Things I Ponder

If I walk around all day in heels (this usually only happens when I'm teaching, so I'm on my feet a lot), my calf muscles hurt by the time I get home at night. Does this mean I can say I've been exercising all day long?

How is it possible to be too tired to do anything productive but too awake to go to bed?

Why do home highlights last 2-3 weeks and salon ones last twice as long (or more)?

Who invented pockets in jersey/microfiber pants, and why? All they do is ruin the line of your clothes and make unsightly wrinkles. And provide you with an excuse to use the phrase "unsightly wrinkles" which, really, doesn't get used often enough.

Why do children who are overtired, and hence hyper-sensitive to being touched, insist on remaining within four square inches of each other and then whining that they are being touched and don't like it?

How late can you send out Happy New Year! cards without being completely ridiculous if, just hypothetically mind you, you didn't send out Christmas cards but would like to write personal notes to friends who live far away that you don't get to see very often? If you get them mailed before New Year's Eve, even though they will arrive after the New Year hits, is that still considered acceptable?

Got answers? I'll take them...

In Love (aka: All I Want for Christmas is this Gorgeous Stuff I Don't Really Need)

I have just discovered the J. Peterman Catalogue.

I know. I know. I should realize that I have known about this since the 1980s, thanks to Seinfeld.

But here's the thing: while I knew that "Elaine Benis" worked for a guy who actually in real life had a catalogue full of luxury products described in impossibly purple prose, I never bothered to look at the catalogue.  And then, the other day, one arrived in the mail.

And I fell in love with this dress

And this coat

And this skirt

And this blouse

 And then I realized that there is a prerequisite to owning thousands of dollars of such luscious clothing (other than the bank account): I need a fancier life.  A life in which I need beaded flapper dresses and opera coats or sexy, silky halter-backed tops...a life that still has sweet, small children in it, but that is centered in some major city, with the time and connections to take advantage of all manner of sartorial elegance.

I don't have such a life. And I don't need such clothes. But, oh, isn't it a lovely holiday fantasy that there is a party somewhere, for which an engraved invitation with my name on it is about to be mailed, and to which I will need to wear something magnificent? Something with the alluring swish of beaded fringe...

Ah...