assorted frivolities

I would really like to have spent my weekend hooked up to a Nozickian experience machine that would led me believe that I am living that would let me experience a world in which a Republican president would appoint Richard Epstein to the Supreme Court. As I am stuck in the actual world, in which I know that there is not a prayer of elevating most of the VC bloggeriat to our nation's federal courts, I have to content myself with looking at dresses. Behold at left, an acquisition.


Also, I really love this, but there's no way it could be altered at reasonable cost to suit someone my height. If anyone tall actually reads this, please go buy it -- it'll gratify me that I've performed a fashion mitzvah for someone else.

This
dress presents a closer question. Yes, it's adorable and would be lovely for one of Ilya's friends' spring weddings. But the straps are a little large on me even in the smallest size sold. The bodice fit properly but was skintigh. Read: it won't fit if I gain half an ounce between now and the first week of May. If I go up to my regular size, the straps are huge. My mother and Clarissa Dalloway tell me that it's virtually impossible to alter the larger size to fit better, too.

Sometimes being small is unpleasant. Growl growl growl. See also, although I wonder if the effects don't run the opposite way outside Britain. There, women of aristocratic descent are disproportionately tall. And one would think that aristocratic descent correlates with high education and in turn with income... In the U.S., on the other hand, Ashekenazim and Asian women are disproportionately high earners and tend to be short. Or so I've chosen to believe...