Time To Resolve

How to accessorize for the New Year's holidays: clutch bags are hot which means you either have to put the damn thing down to be pilfered or have yourself rendered defenseless since you are taken down to maneuvering with one arm. I don't understand clutches nor do I want to speak their language. Ask a man to hold a wallet in his hand all evening and see what he says, and I bet it isn't "Happy New Year." To me, it's another way for fashion to immobilize a woman.

What the heck fits in there anyhow? A license? A comb? Tissue? Again, I want my emergency escape kit with me. In my purse I have tissue, contact lens stuff, dental floss, emery board, a wallet, pens, pepper spray, um, don't laugh a compass, lipstick, eyedrops, Ricola cough drops, a small flashlight, divorce papers, name change papers, coupons, appointment book, Imodium, Tylenol, clonopin, quarters for the meter, cell phone, calculator, band aids, water purifier, collapsible stove, and a tent for four.

Somedays I stick lunch in there, don't have a respectable lunch sack at the moment. So you think I am going someplace and be dependent on somebody else in case of emergency? So I can juggle a clutch? I think not, bwana.

Accessory hint number two: big bangles. Big bangles get in the dip or any other food you're reaching for; this can be handy if your trying to save a snack for later as there's a bit of storage space between the bangle and your wrist. Also handy if you get a flat on the way home, just slap that sucker in place and jiggety jig, off you go.

Same thing for accessory hint number three: the over large cocktail ring. Why, for god's sake? Again, it merely gets in the way of intimacy and pisses off the hosts when you chip their Hodaka Hasabe vase. Your hand just can't act natural when clunked down with such nonsense, and will tire by the end of the night, dragging behind you like some troglodyte hand from one million B.C. You may be in the next room already, and your hand will still be dragging itself out of the lady's room with piece of toilet paper stuck under the damn ring, just to show you.

The last accessory hint was some sort of barking about wearing a hair statement--the word statement was used--with feathers. I'll get the cats right on it. Go out and hunt me a blue jay, kids. Just where are these feathers from? You know the most likely source is China. Chinese chicken feathers. Oh boy, we're living now. Wait, I do have a cat toy with feathers, do you think that counts?

I tell you, any accessory made of feathers would soon become a cat toy in this household. Wear feathers in your hair in this place, and you just voted yourself as a cat climbing tree. Watch 'em creep up your leg just to get that damn bird. Or launch themselves from the top of the fridge as you pass by. Put some liver pate behind your ears while you're at it. Same same.

Gosh, I love fashion, but criminy, unless it makes life easier for myself and those around me, forget it. Try putting on gloves with a large ring, or get your coat on with some of those bangles. Your hands won't fit all the way through the sleeves so you are totally utterly dependent on the kindness of others which won't last long when they see how much fun it is to push you down into a snowbank or a hedge just to watch you try to stand back up.

I'm going to make some resolutions, easy ones so that something goes well. I have a good feeling about 2009. Cold night here, the temp has dropped. Snow predicted, we have milk and cat food, the essentials. Bundle up against the wind, it cascades over the ice muraines of the frozen lake; as you look up at the red slit of scarlet sunset, the cold steel of the lake wind makes you avert your eyes from the bitter cold. Frozen planet. Blood sky. Night falls. Home. Here.

Love