Three-dollar Diamonds

I have so very little time to do my own work (I steal the hours; I beg for them) and so today, when it seemed I would have the afternoon to write, I decided to be a girl instead. To not try to pound something provable out of every single minute—a book read, a line written, a house cleaned, a meal cooked, a paper graded, a dance step learned—and to go, with the rest of the world, apparently, to the mall.

I found the big earrings for my way cool artsy friend, Denise. I found a three-dollar diamond ring (the size of an elephant's eye) and a pair of black above-the-elbow gloves (Halloween stores are the best when you are shopping for your ballroom dance showcase). I found a pair of jeans (I was down to just one) and some new socks, because I've decided that, come Autumn, you really do need more than four pairs of socks.

It was, all in all, an exhilarating afternoon of doing nothing that will add up to much of anything in the end. And sometimes that matters most of all.