Lost Glove Chronicles

Garth

2006-02-22T17:15:00.000-08:00

Hello readers. Yesterday afternoon at the end of my work day I spied a basic white glove with a frog green ring at the wrist spread flat on the cold sidewalk. I thought he looked like a Garth. Garth was of the vanilla variety of gloves, very basic by all accounts. Unlike the other gloves I have seen Garth looked to be well kept and in good fabric health, but again he wasn't flashy or in no way called attention to himself. If you saw Garth on the hand of some stranger you would not think to give Garth an extra glance, but prostrate on the sidewalk, Garth was quite noticeable. I think Garth lived with a librarian or a school teacher, the type of person who believes in the utlity of gloves and isn't swept up in the madness of fashion. Garths owner, let's call her Mildred, wears long flowing dresses, free trade of course, from countries in Latin America where indigenous folk work hard so Mildred and others can sport their free trade goods. It's Mildreds way of thumbing her nose at strict capitalists. I wonder if Garth is a product of free trade? He didn't strike me as free trade. I don't know what I mean when I say that either, but he just didn't have the look. Mildred also wears a pair of vintage, cat-eye glasses, not because they're shiek but because she has owned them for years, they are comfortable, and Mildred thinks that they suit her profession, Mildred is in fact a librarian. She also wears a chain on them so when they aren't use they hang about her neck. They give Mildred an air of sophistication, but she suffers from a great lack of self-confidence so she really doesn't pull it off. She also has salt and pepper hair, more salt than pepper. She keeps in it a very messy bun at the back of her head. Gauging from the size of that bun, it looks as if Mildred has long hair. I know my critics will claim that I have just described the stereotypical librarian, but Mildred is indeed your sterotypical librarian and Garth leads the life of a stereotypical librarian's glove. Garth is well read by the way, but suffers from depression and anxiety disorder. Garth's emotional and psychological issues stem from the fact that Mildred often left Garth and his twin, Burt on the shelf by the collected works of Edgar Alan Poe, an original print of Grapes of Wrath, Johnny Got His Gun, and a overdue notice from the dentist. Admist these volumes of despair Garth saw very little happiness in the condition of humankind. Ultimately Garth ran away from this madness, and the tragic irony is that Garth is now on a cold sidewalk in New Hampshire. Much like Sarte's "No Exit," which Garth had read the day before his great escape, he has met his hell and it is the cold sidewalk which he thought was his freedom. Sorry Garth, truly.

Fuzzy Pink Glove...I will call you Sheila

2006-02-09T22:15:00.000-08:00

I met sheila today. I think she was pink, but I have an aching suspicion Sheila is actually a faded red. Despite that detail, Sheila was fuzzy, fleece. She was rather dirty and looked a bit depressed. Despite being fixed on top of a fence post and not on the cold earth, she still looked as though things were not going well. Sheila's owner, I think, is actually a man, though societal customs would look with furrowed brow at a man with pink gloves, or faded red gloves that now look pink. I suspect he is big man with a beard, maybe even prison tattoos that say clever things like "the federanl bureau of prisons is a racist system of facist design." This is next to his tattoo of Tweety Bird. I think he is the kind of man who can wear pink gloves without fear of retribution. From the looks of Sheila he is obviously a man who works with his hands, Sheila looked a bit greasy. Which leads me to believe that he is a short order cook who works in a meal cart here in New England. The cart has a wicked draft which prompts our tattooed, bearded, political pundit to wear Sheila and her twin, Ruby as he serves up French Dips and Corn Dogs to the local snobbery who like to keep in touch with the proletariat by eating at the meal cart. Nothing says populist like onion rings and bacon sandwhiches. The cart is where Sheila and Ruby lived. Sheila, unlike Ruby, did not completely enjoy their shelf near the exhaust vent, but she made due so long as Ruby agreed to not drink from the milk carton. I think that at some point the walls of the small cart began closing in on Sheila and so she began plotting her departure. Now unlike most gloves you see on the street, or in this case on fence posts, Sheila wasn't so much lost as she was simply down on her luck. She left the cart with no money and no jobs skills to speak of, so times indeed got tough. She tried waiting tables, as she did have some experience if the food service indutry, but tips were lousy and the hours much worse. She moved on to pet grooming but fleece and pet hair are a horrid pair, that lasted all of a day. Sheila has had it rough in recent months, but I saw something in her that told me she would be okay. Or I may be horribly wrong and she will die a very painful glove death moments after I finish this sentence. I hope not, gloves deserve better than that. Until next time, take care of your gloves.

2006-02-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

Friends,
This is the first in what I hope to be many posts regarding the clothing orphans we call lost gloves. I moved to New England last year during what I thought was a very cold January, -13 degrees on most days, but grizzled locals assured me that I was being spared the great north's worst. And so, I counted my blessings, invested way too much in thermal under garments and began the assimilation process. I grew up in the south so my I speak very "twangily" which always prompts locals to ask the most obvious question,"Whey are you from?" Which I sometimes reply with "New York City." Looking puzzled I reveal the joke to them. No one laughs and I decrease my capacity to fit in.

Anyway, we don't get much opportunity, nor are we neccesarily required to wear gloves in the south. Weather doesn't always call for it and wearing gloves wear I come from is much like a gimp antilope at the watering hole wearing a sign for the lions that says "GIMP ANTILOPE." You look weak. Men, and even the most masculine of women, are to have tough hands, working hands, leathery, hands that can withstand frostbite. I don't have those hands so I wear gloves. As a matter of fact I have small hands, feminine hands, and the only thing that distinguishes my hands from those of my wife are the small sprouts of hair that protrude from my ring finger, and even this does not serve to totally distinguish me from woman on the whole. Now that I take true inventory of my hands, that ring finger, on my left hand, is the only finger I have that has hair. That's interesting.

I don't consider myself the most perceptive creature, but in my sort time in my small New Hampshire town I have begun to notice more and more lost gloves. Each time I see one I instinctually feel a sense of loss for that glove and it's owner. Is the owner at home searching for that glove, assured that it's in their closet, pocket, briefcase? Did the loss of that glove start a fight between said owner and their partner because the former thinks the latter has hidden it? I think those things when I see lost gloves. I feel those things when I see lost gloves. I had a counselor once tell me that I had a overdeveloped super-ego. I don't know what that means, but I assumed that it was bad. He never told me whether it was or not.

I wonder if lost gloves are actually not lost at all, but simply free. Do they feel like a twin who has dressed differently from their sibling for the first time? I'm a twin, I felt that way. Or do they feel loss, lost, adrift? I'm a twin and I feel that way. I cling to the hope that every lost glove is on their way to something better, but again, my super-ego thingy and my spiraling sense of pessimism tell me different. Does the lost glove lie their in the cold snow wondering what their twin is doing? Do they worry that their owner is doing little to find them? In the end what use is one glove? I say plenty, because if you don't have gloves, with one glove you can rest easy knowing that at least one hand will always remain warm, you choose the hand I don't mind.

Lost gloves are a pitiful sight. They are dirty, worn, and very bedraggled. When I see a lost glove that looks like that I wonder if they got that way as a result of being lost or was it in service to their owner. If was in service to their owner then again I wonder if that glove does in fact feel free, knowing that they won't be abused. No matter, I always feel sorry for lost gloves. I want to give them a home but I have my own gloves to care for and they take up much of my glove time.

I don't know if this post will answer our questions about lost gloves, but I hope that it will give us some insight into their personalities, pasts and futures. Until the next post, take care of your gloves.