Big Gray.

In eighth grade, all I wanted for my birthday was this ridiculous gray sweater, sized XL, from The Gap. I wore all of my clothes sized XL then. And a baseball hat turned backwards and perched halfway back into the hair that tortured me all through middle and high school and even graduate school until I razored it all off, hair of a texture something between a plastic tuffy and steel wool. I had a whole system of placing a washcloth soaked in hot water over my head for fifteen minutes each morning. Sometimes that meant I'd be able to brush it. Usually not. Thus the stupid cap. Which I had NO IDEA was stupid. I thought it was very, very cool. Even though I was second trumpet in the band, and we were playing things like Kenny Rogers' "Lady" and Gloria Estefan medleys and once, in high school, in marching band, a tuba-solo-heavy version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," it is important to here note the aforementioned coolness.

I named the sweater. That's how cool I was. Big Gray. I'd wake up in the morning, look outside, see what sort of weather we were having, and pull on Big Gray. I'd be ready.

It's got to weigh five pounds. I'm wearing it now, twenty years on. It is a very, very unfortunate sweater. As in, I might change out of it even to go to the grocery, even if I am only U-Scanning in a surly manner. However: I have woken up, looked outside, and pulled on Big Gray. I have been many more times than once and by more than one person encouraged to donate this sweater either to Goodwill or to the recycling bin. I have worn it to themed costume parties. I am wearing it now. It is, unfortunately, no longer so XL on me. I need a ballcap. Or a washcloth. Something.

Not for nothing, but they want it to be raining on Thursday, with a high of 36 and a low of 30. My distrust of long-term forecasts aside (I now remember a hilarious and very cool joke between my parents wherein they called it the 'three-day fivecast' — you can see how it is I ended up so damn cool), that's the kind of weather where if they get it just half wrong, then somebody around the ANYLF home office here is going to have to pull on Big Gray and a good sensible pair of boots and hike to the grocery for some milk and bread and cans of pintos.

Local conditions: Cloudy. Chilly. Low forties. That old sweater of yours is in the bottom drawer. Go ahead. It looks pretty cool on you.