Don't think about walruses

Like most incoming college students, I had to attend orientation the summer before my freshman year. Because my orientation was exclusively for Honors students, my experience may have been slightly different than that of some of the other freshmen. When the older student leading a workshop on choosing a major told us that his major was zoology, one of my really cool fellow Honors students took this as an opportunity to announce that he really loved walruses. I'm sure he thought this would make him cool in the eyes of this upperclassman, because not understanding what cool means is an inherent problem among Honors students. But instead, the orientation leader, who it later turned out was something of an expert in the field of researching some obscure sort of shellfish, announced, calmly but with a monumental amount of disdain the likes of which I have not heard before or since, "I have no interest in vertebrates."

This line -- and its delivery -- have stuck with me for many years, as I hoped I would someday have the opportunity to use it (or a variant, as I really don't feel one way or the other about vertebrates). And finally, after all this time, I am able to conclusively state:

I have no interest in leggings.

I just don't. I'm not interested in how comfortable they are, or any benefits they have. My disdain for the legging knows no bounds. I'm not interested in them. I'm not interested in them, and I want them to go away. And when they do, I hope they are accompanied by all those awkward, too-long-to-be-a-shirt-too-short-to-be-a-dress garments that were made to be worn with them, so the rest of us are not forced to spend time in stores holding things up to our person suspiciously and wondering why someone thought to make a dress that won't cover anyone's ass.

And when leggings do go away, we can all keep our legs warm under our dresses by wearing tights instead. This $12 dress looks great with them.

Waffling on Leggings

Amanda and I have an ongoing argument. Well, two. The first argument is over which cupcake place is the best in Manhattan. That argument involves mostly research. The second argument is over leggings. While we both agree that a pair of leggings is not a pair of pants (or even a pant), I believe that leggings are a good substitute for tights, in a casual environment. Amanda believes they are a symbol of all that is wrong and evil in this world. She also believes that tights work well as tights.

As best as I can figure, I won't wear tights in my casual life because I wear them to work. Not that I should wear tights at my blue chip firm, but I do, because I am always one notch too casual for the activity at hand. Were I to win one of the few, but coveted, Oscars given out for management consulting work, I would show up in a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. It would be very pretty, but completely too casual.

In deference to Amanda, as well as my well-documented love of all things thermal (I am still trying to justify someday purchasing a thermal tank top I've been visiting at Urban Outfitters), I purchased these thermal tights at Old Navy. And you know what? Tights function surprisingly well as tights!