A week ago I traveled down a stretch highway I had never previously encountered. The Interstate 10 begins in Los Angeles, ends in Florida, and until last week I had never been past the exit for Big Bear.
I was pushed East by my desire to find an affordable pair of slim cut pants. I wanted a large mall that would afford an abundance of options, and a preliminary search of sites in the area revealed a generously proportioned outlet center about thirty miles East. There were enough retailers that I could spend an entire morning leisurely proceeding from one to the next. In each store I could find the slimmest fit, tan slacks (32 32), try them on, apologize to the salesperson that it "Didn't work out," and move on to the next.
The next morning plans set, I woke up early, had some cereal and set off.
Traveling East on the 10 one experiences a certain averaging of the landscape. The desert and the mountains reach a truce and the mean landscape is defined by arid, rolling hills. Then, the further East one presses, the flatter the landscape becomes. I watched San Bernadino perform the world's greatest illusion (making mountains disappear) and thought this shopping sojourn, specifically the feel of my tread on unfamiliar pavement, would make an apt analogy for my life at this moment. However, I am at a point in my life where I am certain about very little and that includes the usefulness of metaphors. Thus I was forced to put the idea aside.
The end of this story is that I found the prefect pair of pants.
The point is that I am not going back to Cornell this fall.
P.S. The pants are from J.Crew. I have never shopped there before and upon discovering the perfect pair of pants, discovered a new favorite store. Who knew?
P.P.S. I know that if you had questions after that story they probably were not about the kind of pants I settled on. Don't worry, answers to those questions, equally valid and important, will come in the next few blog posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment