Something Up My Sleeve
I went looking for my black spandex pants tonight. They're the ones I wore under my marching band uniform in high school. I still have them because I also like to wear them as a base layer when I ski, under my North Face snowpants, and since I'm going skiing soon, I wanted them. So I went looking. I know they'll still fit because they're, you know, spandex.
So I'm tunneling through a plastic storage bin of summer clothes, thinking perhaps they'll be at the bottom, when I see a glob of black. I grab it, but it's not slick and stretchy like spandex. It's rather rough and itchy, like polyester. I pull.
Out comes a pair of perma-creased black polyester slacks, very slightly tapered, high waist, flat front, a few tiny snags on the hips and one thigh. Where did these come from? Why are they still here? Should I bother to keep them? Do they even fit? So I pull them on, and as I zip them up and fasten the plain, flat black button, I remember. I recognize the way they fit and feel- a little different now, looser on the waist and tighter on the thighs, but still- and where I wore them last.
I wore them to my college graduation with a slinky striped knit shirt, under my black cap and gown at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. I wore them to dinner with my best friend the last time he and I had sushi together in San Diego, and I wore them to see Miss Saigon with Shnookie and Toni at the Civic Center on a Saturday night with a sparkly mauve v-neck top. And I wore them all over Europe in the late summer heat- Paris, Venice, Lugano, Innsbruck, Amsterdam, London, more- playing concerts (yay, Red Band!) in parks when I was fifteen years old. And do you know what?
They're too big.
Thank you, rowing machine.
So I'm tunneling through a plastic storage bin of summer clothes, thinking perhaps they'll be at the bottom, when I see a glob of black. I grab it, but it's not slick and stretchy like spandex. It's rather rough and itchy, like polyester. I pull.
Out comes a pair of perma-creased black polyester slacks, very slightly tapered, high waist, flat front, a few tiny snags on the hips and one thigh. Where did these come from? Why are they still here? Should I bother to keep them? Do they even fit? So I pull them on, and as I zip them up and fasten the plain, flat black button, I remember. I recognize the way they fit and feel- a little different now, looser on the waist and tighter on the thighs, but still- and where I wore them last.
I wore them to my college graduation with a slinky striped knit shirt, under my black cap and gown at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. I wore them to dinner with my best friend the last time he and I had sushi together in San Diego, and I wore them to see Miss Saigon with Shnookie and Toni at the Civic Center on a Saturday night with a sparkly mauve v-neck top. And I wore them all over Europe in the late summer heat- Paris, Venice, Lugano, Innsbruck, Amsterdam, London, more- playing concerts (yay, Red Band!) in parks when I was fifteen years old. And do you know what?
They're too big.
Thank you, rowing machine.
posted by A at
9:28 PM
2 Comments:
You know....I have a picture of you & me at your Graduation wearing those pants....
I do hope that for the purposes of trying the pants on, you paired them with a light blue polyester blazer that had been sweated in across Europe by countless other 15-year-olds before and after you...
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