Hi sweetheart, dearest I am so close to not posting at all this evening. My mood has been flagging, for all kinds of reasons, that usually I might typically go into here. But you know, they're so dark, and repetitive, and pointless, and unremitting -- oh, I wish a break from myself sometimes, honestly.

So I just had one for a little bit, downstairs, admiring myself in the full-length mirror in the entryway to the solarium. I bought a new parka for myself over the weekend, on a winter clearance sale, and I look AMAZING in it. Or it looks amazing on me. It's very 'Nanook of the North' -- champagne moleskin, hooded, with a trim of luxurious grayish faux-fur -- very flattering, the blanched bone against my sanguine complexion and brown hair, my head, portrait-style, framed in a cloud of beautiful soft fringe. It's very Doctor Zhivago. Even D said to me yesterday, that I put him in mind of Julie Christie. You know... sometimes it is in the stylings. Because I don't look anything like her, and yet there is something so romantic & lush & very becoming about the cut of this coat... oh, and plus all my walks & workouts have paid off too. So beneath the well-fitting parka (that doesn't make me look bigger - a wonderfully desirable thing in a parka!) are my long(ish) legs, clad in closefitting dark denim, and I was wearing nice high heels.

The parka is my first brand-new coat in, I'm not kidding, seven years -- my old coats -- either they're worn out, or a little dated, or simply too big on me, because I've lost weight & dropped sizes. So -- in the seven years that have transpired in which I grew older -- I also grew, I think, more attractive, and healthier, and certainly more health-conscious --

anyway -- that parka? originally $180 -- and marked-down, and with a coupon, I bought it for..... $36!! And it looks every bit the $180.

I realized today -- even as the temperatures climbed well into the 60s if not 70s -- that I would need new gloves to match the pale, champagne-colored coat -- my black ones won't do. And so I went back to the local department store, and with a coupon scored a daringly impractical (but warm, insulated, knit) pair, in ivory -- $8 (originally $26).

So I look quite the picture, a stylish coat that fits me absolutely perfectly (I tried on very many coats -- bigger sizes swam on me, and smaller ones I looked squeezed into -- I'm telling you this one fits as if 'bespoke').

And that's it, darling you. It seems that I've turned into an airhead... I'm so glad that I don't objectify people -- so easy to

oh where was I -- darling, greeting you in a great big Nanook hug
and guess what - just for you, it's just me in that sexy parka
with nothing on underneath
putting my arms around you, enveloping you
I want to know all about your whalebone pressing up against me
tell me, do I look as good in this coat lying down as standing up?
come here you, in the freezing cold of the sun having gone down
it may be California in the springtime during the day
oh but baby after dark, it's all.... grrrrrrr
aarrrhgh