I finished the first sock of a pair:



I had started these over break but kind of stalled on them once I got back. The yarn is called Pacapeds; it's an alpaca sock yarn.

I once said I didn't like the names "Smooshy" or "Yummy" for sockyarn, because "Smooshy" sounds kind of icky (it makes me think of an apple that's sat in the refrigerator for too long) and yarn really ISN'T yummy unless you have some kind of odd synesthesia. (I'm not really crazy about using adjectives normally applied to food - tasty, yummy, delicious - to other things).

But I DO like the name "Pacapeds." For one thing, it tells you what the yarn IS - "Paca" for Alpaca, and "Ped" in that it's designed as a sockyarn.

It's also fun to say. pacapedpacapedpacapedpacapedpacapedpacaped.

But, because it's too hot to wear socks right now - let alone alpaca-wool socks, I did something else that I used to do every summer, but hadn't for a couple of years.

I painted my toenails.



(Yes, that's a healing fire-ant bite between the third and fourth toe. I must have gotten it some day when I was out wearing sandals; I don't go barefoot outside.)

I used to do this every summer but I stopped - I think it was the year I had a really bad sprained ankle (or it may have been a stress fracture for which I never sought treatment - at any rate, I had trouble with my ankle for about 8 months). I could walk on it but it was very hard to flex it to reach the little toes on that side.

The color here is called "Opulent Pink." It's a departure from what I used to wear - I used to use very dark, almost burgundy, reds. (That polish has since been "repurposed" for mark-and-recapture labs in Ecology class).

I've read that darker polish is not quite as good for your nails, and I also decided I wanted something fairly "girly girl" (the color I used to wear was called "Vixen," which implies something else altogether). So I picked this. (It took two coats to get the color looking right.) It's not a perfect job, but it's not too bad. (And I'm pleased I'm still flexible enough to paint my own toes; that was kind of a concern.)

I picked up the nail polish yesterday afternoon at the Target - after doing a couple hours' research, I ran down to Sherman (it was a rare free Friday afternoon - my piano teacher is at a professional conference this week so no lesson) because I wanted to drop off the sock-monkey quilt top and the Ooh La La quilt top - I've had both tops finished for quite a while, but just never got around to prepping the backings, and then I finally did that early yesterday morning before going in to do the research work. (The person who does quilting for me is not open on Saturdays so I have to find time during the week).

I'm also doing something I don't normally do.

We have been having really HOT weather (the heat index is supposed to hit 105 today, though I'm wondering if perhaps the heat-index predictions are a bit like the "baseball sized hail predictions" - something that weather-casters slaver over but that rarely happen). But anyway - HOT. It was already like walking into a Turkish bath when I left the house this morning at 7:30.

I put shorts on this morning.

I own, I think, two pairs of shorts. I almost never wear them.

(Well, for fieldwork it makes sense. Wearing shorts makes it a whole lot easier for chiggers to creep up your leg and bite you in places you REALLY don't want to be bitten, not to mention the risks of ticks finding their way there...)

But I realize the reason I never wear shorts - why I tend to suffer in long pants even on "casual" days when I'm not teaching, even when I'm just running to the hardware store for something - is traced back to something that happened over 20 years ago. And that's too dang long.

At my high school, we were allowed to wear Bermuda shorts (provided they were, I think, no more than 2" above the kneecap?) if we wore blazers with them (Which I realize now, kind of defeats the purpose of shorts: it would make more sense to wear a light cotton dress instead).

Well, one day I was wearing shorts, because it was a hot day, and one of the guys made a rude comment about the fatness of my legs.

And you know, those kind of offhand comments sometimes STICK, even if the person doesn't actually intend them to, or if it's just a "hey I'm going to look cool in front of my friends by harassing one of the less popular kids" or something dumb like that.

But I internalized that remark (to use - GAH - pop psychology terms) and never wore shorts to school after that. And didn't even really wear them in the summer unless I knew I wasn't leaving the house. (To the point of which, if someone said, "Let's go for ice cream!" or something like that, I'd run upstairs to change into jeans).

And this morning - after several days of hot, hot weather (which were dealt with during the school weak by wearing light cotton dresses), I decided: screw it. I'm wearing shorts.

And you know, I'm trying to convince myself of something I heard the other day, in re: matters of appearance you don't have much control over: "The people who matter won't care and the people who would care don't matter." On the one hand - if I stopped combing my hair, for example, I would expect the people who "matter" to say something, because that's an easily rectified problem. But heavy legs - especially when I do an hour of exercise most days and make a decent effort to eat a healthful diet - well, that does seem like something where if someone says something unkind about it, that it's just not very helpful. I can't magically decide to make my legs smaller. (An aside: you know, you don't hear much about liposuction any more. I don't know if it's become more commonplace and therefore invisible, or if it was deemed risky (I have heard of a few cases where either the results were ugly, or the person actually experienced bad complications), or if it's that people who are desperate to be thin-by-surgical-means now just have their intestines rerouted instead)

But at any rate. And for that matter, my legs may be better now than they were in high school - in high school, I made it an effort to avoid exercise as much as possible; now, I do it, not because I love it so, but because I know I am much healthier in many ways when I do it. My legs are not small and slender, but neither are they jiggly.

So I don't know. It's kind of a big step wearing shorts over to my building (even when I doubt anyone else would be in today). It makes me mad - both at the kid (and I can't even remember his name, now) who said that rude thing to me all those years ago, and at myself for letting another person's opinion define me so much.

Not that I'll be going out and buying a bunch of shorts to wear (and I doubt I'd wear them to teach in, even if I was more confident about my legs; shorts seem like play-clothes to me). But maybe I will wear the couple of pair I have more.