Tie o’ the Day #2 is a many-hued purple harlequin pattern by ALFANI. And no, the “blouse” (which I won’t actually wear today) is not mine. It is Suzanne’s, and it, too, is by ALFANI. It is also the first girly piece of clothing that Tie o’ the Day has featured. Let me just be frank: Suzanne looks suave in this, although she does not wear ties with it or with any other of her outfits. But in fact, these days she is looking fantastic in anything she wears. She is over fifty pounds less of the woman she was just months ago. And I am glad she doesn’t have to be on blood pressure meds anymore. I am so proud of her.
Suzanne has always been aware of and indulgent of my varied eccentricities. She doesn’t mind a closet full o’ ties. She doesn’t mind the bins of bow ties and pocket squares. She smiles at the tiny boxes of cufflinks and lapel pins.
She doesn’t mind stacks of books used as home decor. She doesn’t mind that many of these books have titles like The Toothpick: Technology and Culture. Nor does she mind that I own at least 3 copies of Slouching Toward Bethlehem, by Joan Didion, and Teaching A Stone to Talk, by Annie Dillard. Oh, and then there are probably 5 or 6 copies of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Other Poems. And even though we are paring down our possessions significantly, it will not even occur to her to pester me to keep only one copy of each book.
She’s fine with my mismatched socks, and my sometimes mix-matched shoes. She’s okay when I come home with the right side of my head shaved. My sarcasm and jocularity wear her out sometimes, but that doesn’t mean she wants me to be any other way. At least, I hope she doesn’t. Time will tell. 😁
Full disclosure: The above is not to be considered the full extent of my life-long eccentricities. 🤡