When this memory first surfaced today, I am pretty sure it followed a train of connected thoughts. No idea, now, how it came up. But anyway. Freshling year of college, I didn't have a decent winter coat, having outgrown the brown woolen one with the toggle buttons. Winter descended with my usual amount of money (none) in Storrs's usual accessibility to goods (minimal). At Christmas, my mother gave me funds toward a coat, an amount she could scarcely afford but which still would be inadequate, I thought. Funds plus a ride to a discount coat store, where indeed I did find what I needed. I now cannot imagine what I was thinking (likely, warmth + affordability): I can't imagine a big puffy coat like that would be as warm as wool, let alone synthetic fleece, and it was a ski jacket, ending at the waist. Also, it looked like a Domino Pizza deliveryperson's jacket, the same shades of red and blue, except where the Domino's jacket was blue over red (I think), mine was the reverse (I know).
The following year an itinerant vendor made UConn an annual stop with a supply of used, wool(ish) overcoats. I bought a gray tweed that went smashingly well with the scarf Nisou knit me for Christmas that year and I wore it until the bottom corner of my backpack rubbed through it. Whew.
What I chiefly remember about the Dominoesque jacket was how huge it was--I think it was a men's jacket--and how convenient that was for me in state facilities that were obscenely overheated (72 or more degrees, when I had grown up in a puritanically spartan little village): upon entering a building, I could take the jacket off immediately without having to pause to shuck my backpack, because I wore the pack underneath. A little hunchbacky, but sensible!
Tuesday night, home again home again, I emptied my canvas Dot Org briefcase into my backpack, but not well. No, I didn't bring my travel-sized shampoo to work Wednesday but neither did I bring my wallet. I began to suspect when I arrived at work and leaning the backpack into the sensor didn't unlatch the door (my key card lives in my wallet), but that's okay because I could and did ring the front desk to release it just as they do for Fedex etc. I knew for certain as lunchtime approached. My checkbook lives in the organizey-panel of my pack, so I had that, and I called the supermarket a quarter mile away to ensure that they would take my check without photo ID. No--even though my employer could identify me, even though any number of their own employees would recognize me as a frequent customer. It is to protect against identity theft, said the manager undeserving of the name since he clearly was subordinate to a computer. My identity is safer in the minds of clerks and the files at Dot Org than in a vast database, I didn't say. Instead I borrowed some cash from Kal and bought myself a burrito from the faux Mexican place and sulked.
Leaving work, Tex unnecessarily but kindly held the door open for Shadowfax and me. We chatted for a moment, and I saw a man strolling onto Dot Org property with his dog. I am--I decided this on the instant--Dot Org's official on-site dog inspector, and any human using our dumpster to dispose of dogshit must submit to my interview. Tex laughed at this and left me to it. Angel was perfectly happy to do so, front paws on the top tube, face in my face, tail awag. She was half Lab and half Irish Wolfhound, mostly Lab-looking but slightly taller and leaner and with beguiling bearding. Her human thought I was insane. Stupid human. Angel clearly could have ridden away home with me without a backward glance.
About halfway home I paused to give another dog a chance to cross the street toward me. He was an 11-month-old Great Dane named Smith ("What was his other Dane's name?" I can't quite get that right), undocked but for neutering. I am not sure I've seen a Dane with a full measure of ears and tail--they have great ears! and a waggable tail! which looks disproportionately short and stripling compared to the rest of the dog. He was already hip-high to his daddies and had another two inches and probably 20 pounds of bulk yet to grow. A great dog. Why must all giant breeds be droolers? It's that even more than their abbreviated lifespans that keep me vaguely sane about them. But a harlequin Great Dane like Darcy's in "Pride and Prejudice"? Eminently craveable.
Last night I dreamed up the best-ever home for Minnie. As I told her this morning, it was quite a favor I did her and she'd have to pay me back by letting me live with her. It was a treehouse, though resembling a hobbit-hole in coziness and proportion. Its most enviable element, though, was its windows, every one of which looked out over water and islands and mountains, and where the walls were not paved in window, they were paved in books. And despite being in a tree, or perhaps because it was in the right kind of tree, there were also gardens out every window, flowers framing the view.
Being off the anti-depressant has been fine, though I expect it'll be a month or more before I'm clean, in reverse of the time for it to take effect. I chopped my remaining tablets in half and so only did one step down before off. RDC says the effect for him was immediate (and appreciated): I abruptly stopped my kickboxing kangaroo parasomniac act.
Voicemail informed me I had two items waiting for me at the library. I have to figure out how to get the system to send me email rather than voicemail. Or perhaps I have to stop thinking of voicemail as intrusive. Anyway, before I scampered thither at noon I checked online to see what treats awaited me: one was a book for the neighborhood bookclub on bellydancing, and another, for which I hadn't received a summons, was identified only as an interlibrary loan. The internal hold was on the regular shelf but I had actually to interact with a clerk to get the ILL. And, since I was at the desk anyway, I had him check out both books instead of using the self-scanner. Imagine, talking to a librarian in a library! What will they think of next!
The book turns out to be Isabel Miller's Patience and Sarah from the Feminista list. I thought--I don't know why--that it was from earlier C20 but it's 1969. I started it at bedtime; good so far.
The bellydance book is Rosina-Fawzia B. Al-Rawi's Grandmother's Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing. The personal recollections at the front, about growing up in Baghdad within a vast household, I enjoyed very much, and the meditations on why the pelvis is a woman's center of energy. I admit to raising my eyebrows at a bit about how Arab-culture women take naturally to bellydance because of their awareness of and ease with their own sensuality compared to generic-European women. Bias rears its ugly head.
I'm looking forward to the book's discussion, of course. S studies bellydancing and her instructor is going to join us, dance for us, and give us a little lesson.
S recently gave me such a nice compliment, that she admires how gracefully and naturally I wear skirts, and yes, I can walk and run and garden and hike in them. Whatever grace they and I imbue each other with, however, is out the window when the time to dance comes. Further reports as bruising warrants.