Port Williams

people call me crazy a lot, which is good, because technically i am. i was never officially diagnosed, but i remain completely confident that i've got a mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder. but that's not what i'm talking about today. people call me crazy because i wear my hat, the iconic orange beanie [a.k.a. 'the beacon of hope'] at pretty much all times, regardless of the weather or social situation. the latter is part of my personality, but the former is what i get pegged for more often than not.

they always say something like 'jeez, man. aren't you hot wearing that thing in this weather?' when it's hot, and i always reply something like 'no. heat doesn't really bother me all that much.' what i mean to say by that is that heat doesn't seem to affect my head as much as other people, which is counterintuitive because my mother always told me there was some sort of connection between body temperature and the head. whatever. the point is, i'm so used to wearing my hat that i could be in hong kong in the middle of the summer with it on and not notice.

but cold is a different story.

since my sophomore year in high school, i stopped wearing two things: jeans and shorts. i still don't wear jeans, though i had a pair of my mom's old, old jeans that fit me perfectly in the sense that they were super tight and looked 'hot' on me according to my wife. anyway, i don't wear them because i don't like the way they feel. sometime about five years or so ago, i bought two pairs of dickies shorts and started wearing them. people were shocked and used to say things like 'wow, that's what your legs look like!' and 'i'm blind!' which were totally valid. but that wore off and now people don't think twice when they see me rocking the shorts.

it's weird how some things change and some things stay the same. people comment when a thing is there and they comment when a thing isn't there. i suppose it is a little strange that i wear my hat [the style of which is meant for cold weather] in the summertime, and that i switched to shorts after years and years of wearing slacks year-round. it's also weird that for the first time in my entire life, i'm thinking about seasons because they actually exist here, in the sense that i've got to think about what i can and can't wear when the weather gets cold.

and yes, i'm saying this [and this is taking up my entire entry] because today is probably the first day in the last 4 months when i could wear long pants comfortably. sure, i could get away with shorts, and i did. but the leaves changing color and the average temperature dropping slightly every week reminds me that soon, very soon, i won't be able to do that anymore. my wardrobe will be dictated by the temperature, which is something very foreign to my warm, san diego mind. winter should be interesting.