I don't remember exactly when the following was my favorite outfit, but I think eighth grade, and I think so because when it became certain that I would go along on the class trip to D.C., I packed immediately and did not thereafter reconsider the clothing I'd selected; but I packed in Connecticut in February and suffered in Washington in early May. Gray wide-wale cords, white oxford, and a sweater that I loved, having picked it out myself: gray sleeves and back and an argyle front of lavender and pale green diamonds and a white stripe. It was a little tight in the sleeves and my mother told me that that was an area clothing manufacturers often skimped on. I remembered it recently when I was trying on a sweater similarly tight in the arms, as if women with solid torsos and unmistakable bosoms should somehow have spindly capellini arms. Or maybe it occurred to me yesterday when I noticed someone wearing a shirt reminiscent of my favorite one from 1985 (I wore it for my 12th grade yearbook picture). It was collarless, white, and not pinstripe but with two narrow gray stripes alternating with a narrow black stripe on the white field. I wore it with a graphite pencil skirt. Ha! It was graphite-gray and, as I recall it, pencil-thin. No pun intended.
I started writing this yesterday in the meeting where I spotted that dated pattern. It also occurs to me that I have claimed lavender as my favorite color for a long time, remembering a lavender henley that I wore to bits throughout college, but that maybe gray is just as long-lasting favorite and isn't just a cockatiel thing. If I were that into mother-son matching outfits, I'd wear orange and yellow too.
Brr. 21 degrees this morning. With fleece pants over my bike shorts and a thin sweatshirt, I was fine all over except the tips of my fingers, which my full-finger bikegloves cannot protect. The homeward ride was fine at 41: fingerless bike gloves with the full ones and the fleece in my panniers.
Two 3.6-mile city rides.