I love wearing the robe over these pajamas...

pajamas Gma gave me for Xmas because she remembered how many times I asked for them when I was living in Korea and didn’t need to leave the house and sat at the computer days on end typing HTML tags or reading among the incipient population of Web pages. Sat there sweating through the nightclothes, rotating through them as though they were the days. The screen’s light never set....

Wearing a heavy layer over a light one reminds me of Yesteryear, a fantasy of history when clothes protected and concealed, left you more for unwrapping. The pajamas are loose and silken, coerced against my skin by the weight of the robe as it grapples with my movement. When my body is submerged in fabric like this I feel an ontological retreat to the mind. Focus sharpens, work is an easier companion.

I begin to imagine that we clothed ourselves to temporarily filter carnal emanations, to indulge intellectual and carnal fantasies even as the weight of sensual fabrics bearing and brushing upon us heightened the lust. I wish it were easy to adorn myself in layers of head-to-toe garments. Everything I see available for buying threatens to bare midriff, ankles, and arms to above the shoulders. I can’t concentrate for some distracting itch at the seam where fabric meets skin.