Good thing they're stretchy(or: Behold, my most frivolous andself-indulgent entry of all time,not counting the end)

Tights, that is. Or leggings, really, if you're going to be strict about the definition. I'm feeling torn this season between irritation that everyone else is now copying the winter legwear I've depended on for more than 25 years (irritated in anticipation of next year, when they go out of style again and everyone will think I'm stuck in 2006, when in fact I'm really stuck in 1980, the year I fell in love with my first pair), and elation that their newly fashionable status means they're now being made in millions of different colors and materials, so I can stock up for those lean years when all you can find is black and gray.

Two things are fueling my obsession: the weather, and the fact that I'm now back on the bike on a more or less regular basis. It's too cold to keep wearing my summer uniforms, and my interim uniform (which involves jeans and boots) isn't comfortable to ride in. So I'm now working on my new winter uniform, which will be based on warmth, comfort, and ridability. The prototype I'm wearing today is all black, which I'm really trying to get away from, and consists of my favorite old skinny cardigan over a wifebeater over a cotton camisole, stretchy canvas ruffle skirt from Brooklyn Industries (thanks for the tip on those guys, Julie!), platform ankle boots, warm wool socks and capri-length leggings that are really an old pair of running tights my sister gave me about fifteen years ago.

The tights are the only part that really isn't working for me today, because they're kind of shiny and that's just ... not right ... somehow ... Overall, though, I'm satisfied. The practicality of the leggings really asserted itself this morning as I was riding to work, allowing me to wait at stop lights in the middle of traffic with one leg up on the top tube without flashing anyone a view of anything they really don't need to see first thing in the morning. Or at any other time.

So! It's official: the 2006/07 winter uniform will be leggings-based, and skirt or smock-based. Now I just need to figure out the colors (brown and black, plus red, plus a pear-green cashmere shawl I've been wrapping around my neck at night – are you sick of this yet?) and the boots. These black ones I have on today are way past their prime and as of late last spring were beginning to leak. And my black cardigan is on its last leg as well; this weekend I noticed it's starting to unravel at the back of the neck.

Hair-wise, I've declared the next year or so "the year of the topknot." Now that the perm is about half grown out I'm in that awful state of in-between that can be resolved only by cutting it all off, or keeping it all contained in a style that obscures the transition between poodle hair and, say, golden retriever hair. In my case I'm piling it all in a messy kind of nest on top of my head and letting it grow. Every couple of months I have another inch or so cut off. In another year it'll be all back to normal, never to be permed, colored, or otherwise abused ever again. In the meantime, the topknot makes me look a couple of inches taller.

Am I really going to actually post this ridiculous, boring entry? Last night I was thinking about this blog, and how ever since I moved it into a more public space and told a few people about it, I no longer write about anything private or important anymore. My first online journals were a lot more intimate, a lot more interesting, and a lot more useful to me as a tool for reflection and learning. This one is only mildly entertaining at best, and at its worst, reads a lot like my friend's 12-year-old daughter's MySpace.

Living with Mr. A is probably the biggest reason for the change. I feel happier and more secure, and I have another person's privacy and feelings to consider now, so I don't reveal as many deep, angsty feelings as I used to. Also, because I'm happier these days, I don't have as many deep, angsty feelings. In addition, I was realizing last night, all the time I spent writing about those feelings (while I still believe it was useful and maybe even necessary at the time) kept them at the forefront of my attention and caused them to seem much bigger and more important than they maybe really were.

(Such awful sentences I'm writing, lately!)

The point being, that while I may be writing less because I'm happier, I think it's also true that I'm happier because I'm writing less. And when I do write, these days I'm mostly writing about – giving attention and importance to – things that make me happy, instead of things I'm upset about or problems I'm trying to solve. So now, it's the happy, frivolous and upbeat that is looming large in my mind.

Not that all that other stuff has gone away. It hasn't, and I don't expect it ever will. Maybe that's why I can stop obsessing about it. I've finally clued in that it's never going away, so I no longer have to put my happiness on hold while I try to figure out what I'm supposed to "do" about it all. This is not the first time I've discovered this idea. Probably it isn't the last, either.

As for the gold lamé leggings, no, that is not me in the photo at the top of this entry. But I am planning an outfit around them that I think will be an enormous hit at my office.

What are you wearing today?