All You Need Is Gloves

"You must have gloves, or I won't go," cried Meg decidedly. "Gloves are more important than anything else. You can't dance without them, and if you don't I should be so mortified."

"Then I'll stay still. I don't care much for company dancing. It's no fun to go sailing round. I like to fly about and cut capers."

"You can't ask Mother for new ones, they are so expensive, and you are so careless. She said when you spoiled the others that she shouldn't get you any more this winter. Can't you make them do?"

"I can hold them crumpled up in my hand, so no one will know how stained they are. That's all I can do. No! I'll tell you how we can manage, each wear one good one and carry a bad one. Don't you see?"

"Your hands are bigger than mine, and you will stretch my gloves dreadfully," began Meg, whose gloves were a tender point with her.

"Then I'll go without. I don't care what people say!" cried Jo, taking up her book.

"You may have it, you may! Only don't stain it, and do behave nicely."

My last few posts have been rather heavy on the "Life, the Universe and Everything" philosophical thought, so, to compensate for that and to give you all a breather, I am going to write a scandalously shallow post about...gloves. While in my head I try to formulate a good statement of purpose having to do with categorial grammar and Slavic word order and information theory, that will hopefully persuade people that I at least look like someone worth giving money to, I prowl glove sources looking for gloves.

"It is one of her aristocratic tastes, and quite proper, for a real lady is always known by neat boots, gloves, and handkerchief."

I love gloves. I feel warm and happy and snug and sexy in them six months out of the year in this dread North where I dwell, "of midnight lands the grace and wonder." Using my hands for my living, my avocation, and darn near everything that I love, and wanting to keep my hands lovely and happy --- I am very close (although not quite there) to fetishizing nice gloves.( Why, and you're very welcome to this much information. )

I love gloves. The problem is that I always lose them. Every winter, I lose at least two gloves. Note I said "two gloves," not "a pair of gloves." I have grown quite accomplished in matching gloves that their makers never meant to match. But if I go out into society, this won't do.

Boots I can keep track of, as there are only two places for them to be: on my feet, or on the shoe rack at home. Handkerchiefs have gone out of style ever since people decided it is rather unsanitary to be carrying your snot in your pocket, even if it is "spandy nice, and Meg has cologne on hers." But gloves, ah, gloves! They stay organized for a time, in my pocket or in my purse, and then they vanish! I would clip string to them to go through my coat sleeves and make idiot mitts like a child, except that idiot mitts make you look like...three guesses as to what. I suppose I should swallow my pride, admit that I am an idiot when it comes to gloves, and if I am going to splurge on gloves costing more than $10 (and any gloves around here costing less than $10 are profoundly ugly; trust me, I checked) I better secure them in some fashion.

Darn my aristocratic tastes!