The Pant-avirate

I have long been a believer in wearing skirts or dresses as much as possible for the following reasons:

1) My legs often feel suffocated in pants, like the pants are hungry pythons trying to strangle my limbs.

2) Wearing a skirt feels a lot more like being naked than wearing pants does.

3) Skirts and dresses can hide bloating, weight gain, bubble butts, lumpy thighs, and many other lower-body ailments much better than pants can.

4) There's something about the wind blowing my dress up that, while embarrassing, also makes me feel uber-feminine, which I enjoy.

5) Every time I wear a dress or a skirt in New York City, even when I look disgusting, have no make-up on, etc., I get catcalls from the vagrants and construction workers who are hanging out on the street. I think this is because if you identify yourself so blatantly as being female, the sort of men who actually go to the effort of cat-calling don't really bother to look at you. They see the skirt and that's good enough for them. And on days when I look like a piece of hammered shizz, a catcall can be a real pick-me-up. I take what I can get.

6) Skirts and dresses have an unbeatable ventilation system that is a LIFESAVER on hot days. Mmmmmmmmm.... skirt....

7) There's a freedom that comes with certain skirts (the flow-y, less-fitted kinds--A-lines and circle cuts) that allows you to sit however you'd like in complete comfort--something not easily achieved in tight, low-rise jeans--and without looking uncouth. Some sitting positions look kinda skanky or gross in pants, but if you're in a skirt, you can just pretend you're a whimsical, unselfconscious wood nymph and sit however you want.

For months I've been wearing dresses and skirts almost exclusively, donning shorts occasionally for activities like hiking, running, etc., that I haven't yet been able to find the perfect skirt for. I've been developing theories about the virtues of skirts and the negative effects of pant-wearing. I've contemplated eliminating pants entirely from my wardrobe. But yesterday, for reasons I cannot explain, I changed into a pair of jeans before I went to a concert. My first pant-wearing in months. As I wore those jeans I found myself thinking, "Ummmm.... this isn't really that bad." (???!!!) And then to make matters worse, blowing several key tenets of my skirt theory to hell, this happened:
On the way back to my car after the concert, my friend Annie and I accidentally threw ourselves right into the path of a speeding bicycle (saying that makes me think of Daniel Johnston's song "Speeding Motorcycle"). We were walking in the middle of the street rather than on the sidewalk, so it really was our fault, not the cyclist's. The bikeguy had to slow down and almost ran into a parked car. If I were him, I'd've been pissed. But guess what? He wasn't mad. He invited us to meet him at some coffee shop down the street; he tried to hit on us. And we were both wearing PANTS!

Little things like that can really shake your faith, you know? Rock you to the core.... A world in which pants dominate and skirts are plunged into obsolescence? I shudder to think....