The semester's beginning soon, and with all of the regular semester prep (office cleaning, syllabus designing, photocopying, etc.) somes one of my favorite pre-autumn rituals: the annual wardrobe purge and re-organization. Yes, it's that time when I whittle down my collection of clothes from ridiculous to merely too much. For the Goodwill pile (and occasionally trashcan this season:
* 9 neckties (leaving only 28 that I absolutely love).
* 3 sportcoats (at least one of which pre-dates my relationship with Ann, making it almost 10 years old)
* 2 button-down shirts
* 3 pairs of dress pants
* 2 pairs of jeans (though I couldn't part with my decade-old black jeans--the last pair I wore to wait tables in the mid-90s).

I am pleased to report that in some ways, this is less than I thought I'd be purging. This time last year, I tried on some stuff, and said "If this still doesn't fit me next fall, I'm getting rid of it." Among these pieces were my wonderful black DKNY suit that, when I bought it, looked fabulous on me (if I do say so myself). I figured that if a year of really increased exercise didn't make these fit, they were never going to fit again.

Funny thing is, I've gained five pounds since last summer, but all but one of those items (a 33-inch-waist pair of khaki linen pants) made the cut--which means that although I've put on weight, I've lost at least an inch in the waist. So while the trimming-down of the wardrobe wasn't as drastic as I'd expected, the trimming down of my gut was better than I'd expected! And now there's far less excuse to go clothes shopping, which is, honestly, a good thing.