I have a problem

I have been thinking about black dresses on and off for such a long time now and can't stop even when I want to.

A few weeks back, I was walking down State Street after a writer's meeting. The windows of the stores were filled with red dresses as February is women's heart disease month and, for some inexplicable reason, wearing a red dress is a show of support and solidarity (I guess all the ribbons and wristbands were taken.) I like the idea of wearing clothing to show one's political and philanthropic affiliations, but it seems like an opportunity rife with potential confusion. I mean, a woman walks into a room wearing a sexy red dress, I am not so sure that people will automatically understand that she is demonstrating her belief that more funding should go towards studying heart disease in women. Clothing is already so infused with hidden meanings and subtle signals, why pile even more meaning on an already overloaded plate?

But I digress.

We were walking past Carson's and the windows were filled with headless mannequins in red dresses and I found myself wondering what the dresses would look like in black. Not only wondering, I was coveting certain items, but only if they came in black. I was coloring the dresses in my mind. Not nearly as dirty sounding as undressing someone with my eyes, but every bit as wrong when we remember that I already own something like fifty black dresses.

I don't even want to wear half of the black dresses I own, but I can't get rid of them because they are part of the collection and, as every collector knows, the collection takes on a life of its own. I can't stop myself from buying new additions, even though I know I don't need any more and have so few opportunities to wear any dresses these days, given the season and my current role as mother to a monkey boy. Pants are most definitely bueno.