People in my town probably wonder why I often drive around with a silly grin slapped on my face.

People in my town probably don’t know that I often listening to podcasts of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me as I drive around. There’s no way to listen to these podcasts without grinning crazily for the entire 45 minutes. It’s a test of will not to laugh out loud, in fact. And it’s a test that I often don’t care to even try to overcome. And so I drive around with a silly grin slapped on my face, gleefully confusing the steady, calm people that populate my town.

So yesterday I left work early, fell asleep on the couch for 3 hours, woke up so rag-doll-ish that I could hardly move and didn’t dare stand up, fell asleep on the couch again for a couple of hours, woke up with a throbbing head, went to bed, and woke up this morning so disoriented that I actually had to check the date on my computer to make sure it was Saturday.

And so, in my as-good-as-drugged state I thought I’d tell the story of my shockingly pink silk long underwear. First, let me preface this by saying that long underwear, which my family calls “longies,” comes up in normal conversation when you live in climates as cold as this one. It’s kind of like discussing your coat. People have opinions on the relative worth of cotton, silk, and marino, the pros and cons of washability, weight, price, feel, and (of course) warmth. I am firmly in the silk camp and therefore feel that the reasons for choosing this particular material should be self-evident to all, so I won’t go into them here.

The one down-side to believing that silk is the only way to go is that silk longies are on the pricey side. I had a couple of pairs of milky-white longies that I’d received as gifts 8-ish years ago (yes, longies make great gifts) and these kept me entertained by becoming more and more of a maze to put on every day. Little by little, I had to admit to myself that they were less longies with holes than they were longies with areas of integrity around the thighs and ankles. So when my mom told me she’d found Lands End longies on sale for twelve bucks, I realized it was time to plan a viking funeral for my old longies.

But there was a catch.

There was only one color of longies on sale. You could buy the milky white ones or the black ones for twice the money (and believe me, I considered it), but to get the good deal you had to take a deep breath, swear to yourself that it won’t matter and you’ll hardly ever see them, squint, and add the shockingly pink version to your pristine digital shopping cart.

As it turns out, there are several occasions during the day when I catch glimpses of my shockingly pink longies. Each time it’s a bit of a thrill. And sometimes, when I’m plowing through mundane tasks, I’ll take a moment to be aware of the feel of the silk and remind myself that only I know about the raucous and defiantly joyful color that keeps the cold away from my calves. Well, I and now you.

Tonight, lying in the dark with soft music playing in the background and about 15 tiny needles nestling into acupuncture points, the bits and pieces of the day’s conversations wove and rewove themselves in and out of random thoughts.

That sunset was deeply purple. I don’t remember a deeply purple sunset recently.

“Footnotes are at least as rhetorical as they are mechanical.”

“Silly boy.”

“I think our goals have been changed out from under us, which is why we’re having trouble seeing them.”

“This I Believe” would make a great title for a post about copyright policy.

“Are you sick of me yet?”

“Footnotes are at least as rhetorical as they are mechanical.”

I can’t believe my long underwear is hot pink.

“Silly boy.”

I hate it when people play the “you’re getting defensive” card. There’s no response that won’t sound defensive.

What would a good subtitle be for “This I Believe” … it’d have to include “copyright” or nobody would click through to read the whole post.

“Are you sick of me yet?” … silly question…

Tiredness is beginning to feel like a personal failing. Maybe not talking about it will be enough of an attitude shift to make it go away.

Or maybe exercising?

“I think our goals have been changed out from under us, which is why we’re having trouble seeing them.”

“Have you eaten lunch?”

Just a minute ago the patterns in the ceiling looked like a puppy. Now they look like a baby.

“We’ll have to watch the weather before deciding for sure.”

[time spent watching the patterns in the ceiling… watching them shift… watching them blur… blinking… watching them shift again]

“Maybe if we came up with sample assignments” … “workshops” … “that could be fun!”

“Silly boy.”

I wonder how Jesse’s presentation went. I should call and ask.

