Seasons Change

I’m sick of being hot. I see pictures of crisp yellow leaves and people wearing fleece jackets and vests and cordouroys and… well, I’ve seen footwear other than flip flops in other people’s pictures, and gaah, it’s too hot for me to consider anything else (my feet need to breathe. BREATHE.) But hell, I sure would give anything to put on some hiking boots and snuffle around in crunchy leaves and I don’t even hike. It’s blazing hot here, and every day it seems, it feels like it gets hotter and hotter as the day wears on, and by 7 p.m., I can hardly breathe.

Speaking of footwear, and apropos of nothing, I wore two different shoes to work today. Did you know that people actually did that? I’ve seen it played out in cliches and cartoons and television shows and thought, who does that? Are they afflicted with retardia? I then I did it, and though it was only in Reefs, it was humiliating to realize that my left foot was clad in a lovely brown leather little number, while my right was in screaming hot pink. This hot pink clashed with my watermelon skirt, incidentally, and the fact that I was wearing a watermelon skirt really freaked me out.

The elderly snowbird-type folks are starting to trickle in, and our dinners out are becoming more and more peppered with hugs and cries of “OH MY GOD! How was MINNESOTA?!” and there is an alarming increase in traffic, and an even more alarming increase in fender benders that result in exceedingly wealthy 80 year-olds being wheeled away from their Jaguars on orange guerneys.

And the outfits! My God, it’s October! October is a time for fall colors and fisherman knits and wool v-necks with dark jeans and – ooh ooh – maybe some BOOTS. Not so much here. Instead, this is about the most tame thing you’ll see. (Please, if you’re a Lilly Pulitzer fan, I’m so sorry. It’s just…well, I find her stuff vile and everything that’s wrong with suburban affluence, all wrapped up in a sherbet-themed confection, and I thought this parentheses would be more forgiving than that, but I can’t even fake it. Hate Lilly.) Tropical prints leap off of pants all over the place. Sweater sets with applique’d raspberries dance atop lime green skirts printed with giant parrots on them. Perfectly pedicured feet twirl inside gold leather sandals adorned with giant pink rhinestones. I’ve seen more palm tree-themed jewelry than I’d like to admit.It’s like Jennifer Lopez-meets-Betty White down here, and it’s untenable.

And I wore a watermelon skirt today, and I flipped out, because GOD, I looked like a pod person, and when I went home to change my shoes, I peeled it off in favor of some new fall pants. (I’ve had that skirt since well before I moved here, but I had no idea what a sad significance it would adopt in this place.) The new pants, by the way, were a really bad idea, since I was seriously sweating through them by the time the day was halfway over, giving new meaning to the term ‘swamp ass.’

I’d give anything to throw on a pair of cordouroys, a nice lightweight v-neck sweater, and maybe some sassy little…uh, loafers? (Please remember that I cannot dress myself. Do people wear loafers? Is that lame?) Instead, I’m wearing limp jersey skirts and t-shirts with Reefs, and God, I even briefly hallucinated and considered changing my tune on Lilly Pulitzer just to change it up a little, and that’s about as scary as it gets, folks. And I know, I know, when January comes, you’ll all be shoveling, and I’ll be at the beach with a bunch of tropical-printed tourists with their umbrella drinks, but for right now, GOD, I just want a new season. And warm pants.

*Exposé . Surely you remember Exposé

18 comments October 3rd, 2006