dressing in the dark:don't do it!

i wore two different shoes to work today.

i wouldn't even have noticed had i not called my students to the carpet to read to them. this ritual has often brought with it observations from my students about my person. my first gray hairs were spotted here, as were missed patches of stubble on my knees. one year my painted toenails peeping through my sandals caused such a stir that i had to stop the lesson and address them!

one of my more candid students (there's one in every bunch) asked me why i was wearing different shoes. i scrunched up my face, befuddled by her question in the middle of my paragraph. "i wear different colours for different outfits" i replied. "no," she persisted "why are you wearing different shoes on each foot?"

her persistance took me out of the book and down to my toes. sure enough, when i extended my legs out from under me i was staring at one black sandal and one brown...with a bow no less!! i left the house at 7:30 and didn't bother to turn on the hall light before slipping my toes into my sandals and heading out the door. in my defense, they both had a wedge of the same height and a single panel of leather across the toe so they felt exactly the same.

as i sat there mortified at my inability to dress myself, my mind began to flash backward. it was eleven o'clock. not only had i been walking around work like that all morning but i had taken the subway and a bus as well! where were the nasty glares when you needed them?! You can usually rely on some busybody to throw you a disapproving glance when you've lost your way in your personal grooming regimen.

what must my fellow commuters have thought? unlike most mornings, i was not fast asleep within moments of boarding the train. i was wearing a skirt and feeling confident from a particularly close shave (new razor, foamy shave gel), my hair was doing what it's supposed to and my mascara hadn't even clumped! i wonder, would my sleepy eyed self have awoken to a bevvy of reproachful glances?

back in the classroom , i felt my credibility slip somewhat in their eyes. i had just made a kickass observation that children in fantasy stories are typically orphaned and therefore more free to carve their own understanding of the world rather than accepting their parents' filtered version and it meant nothing when held against the fact that i couldn't match a pair.

think i need to get to bed earlier. got to walk away from the lure of Lenny and his cheesy quips in the intro to the third episode of Law and Order for the evening.

it's moments like these that i fear i've been living alone for too long. i need a witness to shame me into behaving as the rest of the grown ups do.