dresses & sandals & polish, or, when the temperature rises

The temperature may have peaked at 103 on Tuesday, but it's been hellishly hot all week. I've been stealing my boyfriend's hairbands, using them to pull back my not-quite-long-enough hair in ridiculous little paintbrush ponytails sticking out precariously from the back of my head.

I've been wearing dresses and strappy sandals, using the weather as an excuse for twirling around in this crazy alien get-up, tickled pink by the expressions of amusement and surprise on display by some of my nearest and dearest.

I dragged Sarah and the boys to Duane Reade after our weekly dinner on Wednesday to find the perfect (under $5) nail polish so that I, too, can revel in that "something surprisingly fun about looking down and seeing brightly-colored toesies," as my sister-in-law so adorably put it. (She was right. The polish I picked is a little too pink even for my current inexplicably girly compulsions, but there is something pleasing about glancing down as I walk and catching just that little bit of sparkly.)


Wednesday afternoon I braved the heat to go get a coffee at Camille's.  The man manning the counter and I exchanged pleasantries, or more accurately complaints, about the weather, and laughed, and then suddenly he looked at me and said, "So how come you're looking so conservative these days?"  I blushed and mumbled something incoherent and he said, "I liked your old look.  I sometimes fantasize about letting my hair grow out long..."

What struck me is how different our fantasies are, how I once fantasized being super butch (and still harbor this particular fantasy in moments), but how I've discovered recently that I can have other fantasies of myself, that I can paint my toenails and put on a dress and not lose my self, not give up some integral part of me that perhaps was more fantasy than reality to begin with.

Come the inevitable cooling, I will most likely decide to return to a near-daily diet of black corduroys and black sweaters and chunky clunky black boots.  I may even shave my head again some day instead of my legs. But for now, while the weather stays hot, I will revel in these dresses and smooth legs and sparkly-bright toes with abandon, and for now, at least, that's enough.