This morning on my way to work I noticed some high school kids walking to school and had to do a double take because my brain had a little difficulty processing what I saw. There were two of them, and they were wearing something knee-length and colorful. I recognized the colorful knee-length togs were those nylon or polyester sports shorts that basketball players wear. My mind jumped to the assumption that these two figures were boys. However, I realized they were girls, at about the same time that I realized they were wearing sport shorts. The synapses were sparking, trying to make sense of this fashion choice. Aware that gauchos or culottes have made an unfortunate reappearance on the fashion scene, my mind tried to match the knee length colorful garb to gauchos when I recognized the forms to be girls. But recognizing those bright colors to be sport shorts at nearly the same instant that I processed the gender as female caught me off guard. Add to that the detail that these brightly colored sport shorts, worn by girls, were also worn over jeans. Over jeans. My mind was therefore forced to recall another unfortunate fashion trend of decades past in which the sporty cool athletic types (or couch potato counterpart wannabees) would wear their jogging shorts over their sweatpants. At a loss to explain this fashion choice, I recalled that it was so it for girls to wear their boyfriend’s letterman’s jacket in days of yore. Maybe these girls were aligned with varsity ball players, and this is the twenty first century way of parading said status. I hope. Because, come on! Bright yellow baggy knee length polyester shorts over blue jeans
Last night I dreamt of graduation. It seemed that everyone at my university had to go to the administration office to receive a packet of graduation materials. It was absolutely necessary in order to graduate. I went to the office and there was a very long line of students, all waiting. There was one small table with only a couple of people seated behind it, answering questions and handing out the materials. Students had to show their badge to the administrator, and the administrator would then look up their name in their flip card file. I asked someone in line who I recognized from my classes if this was the only line and he said yes, and that we needed our badge, so if we didn’t have it, we’d have to go get it and get back in line, at the end of the line. There were hundreds of people in line, so I was glad we spoke, as I didn’t have a badge. I went to my department and inquired about the badge. In the dream, the professor was Hugh Laurie. He sent me to a booth where I had a photo taken, and printed on a badge. With my new badge in hand, I went back to the line. I was a bit dismayed that I’d have a long wait, but happily found that the line had dwindled to almost nothing during the time it took me to obtain my badge. I finally got to speak to the woman behind the desk, and she looked at my badge and said she was sorry, but she couldn’t give me the papers I needed, because people with that kind of badge didn’t get to graduate now. What kind of badge, I asked. She showed me the upper left corner of my badge where there was a miniature image of the badge, a badge within a badge. I hadn’t thought anything of it, but it turned out that it was a special mark, given to a selection of students, mainly engineering students. I was upset and stormed off to find my professor (Hugh Laurie) to learn why I wasn’t allowed to graduate. But I have good grades, I told him. I’m an honor student, I told him. Yes, he knew that. He wouldn’t say directly why I couldn’t graduate. He was very mysterious about it. I gathered that there was some special assignment that the top engineering students had to do, so we weren’t going to graduate (yet). It was all very vague, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to simply accept the fact and wait. Wait to learn what was next, what was required of me. . . . and then I woke up, with a headache, realized it’s Monday morning, I have to go to work, I haven’t prepared breakfast and lunch for my munchkin to take to daycare, and, and, and. . .
I actually did have a professor in college who was Hugh Laurie-like. At least, he was lean and lanky with blue blue eyes, tousled hair, and a dry wit.
Yum. Oh, did I say that out loud
