Five days ago, I wrote this:
Today, in a fit of pique, I refused to put on pants. I've been wearing pants for a month straight, you see. Jeans, jeans and more jeans, sometimes alternating with a lone pair of cargo pants. And today I simply could not take any of them anymore. Wherefore my pretty skirts and tights? My New York City shoes, my dresses? I used to be so well-dressed, back in that other life I used to have. This morning, when I peered into my mother's closet and my pants stared out at me so sensibly, so responsibly, almost balefully from their perch, I just kind of wanted to pinch them where it hurts. Hard.
Instead, I closed the closet door and put on my favorite gray woolen tights, a nice denim pencil skirt (one of two skirts I dared take with me for these first few months) and my new pair of knee-high boots (happy new year to me!). Ooh, things were looking up already. I dabbed on makeup and put on my favorite earrings and felt almost womanly for the first time in a month.
Do you have a sense of where this is going? Because thusly clad (well, and wearing a jacket) I sashayed outside the house, got into my mother's car and, about 4 feet later, realized that the car was A) stuck on solid ice and B) had a flat tire. And there I was, defiantly under-dressed and freezing my...knuckles off. A kindly crew of garbage men and a good Samaritan took pity on me and helped with the car while I weakly shook my fist at the sky and at my vain self.
Universe, I salute your sense of humor. Also, I'm wearing pants again. You win.
I was going to tell you more, you know, about a Rachael Ray recipe I tried (and loved) a week before I left New York. There was a point to all that up there, is my point. But four days ago, I came down with a stomach flu and the thought of ever having eaten before or ever eating again became an impossibility. I will spend the rest of my life drinking fennel tea and eating Zwieback every other day, I thought solemnly as I lay in bed and contemplated my nausea. Too bad about that food blog, I thought. And all those recipes I never got to try.
Then, two days ago: Haiti. And though I may be able to eat breakfast again, the news from that country has struck me dumb. So all I've got for you today is this:
