. If I had to give all of you up one by one, you and Wesleyan T-Shirt and Striped Red Hooded Sweater would be the last things protecting me from the cruel world.

Winter, spring, summer or fall, Yoga Pants. All you've got to do is call.

Sincerely,
Your Ever-Faithful Servant.