Change

Last spring I wrote a post about why I write in my pajamas. Who was that woman? Surely someone I used to know.

It is now 7:00 a.m. Dressed in jeans and a black long-sleeved polyester-blend blouse with white collar, no shoes, I've been at the computer for most of the past hour. I've proofed a manuscript I want to send off today and have searched Sally Stuart's Christian Writers' Market Guide for possible markets for a piece about the process of writing. I've had coffee with my husband, and we've talked about the day's plans and the morning headlines. Duke defeated Butler. Bummer.

I'm not sure when the change occurred, when I started dressing to write, but I made the change out of consideration for my husband. When he walks out the door for work, I'd like him to have a better image of me than sitting at the computer with pink plaid sleep pants topped with an ancient pink fuzzy shirt. Over the past few months, I got a new hair style. I bought a few new outfits. I've "spruced up." Maybe it's spring. Maybe I'm coming out of a depression. Maybe I no longer have reason or time to stay in my pajamas.

That, and I overheard a woman in the water color class I'm taking make a confession. Most days, she says, she stays in her pajamas until about an hour before her husband gets home, then she puts it in high gear, dresses, rips through the house picking up, starts supper, and probably meets him at the door with a drink in hand. She didn't mention the drink, but if she can get all that done in an hour, my hat is off to her. And she's not a writer.

The myth is shattered. Ordinary people can dress like writers? What is the world coming to? Are there no boundaries?