Yesterday, in the blithe warm weather --- unbelievable high of 70F --- following on last week's cold, I did a very spring-cleaning-ish thing. I took down our bedroom curtains and washed them, then hung them to dry, which they did very quickly, on the line outside. Then I re-hung them, and here they are, fresh and white, relieved of their months' worth of dust.
At this point I have done most of the curtains in the house --- we don't have that many. There's one window in the sunroom with curtains still unwashed, plus all the rooms upstairs, where mostly the curtains are blackout curtains and not as easy to wash and dry . . . I'll get to them eventually. The ones in my study are still pretty new, and they got taken down and shaken out, at least, when the painters were here two weeks ago. So they'll do for a while yet.
Today:
*dog walk
*my own writing
*class planning
*travel-capsule organizing
*pub night
Not a bad agenda at all, I think. Yesterday I finished all my Substack essays for next week, and I might go ahead today and pop up one that I can recycle quickly for the week after. But I don't have to. Those can wait, if need be, till I get back.
It's warm again today, though not expected to be as warm as yesterday: high of 60F, not 70. As far as I'm concerned, this is perfect late-winter weather, still chilly at night and in the morning, but verging on springtime once the sun is well up. We could still get snow, and it will certainly be below freezing many nights between now and Easter, but the end of January always feels like a corner --- not turned, but turning.
This is the kind of transitional day that's hard to dress for. Much as I love this exact weather, that's just an incontrovertible fact, at least in my world. It's too warm for the woolly layers I've been wearing. It's really too cool and too early for bare legs. What to do? Weather like this is why I decided to invite trousers back into my wardrobe, because they obviate the problem of leg coverage when you don't feel like tights and get you out of the rut of swing-dress-and-leggings, which I like sometimes but not all the time.
So.
Wearing today (base outfit):
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Bay (?) tank in Oatmeal (?), bought January 2025, last worn January 27 (this past Monday, in other words). Wears in 2025: 3
*Secondhand vintage April Cornell rayon floral skirt, bought fall 2021/early winter 2022 --- can't remember now. Third year of wear, I'm pretty sure.
*Secondhand Allbirds gray-blue tencel-merino leggings, bought January 2024, second year of wear
*Secondhand Birkenstock Rosemeads, bought February-ish 2023, entering a third full year of wear, I guess? I start to be unable to math these things. I wore them for pretty much all 2023, all 2024, and now I'm wearing them in 2025. That sounds like the start of a third year, right?
Sometimes you want leg coverage without its being obviously leggings-and-swing dress. Maxi skirts are great for transitional weather, because even if you don't wear anything on your legs underneath, you still don't look as though you're rushing summer. Today I did want some more warmth and coverage, but less obviousness . . . anyway, this is a different silhouette from the one I wore yesterday, which I guess is really my point here.
I didn't make an outfit plan this week, but I have been trying to incorporate items I don't wear as often. These Birkenstocks, for example, had been sitting neglected in my closet, and it's nice to rediscover them. I ask myself why I bother having any shoes that aren't Birkenstocks. I just vastly prefer them to all other shoes, with the exception of my handful of Xero barefoot shoes, and I think if I could find a black pair of Papillio Mary wedges like my tan ones, and maybe a closed-heel version of these Rosemeads in a dark brown, I would resell all my other Mary Janes and be perfectly happy.
Shoes are hard, I find. It's easy to get them wrong. I do quite like my brown Earth Shoe Mary Janes, but I don't like them as much as I like any pair of Birkenstocks. My black Alegria Mary Janes fill a need, but I haven't worn them much. My floral ones are just a miss, and I need to move them on. I'm not actively looking for more shoes right now, but in coming months, shoes might very well take up some slots in my 10 secondhand items budget.
Anyway, I'm happy to be wearing these soft purple Birk clogs, which again are perfect for this kind of transitional weather, so typical of winter in the South. Last weekend: ice. This weekend: forsythia blooming. That's how it goes here, completely unpredictably. You have to be ready for anything, within a certain range of possibilities.
So, the other thing I'm wearing that I haven't worn in a long time is this long rayon skirt. It's one of the few non-natural-fiber pieces still in my closet, and I've hung onto it because a) I bought it, and b) it's pretty and I do like wearing it. I really want to make a point of wearing it more. This new-to-me NPL tank, which I'm obviously reaching for pretty frequently now that I have it, is easy to wear with it, and I think it'll help me reach for all kinds of things that otherwise aren't so effortless to wear and style.
I like the hint of leggings peeking out under my skirt here, but obviously in warmer weather I could just do without them.
Now, just as I'm not going to have bare legs today, I'm also not going to have bare shoulders.
*Secondhand Connemara merino cardigan, bought fall 2024, first year of wear.
This outfit would probably be more "flattering" if I tucked in my top, but eh. I like these loose floating layers and the staggered lines down my body. It's the vibe I'm feeling today, anyway. Yes, yes, I know all about the Rule of Thirds, but knowing the rule and being bound by the rule are two different things. I'd argue that you're a lot more limited by not knowing rules than you are by knowing them --- as a person with agency, you can say, I'm not going to do that, which is different from saying, I had no idea I could have done that. You might not like my choices, meanwhile, but then you don't have to. They're not your choices. You are free to do something else. But the more you know, generally speaking, the freer you actually are to understand what you do as an exercise of your God-given agency in this world.
