A friend who was helping me lasso my apartment into shape commented the other day that I had a lot of clothes. She was absolutely right. No, no, it's okay, this is not me objecting and whining. After all, she...was... *blush* ...telling the truth. But it got me thinking, because I am not the clotheshorse type. Exactly. My clothes have grown, expanded, accreted over the last couple of years for a lot of reasons. A lot.

There's the "don't get rid of it you might wear it again some day" twitch of the person who's been broke or on the verge for so long that you just can't get rid of that mistake you bought because well, it's made well so it will last or maybe some day that color will look good on you - after all, just because it hasn't for the first 60 years....

There's the lump of clothes which accumulated when Stu moved to a nursing facility. I had been with Stu every day for weeks and weeks and weeks when he was in Harborview and that stayed the same when he was at Kindred. I was forever running out of stuff to wear because I never had clothes for seven days a week wearing. And I don't like shopping. I was okay for shirts as I tended to wear tee shirts with Shiffman artwork. Then my favorite catalogue company poofed out of business. The swine. So, okay, I bought pants and some sweaters. Phew. (It helped that Kindred was right near a mall. I do not enjoy clothes shopping. It's exhausting.)

Then we went through a year when I as riding the bus, not cabs, so weather issues were always on my mind (I still get up every morning and check the weather two or three times in the first hour of wakefulness.) And then we packed up to move and I already was missing some clothes and suddenly could not find pants that I'd bought and worn not long back.

Then - yeah, Perils of Pauline here - I moved into the new place with clothes scattered in different boxes, closets, chests of drawers and storage units.

Then I lost weight. Enough that my pants were falling down, right off me. Here's trivia you might not have considered: when you sit all day, if you don't get up and walk around and stand and move - you can often get away with wearing larger clothes as no one really notices. Except when it comes to boots or shoes. That shows up. So I kept wearing my too big pants, hiking them, tugging and pulling until finally I decided I could face the mall. Me Strong Andi. Buy Jeans.

That should have been it. But it wasn't. Suddenly I needed new stuff. I didn't need new nuttin'. I had all this stuff from since forever. In some cases those sweaters were purchased for Boston winters. Those tee shirts that were from events of long ago and far away.

The most recent purchases of clothes that I indulged in were snuggly, warm, soft, fuzzy, wonderful to touch, wear, pet. I bought fleece and velvet, so that Stu could feel it, pet it, we could goof about how nice and snuggly it was. It was compensation clothing, for him and for me. While it is terribly cornball and gooey to say, what I miss more than anything is cuddling with Stu, snuggling and talking. We never got to do that once he was hospitalized. Monitors and lines and leads and narrow beds and my having a hard time moving and all that.

I've got to got to got to get rid of some clothes. I don't need seven days' worth of clothes, because I'm not going out every day. And some days, the laundry doesn't get done. It would be nice if it did, because then I would need far fewer clothes.

Meanwhile I'm staying warm in fuzzy stuff, occasionally wearing a shirt that Stu wore, lying next to the fuzzy beings. It bugs the hell out of me that he never got to pet some of the nice-feeling new yummy stuff I bought. Yeah, of course it was for me. But it was, yeah, for him too. i sure don't think I'll need new clothes for a very long time.

I keep thinking as I write this that I should have a conclusion, I should make a point. Er, well, no, not actually. It's pretty obvious that I miss the physical presence of Stu Shiffman as much as I miss the silly, warm, loving, sharp, goofy, talented, retentive, intellectual, funny mind of Stu Shiffman. We were fuzzy together.