Life Imitates Literature

Every time I put on my coat - either one - I feel so gloriously happy.  The rest of Virginia might be sad about cold weather but I'm not.  There's nothing so calculated to make an absolutely penniless, unemployed person feel as luxuriously accomplished in life than to own two coats.

Probably because I read about  the joy of owning two coats in a book (Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster).  Probably because I have a wonderful friend who gave me the most beautiful wool dress coat before she went to balmy Egypt for a year, leaving me with two nice coats.  

In any case, every time, I leave the house, I have to check to transfer my wallet, keys, phone from the pockets of one coat  to the other and I love it every single time.  

It got me thinking - I live a lot of my life imitating books.  

When I was seven (or eight), I put gum behind my ear before I went to bed like the gum-chewing girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, effectively requiring me to get the world's ugliest haircut and banning gum in our house for years.  

When I was in college, my friend and I convinced our friend to let us bake him a cake for a birthday that would occur several months later, simply because his name was Tom, and Old-Fashioned Girl had once so fashioned just a situation.  

I once tried to start a Philomathic Society based on a book, but no one would go for since they didn't like the word 'math' in the title.    

When I was a child, I tried to force myself to be a stoic based the book Stoneface.  

I keep the annual American Mayday celebration - dropping off flowers at doorsteps - because of the book Jack and Jill.  

I follow the Japanese tradition of tying Tanabata wishes to trees, but rather than use traditional Japanese methods, I've picked up my methods from The Ornament Tree.


I really wonder if I've ever held an original thought in my life.