I am still looking for a new jacket for spring. I don't have many requests. It seemed so straightforward: black. Must have a hood and at least a little wind resistance. Slightly lined so I don't freeze my ass off, nipped in a little at the waist. Pockets. At least to upper thigh, not down to my fucking knees for once. Slightly dressy maybe.
Think I can find it? No. Something's wrong with every coat. I keep getting drawn to this one charcoal velvet confederate blazer with ruffles which is gorgeous but not what I need, and I will know the right coat when I see it.
Lochlan asks me if this is going to be the green hoodie of 1983.
In 1983 I was twelve (when have I not been twelve? I am STILL twelve) and I had a grass-green thin weight zip up sweatshirt which was pretty much the same as every North American kid ever. The difference was, when I put the hood up it went into a point.
Like a gnome.
Oh, how glorious!
I was a little tiny blissful freaking gnome and you could pick me out in silhouette because of that ridiculous hood but I wore that hoodie into the GROUND and have missed it ever since. I lost it in the spring of 1986 when Lochlan brought over the backpack full of my things from his cottage/camper/room/truck the year he tried to wipe my presence from his life.
You know how this one ends.
Last weekend in the midst of one of our epic arguments he made some crack about having kept up his end of the bargain in the form of a stack of letters. Not just any letters but a letter he wrote to me on each of my birthdays, starting at nine and ending at thirty-nine.
So far.
Only he said that the movie The Notebook ruined it and it seemed cliche and he never knew what to do with them anyway so he just kept them, and look, here, take them and you can see inside my head since you want to so badly all the time and he went into his closet and took down his big backpack and pulled out a green bundle.
Only I realized right away what the green thing was, wrapped around his letters. My hoodie. My gnome suit.
He rules everything. Absolutely everything. I'm going to look like a TOTAL fucking freak now and I couldn't be happier.
And I still haven't read the letters. As soon as he gave them to me he grabbed them back and said he had changed his mind. Hence the endless weekend tears. Another effort thwarted and I am never ever going to get to know what he's thinking.
And now I'll be wondering in green.
