For several years now, my wife has been making fun of the way I dress. It has been suggested that I need more  fashion sense, this coming from a woman who routinely wears her wedding dress to shovel manure in the barn. More than 35 years ago, when I became a full-time author, I took my fancy ties out to the backyard and burned them, along with most of my dress shirts, all of my suits and upscale slacks.

Since then, my fashion sense has been consistent. I wear jeans, sometimes chino pants, blue chambray shirts and blue sweaters. I wear gray or blue wool socks every day of the year. Every day, to write, to go out, to go speak, on book tours and speeches and interviews. I don’t like to think about what I will wear, I just like to wear it.

Once a week or sometimes more often, I change the jeans and the shirts. That’s about it for me. Maria bought me a bright yellow polo shirt two years ago, and I liked the idea of it, but I also felt I looked like a mutant canary, I didn’t like it after awhile. Things have more or less stayed right there until today, we went to our local bead and graphic  store, “Over The Moon Beads”  on Main Street. I buy my incense sticks there and socks and bracelets for Maria sometimes.

Today, she turned the tables on me, and bought me  pair of very colorful socks for sale, and I said I would wear them. It just came out, I felt I was ready for some kind of a change. Perhaps I need one. The shirts and jeans aren’t going to change, but some color in my socks doesn’t seem like a bad idea, although I think I will feel very conspicuous when I wear them. I’ll report back tomorrow. Maria is quite excited.