Not fancy jeans. Not designer jeans, or label jeans, or jeans that require a leather jacket and black sweater.
No, they were just plain jeans. Sit-on-the-floor-and-eat-potato-chips-out-of-the-bag jeans.
It was truly a very cool move on her part. Those totally unassuming narrow leg dungarees spoke volumes about where she was in her life. She was relaxed. And those relaxed fit blues served as a direct yet silent barometer for her peaceful psychological state.
Everyone has a barometer. A tangible measure of where they're at. Where they're at that day, that hour, that moment. Some have several barometers. I suppose for many the barometer is clothes. Clothes are simple to change - easy to manipulate as the mood - or mode - is altered.
I visited my best friend Madeline a bunch of years ago to find her mood and attire altered. When I first met Madeline, she wore very little. I liked her immediately. She spent her down time in hankie size slips that would have made Mariah Carey proud. She was a real babe.
Then Maddy had kids. I think she had ten or fifteen kids. For some reason, she only has three now, but I could swear there were many more than three whenever I visited. There was enough noise and commotion in that house to support the existence of a hundred kids. At least.
So for a long while, Madeline was a mom. When I drove the couple of hours to visit, she would forget being a mom for a couple of minutes and we'd be wild girls once again. Wild girls for long enough to cackle and howl as we recalled the torture we'd inflicted upon innocent boys many years before.
But those couple of minutes per visit were always cut short - by the school bus, the need to drop one kid at soccer and another at a friend's house, the inevitable crying episode, the occasional sibling brawl, the drama of finding post-school snacks, and the ultimate challenge of convincing those damn kids that hanging out ANYWHERE ELSE in the house would be much more fun than sitting with us.
Those were fun years. Yes, they set my biological clock to about the age of 89, but they were fun.
And I loved looking at Madeline.
After years of being my partner in babe crime, she was really into the mom thing. And she wore what I had to assume were mom clothes. Oversized t-shirts, baggy jeans and keds. She accessorized her mom outfits with hair styled solely by the frequent smashing of her hands against her head in mom disgust at the creative antics of her offspring. For some period of time, I recall there being a good amount of tie dye in the mix.
And then her barometer changed. Several years ago I made the drive for one of my visits - excited to see the mother hen and her brood.
I walked into the house and saw a sight I was totally unprepared for: a total babe who resembled Madeline in tight black pants, a low-cut tighter brighter shirt and shoes that actually boasted a hard sole. They even had a slight heel.
I thought I was in the wrong house.
It seems that Madeline got tired of being a mom all the time and was ready to be a sexy babe again. Her success in that endeavor was pretty damn impressive.
I spent the rest of the visit sucking back the drool. I was so jealous. Madeline's barometer spoke loud and clear. She was a new person. Or, she was back to being the old person. But either way, she obviously felt great down deep. I wanted to look like I felt great down deep. Back then, it didn't occur to me that the real coup was actually feeling great deep down and not just looking like it.
One of my barometers is my clothes, but my real barometer is my hair.
I've had long hair most of my 40 years, but I've rarely worn my hair down. People close to me are usually surprised when they see my hair down - surprised at how long it is...surprised at how much of it there is. Surprised at how different I look when it's down.
But over the years I got used to wearing my hair twisted up in a bun. It was less distracting that way. Less in-my-face and less in everyone else's face. My hair came down only in the privacy of my own home. Only for the private audience of those who already knew the real me and wouldn't be distracted by the superficiality of hair.
But every once in a while, when I felt confident, I'd let my hair down. Literally. Those times were quite rare, but always interesting. When my hair was up, people talked to me about all sorts of things. News, politics, Socrates and Spinoza. When my hair was down, people talked to me about my hair. It was weird.
And then I went to court for a motions hearing.
It was a really important hearing and one of the first in my litigation career. It wasn't the actual trial, but a preliminary hearing before the judge to determine whether specific testimony would be allowed at trial. Winning the motion was critical.
Unfortunately, I was up against a real you-know-what. This guy had been calling me everyday trying to intimidate me. Little did he know that I was completely and totally intimidated. Luckily, a very good mentor had taught me to say "let's just let the judge decide" - a line I used quite often over the next many years.
This evil shark man didn't know much about me. Didn't know how scared I was. Didn't know how inexperienced I was. All he knew was that I refused to negotiate and that I apparently had the guts to stand up to him before a judge instead of discussing some patronizing offer of compromise.
The day of the hearing, I was prepared to recite every relevant case word for word. They say you should argue the law if the law's on your side. They say you should argue the facts if the facts are on your side. I was just scared to death and had no idea where I stood on either count. But I did know that good preparation always counts for something.
I have no idea why, but I wore my hair down that day. Maybe I was hoping it would bring me good luck. Maybe I was just too nervous to get it fastened up in a manner where it wouldn't fall down halfway through the hearing. I don't recall now.
Anyway, the hearing was amazing. I was calm, prepared and totally energized by the pressure and the gallons of coffee I'd inhaled. My opponent, Mr. Jaws, was just a kiss-butt yucko. Having golfed with the judge, I suppose he assumed he had no need for rational argument. After a half hour of discussion, the judge ruled in favor of my client.
Talk about slow motion. I could almost hear the theme from Rocky playing. I restrained myself to keep from smiling too wide. I gathered my documents, packed my briefcase and turned around to face the gallery and walk out of the courtroom.
As I exited, I caught the thumbs up of my mentor, my client and a colleague who had come to watch. Man, I wish I had that on tape.
Once outside I turned to my mentor and asked how it had appeared to go from the perspective of those watching. I wanted to hear every detail of my brilliance.
And then I heard the words that I'll never forget:
"Your hair looked amazing!"
It would be a good ten years or so before I wore my hair down again. I viewed wearing my hair down as a call for attention. The wrong kind.
But times change. And moods change. And the barometer must reflect those changes.
So these days I'm wearing my hair down. I'm not sure whether the law or the facts are on my side, but I do know one thing: sometimes a little attention isn't such a bad thing.