“rhetorical moves”

She wore her regular expressions skirt!!

“It’s not our collection that we’re extending, at that point, which muddies the waters.”

“So, it seems that we’re freezing the paper and then heating it, which is causing the jam. We think. At least it’s the best theory we have so far.”

This would make a really weird blog post. How would I do it, though? It’s hard to write randomness. And what would I title it? … If I write it honestly I should probably disable comments. … I should write it honestly. Mostly.

“I think our goals have been changed out from under us, which is why we’re having trouble seeing them.”

What could we do with these newer goals? … Why am I thinking about work stuff now?? … Do I always rehears my entire day when I get home? … I guess I do, though usually as I’m falling asleep.

Will I be hungry for dinner? Doubtful.

“We’ll have to watch the weather before deciding for sure.”

The baby is back in the ceiling patterns. What happened to the puppy?

A knock on the door interrupted the chatter in my head. My treatment was over. And now everything is quieter. The voices from my day have talked themselves out.

It’s sunny today. We’ve reached that point in winter where the air is too cold to hold the moisture that would allow for such things as clouds or snow. If this year continues like the last, we won’t get any more new snowfall until spring, and yet the towering piles of snow in parking lots, the tracked and furrowed snow on the lawns, and the decorative caps of ice on porch railings will all stick around right through until April.

My sister finally started a blog. She’s been reading mine for forever and has talked about following my example for a while, and she finally took the plunge. I’m so excited!!! The best part about having one or the other of us be away from home when I was younger was getting letters from her. They were always full of random interesting observations, and everything was written in a way that so perfectly mirrored her personality. Now my RSS aggregator stands poised to snap up each new post for me. It’s like getting letters, only without having to go down to the mailbox. The only things missing are the paper itself and the notes and illustrations on the envelopes.

…

I’ve wondered for a while about starting yet another blog. Then I realized that this is a bad idea. Having a place devoted to only those things that I’m not comfortable posting in my public blog or this blog would just be granting myself permission to wallow and whine and post trivial nonsense about the mundane happenings in my life (because that’s really what’s left out of my two current spaces, for the most part), and there’s something to be said for just letting that stuff go. What I really should do is take up my paper journal again… but that’s unlikely. Paper journals don’t have spell check, and they don’t make my scribblings legible for me, and they’re harder to edit, so I just don’t enjoy writing in them. Still, I think I’m going to broaden my view of what’s “appropriate” for this space. I miss writing and I need to do more of it, which means loosening up on my mental definition of what goes here at least a little bit.

…

I’ve seen a man walking around in short sleeves today, and others driving cars with their windows open. Never mind that it’s still well below freezing; it’s 40 degrees warmer today than it was yesterday. This puts people in mind of spring. I would expound on the stupidity of relying on relative rather than actual temperature except that I also left the house without putting on my hat or mittens, so I guess I should just be quiet.

…

My heart hasn’t beat with an even rhythm since Wednesday. I’m beginning to wonder if I just don’t have the stamina for working until 10pm yet or if I’m headed back into the hell that was Fall. I’m hoping it’s just a lack of stamina, but so far all my efforts to make my schedule work for me have failed, and next week promises to be no better. Meanwhile, exhaustion causes the irregular heart rhythm which causes more exhaustion which kills my appetite which causes more exhaustion. Not fun.

…

I’m simultaneously anticipating and dreading reading the Odyssey for a book group I joined. I haven’t done that kind of reading a long while, and the other people in the book group are all incredibly well educated and widely read. But it will feel good to stretch those particular mental muscles.

The book sits beside me now, thick and superior, reminding me how natural it used to be to read it’s like. And this particular copy is mocking me with it’s faux deckle edges. Such pretension is not only unnecessary but actually makes reading more difficult. I refuse to be daunted, though.

Well, tomorrow I will refuse to be daunted. Today, I’ll let it sit and weigh down the space next to me on the couch while I finish a book intended for children, full of fairies and fantasy and fierce bad guys. There’s no sense in being too grown up all the time.