Love and Loss: One Sweater's Story

I'm jetlagged. I've been up for 27 hours. I haven't read a newspaper in 2 weeks so I don't even know what to be pissed off about (is that too many prepositions to end a sentence with, even for the Reform Grammarians?).

David Brooks could've eaten a kitten on live t.v. and I wouldn't even know.

Did he? That would be great.

Not for the kitten, of course.

Anyway, I am sleepy and babbly, so I thought I would tell you the story of my green sweater. I have this green sweater which is quite ugly but which I wear frequently. It is insanely comfortable and is just the perfect weight to wear when it is cold out, but not cold enough to warrant a jacket.

Ok, I love this sweater. I'm man enough to admit it.

So, I'm wandering through this museum on my vacation, and I am in the Medieval section thinking, "wow, these guys sure loved their bloody Jesuses. Yech." And as I am thinking this, I notice that my sweater, which I'd wrapped around the arm of my backpack (it was hot in the museum, so I took it off) is gone.

I was distraught. I actually had a vision of what my life would be like without my favorite sweater and I felt a chill. A chill that my sweater could have fixed - IF IT HAD NOT DISAPPEARED.

Not wanting to give in to my materialism - or rather, my fetishization of material objects - I forced myself to finish a now uneasy tour of the medieval paintings before going in search of lost sweaters. Then I went to the front desk. "Please," I said. "Have you found my..."

and at this moment, in my distress, I forget the word for sweater: "Have you found my...shirt. A shirt, the kind that is knit?" I stammer awkwardly.

She had found it and all was well. I have written a small poem to commemorate its recovery:

A Shirt, the Kind that is Knit

Oh, green sweater!

You make everything better.

You make water wetter and the Concorde jetter.

You’re better than an Irish setter.

With you I feel cheerfully unfetter-

-ed.

And never tearfully unsweater-

-ed.

Because you ARE a sweater.

You are as welcome as a letter

To a chronic debtor.

(As long as that letter said: “Dear Jim, (or whatever the debtor’s name was), Forget about that 50 bucks you owe me, you no-account bastard”).

ok - maybe tomorrow I can write something coherent. I think I'm a little pissed off about Gunter Grass, but I can't remember why. Am I mad at him? On his behalf? Maybe I'll remember.