Running Thoughts (2)

I watch a little too much What Not to Wear, and consequently spent too much money yesterday on what I might once have called totally impractical purchases.

For starters, I bought a yellow raincoat at Ann Taylor. It's not vinyl or nylon -- it's that treated cotton stuff, and it's adorable. Never mind that I already have a colorful treated-cotton raincoat (pink, from The Gap), never mind that it's almost summer and therefore will not rain for months. I had to have it. It was on major sale. I cannot resist something that cute that is also marked down to less than 30% of the original price. (Yes, you read correctly -- a $150 jacket for $40. Not to be resisted.)

Still, though, the happy yellow raincoat is not inherently impractical. After all, it does rain sometimes, and I will want a better-fitting jacket than the pink one I already have (which I never wear because it really doesn't fit well at all). And it's not exclusively for rain -- it will function nicely as a cool-weather jacket come fall.

No, the really impractical purchases were the shoes.

I bought a pair of bright orange slides:


and a pair of pink snakeskin slingbacks:

(These are exactly them, but close. Just imagine the snakeskin!)

Yes, that's right. Pink snakeskin. Clinton and Stacy would be so proud of me. I bought shoes that are not black. I plan to wear them with clothes that aren't necessarily orange or pink. I am adding splashes of color to my wardrobe. I am stunned at myself. So is my husband.

To recap: I bought three things. One is bright yellow, one is bright orange, and one is pink snakeskin. Life is color. I repeat, life is color.

Someone forwarded this to me, and I'm all about it.

I have received email about this great idea from several people today. In a nutshell, a growing number of Americans, concerned about current U.S policies regarding individual civil liberties and freedoms in the U.S. and abroad, are going to wear RED every Friday until the November election. That's it ~ that simple. A "quiet revolution." A simple way to identify (and identify with) the growing number of concerned citizens in our country.

Read the full story on Marisa's blog.

I went to a fêting this weekend. The mother of the male half of the couple being celebrated (not a groom, since it wasn't a wedding) called it "sort of a wedding without a minister" and that's accurate to a point.

The ceremony consisted of the "fride" and the "froom" (so was the terminology decided) first speaking about them, their story, their history -- although in less straightforward language than might have been expected. (They both hold advanced degrees in English Literature.) Those were the vows. Then a succession of friends toasted the couple, interspersed with the couple toasting their parents, various locations, the reception hall, etc. Finally, the fride and the froom toasted one another and we all sat down for dinner.

The entire evening was remarkably "them" -- by this I mean that nothing about it astonished me, knowing them as I do. But when the fride said, "I know this isn't a traditional event, but I am somewhat traditional -- and very much wanted to have 'something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.' " -- well, I wondered what she, and he, will think of it all in a few years.

Will they revel in the uniqueness of their fêting? Will they sit around tables of friends with coffee and scotch and swap stories of funny and special moments and always with great grins of joy?

Or will a day come when they'll watch the video and flip through pictures and wish they'd done things differently? Wish they'd had a marriage certificate or a minister or a justice of the peace; regret the format or the length or the solemnity? Will they wish they'd looked only at each other as they shared their vows instead of reading from a podium to the audience/congregation?

Weddings -- and fêtings -- are funny things nowadays. Everyone is intent on making their ceremony their own, different, unusual, unique. Some more, some less. I can't dispute that many joinings I've attended have been branded so nicely by the couple. But I also can't dispute that for millenia such joinings have followed a standard formula -- man and woman exchange vows, others impart wisdom by reading their own words or those of others, man and woman exchange a symbolic token, and someone with authority pronounces them wed. In the Quaker tradition (which the fride and froom were emulating to an extent), the someone in authority is actually the entire community, but that fits the formula as well.

The fêted couple did follow the formula, in a sense. But they did not have a mutual exchange of tokens (the fride gave the froom a gift, but that was more a part of her vows, and there were no rings). And, most differently, they had no moment of "pronouncement."

I think that's what I missed most -- a moment where someone, or even just the audience/congregation, as in the Quaker tradition, marked the difference between What Was Before and What Is Now. I hope the fride and froom experienced the shift. Otherwise, the evening was for everyone else and not for them.

Sometimes I forget how deep family ties are rooted.

It's very easy to hide at home, shelter myself from filial obligations and weekly phone calls. Because in my most private soul, I powerfully fear contact -- even while yearning for closeness.

Why? All that baggage.

Some bags are the vacation trunks, plastered with images from fun and exciting interludes, weddings, births, late nights at the movies. CONGRATULATIONS! and REMEMBER THAT NIGHT? stamps overlap I LOVE YOU and YOU UNDERSTAND ME stickers.

But some of those family trunks are wrapped in yellow police tape, blaring CAUTION: DANGER INSIDE. Sometimes the yellow tape says EVIDENCE OF OLD AGE, or YOUTH SQUANDERED. Stickers cry CANCER and MENTAL ILLNESS, DIVORCE, DEATH, ANGER.

And it's hard. On some bags the yellow tape obscures almost all of the lovely memories.

I'd rather not look at the ugly yellow tape and I'd prefer not to think of the other images hidden underneath it. It's too hard. There are too many sadnesses involved in peeling away the warnings, too many tears to shed.

We all know health care in the US is in dire straits. Daniel DeNoon, a writer for WebMD reports on which states provide the worst healthcare for women.

Most disturbing?

"The rankings are based on whether states have adopted 67 'key women's health policies.' The only one of these met by all the states is Medicaid coverage for breast and cervical cancer. Only three states -- New York, California, and Rhode Island -- met more than half of these policy goals. Idaho, South Dakota, and Mississippi met the fewest."

In other words, not one of our 50 states is doing a good job of providing health care for women, and most of them are failing miserably.

I was really upset, too, to discover that 28% of women (more than one in four) in my home state, Texas, don't have health insurance. Yet the Texas lege recently cut funding for the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program. Sad. Sad, sad, sad.

Finally, the weather has decided to be fair.

Instead of raining on the weekends with sun during the workday, we had a lovely sun-filled Saturday and Sunday. Monday morning's skies look appropriately Monday-ish.

It's a four-day week for me, though. Trying to convince myself it's Tuesday and get over the Monday shock.

After a week and a day or so, my wicked head cold has almost dissipated. I'm still a little phlegmy. The nose isn't drippy, but the back of the throat must be cleared every five minutes.

Fascinating ruminations for the unintiated, I know. But it's been a week since I've blogged, and I felt I needed to present some sort of update.

For your entertainment, I'll leave you with this. More signs of the apocalypse? Think about it: Not only are they Evangelical, they've also got rock hard abs!