So anyway, I am exercising my God-given agency in this world to look like this today, because vibes. How I feel in my clothes is, to a great extent, more important to me than how I look in them --- though I'd be lying if I said that that wasn't important. Manifestly it is, because why else would I be taking all these silly selfies every day? But even in photos, what I'm after is something less definable than mere outward appearance. I'm after the outward appearance, but --- as in the definition of a sacrament --- I'm interested in it as of a piece with an inward reality. What that is, exactly, I'm never entirely sure, but today it looks like this.
Off to the races.
PS:
Currently reading Helen Castor's The Eagle and the Hart, about Richard II. I need to start Comedy of Errors as the next play, chronologically, in Shakespeare's lineup, though I'm kind of tempted to read more histories, moving on to Richard II and the Henry IV and V cycle. That's going back in time, historically --- Richard II is almost a hundred years before Richard III. But those are later plays, which is why I didn't start with them. Anyway, I might hold off until I finish reading Castor, whose very lively history deals with all the players in that drama.
Still plugging away at Catherine of Siena as well.
Oh also: I'm listening to Moby-Dick on audio while I jump on the trampoline and lift weights. Just finished Chapter 3.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
The painters are scraping away at the roof, and I have at least drafted my class handouts for next week, which is tantamount to having a plan.
It's clouded over and threatening to rain --- I think tomorrow will be wet as well. Good thing I've done all the line-drying I really wanted to do.
Did a little rather pointless scrolling through Poshmark, just . . . you know. For something to do. I have a couple of pairs of overalls saved to my likes, and one in particular, in white, continues to catch my fancy. Mainly I think: yes, white overalls could be useful, but also easy to dye. The price is right, at $15, too. Trying to decide what color I would theoretically dye them before I commit, but it's on my mind. I mean, if somebody else gets in first, then clearly I'm not meant to have them, and it's all good, but it would be fun to dye something again.
I also saved a Not Perfect Linen blue wrap blouse that I thought might make an Easter outfit with the skirt I'm wearing today. I have worn this skirt for Easter multiple times, as it happens. It pretty much scratches my Christy Dawn dress itch, which is a good thing, because I'm still not paying $250 for a secondhand dress, or $300 for a new one. Also, I have dresses. I might change my mind, but at the moment I don't think I want another. I need to wear the ones I have. But I am enjoying this skirt today and thinking how much I like it, and how glad I am that I didn't decide to sell it.
Thinking about my travel capsule for next week. Things I'll be doing:
1. Traveling from not-so-cold NC (high of 56 on Sunday) to a high of 25F in Merrimack, NH
2. Monday: teaching class, meals with faculty, evening book study with alumni
3. Tuesday: brunch with friends, meetings with students in the afternoon, dinner with faculty, public poetry reading in the evening (biggest event of the trip)
4. Wednesday: teaching class, travel home to NC, where it will be about 63F, as opposed to 30something in NH.
Moral: I need to take warm layers, yet plan to look professional and, for Tuesday night, kind of dressed up or at least cool in a literary way.
I'm mulling taking at least one Sierra dress, though my Iris Blue, for example, is really a little short for the context of a conservative Catholic campus. But wearing this skirt today is giving me ideas . . .
I don't know that I'll do this, but it's an idea to file away. Otherwise, if I take my Marine Blue Fiona, she could also do double duty as both a dress and a top with this skirt. The fabric isn't as thick and warm, but the skirt of that dress would be a longer slip than the Sierra's skirt would be, and over wool tights, it'd be fine.
I could in fact . . .
1. Wear Fiona on the plane with navy merino tights, thin wool socks over for when I have to take my shoes off, my Keens boots, and this green sweater, which is bulky to pack. It'll be cool enough here that I won't swelter in that outfit on this end, and at the other end I can put on my gray puffer jacket, which I haven't worn in a long time but which has the advantage of being warm but packing down really small.
2. Wear Fiona on Monday to teach and lead this alumni book gathering, with this maxi skirt and cardigan, merino tights, and boots (and puffer jacket).
3. On Tuesday . . . wear my Aegean Teal Maggie dress with cardigan, black cashmere footless tights, thin wool socks, boots, coat (this outfit, essentially --- maybe I'll also pack that base-layer tee) to brunch with my friends and then to meet with students.
4. For the Tuesday-night reading, layer my Emerald Green Smock dress over my Maggie dress and black cashmere tights, add pink merino cardigan (basically last Sunday's Mass outfit).
5. For Wednesday teaching + travel: Marine-Blue Fiona again, repeating my travel outfit from Sunday which probably nobody who'll see me on this day will have seen or be likely to remember.
This would make for pretty light packing and efficient use of core items of clothing. I shall mull on it some more, but I think it would work okay.
ETA: Though possibly I will pack one Sierra. I could wear my Washed Navy one on its own --- not too short for the campus culture, I don't think, and/or I could wear it on the plane going. Thinking, thinking!