Textures
(This is another five minute writing exercise, though I modified it a bit to meet my whims)
The olive polo shirt I’m wearing is a thatched weave, almost. Were I to know more about sewing and fabrics then I could be more specific, but instead I will have to allow it to suffice in that it is certainly not smooth. Down the front of it the texture remains the same but darkens, as three — no, sorry, four — dots of varying sizes mar the fabric. These are from wearings past, which inexplicably outwitted the washing machine. The collar buttons up, all the way today even though I’ve been told that it looks better open just because it felt too free, almost like not wearing a shirt at all. Now I can feel the comforting closeness of it, the mystery texture, around my neck.
Today’s pants are corduroys, which I admit to giving a lazy attempt at spelling before right clicking and allowing OS X to correct for me. There is a famous story about corduroys, though I cannot remember now exactly what it is, and so each time I wear them I am reminded vaguely of my childhood. Alternating ravines and mountains, perfectly straight, run down the legs, creating a whooshing sound — though not as obvious of one as I had been led to believe — which makes me call them, if only to myself, my Ninja Pants.
Black socks (they never get dirty; the longer you wear them, the blacker they get: another childhood reference for some reason) wrap around my ankles, digging in. I’ve said in the past that the greatest joy that comes from wearing socks pulled up your legs is the feeling when you take them off. Thinking about them now has driven the itchiness into a frenzy of sorts: I long to lift up my pant leg and scratch, bringing blessed relief. These are the second kind of black socks I have (three total, including the fancier, thinner, oddly patterned ones), and have much thinner, sleeker ribbing. They seem to be legitimate dress attire instead of tube socks that happened to fall into a vat of dye. Which sock I wear on any given day is random, of course, though I do take care not to combine the varieties except in cases of extreme sartorial distress.
My shoes, also black, are smooth, and would be shiny were they not scuffed with dust placed there by the opposite foot resting on top in a tic I can’t quite explain (do I feel compelled to turn my lower body into a diamond shape?) Around the laces the smoothness of the material bunches up, drawn together in grooves by overly tightened laces. Perhaps this means I buy my shoes too large for my feet. The laces hang, haphazardly, to one side or another, double knotted in a ritual dating back to my grammar school days to ensure they wouldn’t come untied (as all my shoes did, which is why I was always grateful for a new pair that was velcro). It honestly had not occurred to me, nearly 25 years old, until this moment that I can probably safely tie them only once.
The bottom of the shoes is different from my previous pairs, despite the outward appearance of being identical (dress shoes and my wife appear to be the only facets of my life I am disinterested in changing repeatedly). Rather than multiple groups of four circles connected in a square, almost clover-like, these are a myriad of diamonds with perpendicular lines in the middle forming crosses. They litter the bottom of the shoes, in theory providing traction but in practice giving just enough room in between each other to pick up small bits of paper and rocks that may be unwittingly tread upon. They cover the entire bottom, with the exception of the arch, where it narrows for no reason that I can see besides giving the illusion of thinness, mirroring my foot stretching slightly into the air. What sort of person looks at the bottom of their shoe enough to make such aesthetic changes necessary?
This took far longer than five minutes. I hope that’s not against the rules.
