That time of year again

If you're in the District and have been outside in the past three hours, you well know we are in the midst of our first adorable snowfall.

Look, I know it's annoying, I know it's something you have to endure year after year, but you have to understand, as transplanted Upper Midwesterners, it's an implicit duty we have to relentlessly condescend to those who have only lived in temperate areas about just how gosh darn awful their Winter weather hardships are.

Thus, even though I long ago adopted a lightweight's tolerance when it comes to frigid temperatures, what you see outside will always be, to me, more adorable than it is any of the menacing adjectives I heard Mr. Weather Channel use this morning.

What is not particularly adorable, however, is the shag-carpet of salt I found installed on both the blacktop and sidewalk surfaces of my city this morning. I realize its function is to preempt whatever snowy shenanigans we DCers could get ourselves into with the half-inch of accumulation, but come on, city workers, there's gotta be a 5-1 salt-to-snow ratio on the corner of 17th and M.

In the name of stiletto preservation, I would make sure to get your 'Since I don't (yet)' regulars weather-proofed (any of the cobblers mentioned here will surely provide this service), and if you happen to be Hot Redhead Lawyer someone who only owns 'Sugar Daddy' shoes, bless your heart and please to boot your commute and carry those precious pairs in a securely zipped-up shoulder bag.

Because we all remember what happens to salty shoes, right?

Chivalry or Lechery?

Time - just past 9am

Location - 17th and M, National Geographic side

Weather - 90 degrees/90% humidity

Characters - gentleman in his early-60s/myself

Costuming - his: Savile Row quality navy pinstripe suit, French cuffed, spread-collared light blue dress shirt, matte silk burgundy with gold and navy fleur-de-lis patterned tie, solid silk burgundy pocket square and seamless chestnut wingtips; mine: high-waisted black pencil skirt, wide black belt, tucked-in sleeveless silk-jersey v-neck shell with deep scoopneck back and gunmetal matte-satin peeptoes.

The Encounter:

(tap on the shoulder from behind)

(turning to my left and slipping off my headphones) "Yes?"

"Miss, you're perspiring."

"Excu...what?" I asked, genuinely unsure of what he had said due to the fact I still had my music - "Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani - at full-volume.

(pulling out his pocket square) "You're perspiring -- on your back, you're perspiring."

"Oh, I...I..."

Taking my half-bemused half-shocked open-mouthed expression as sure-go-ahead permission, the man, who looked like a cross between a character out of a Guy Richie film and JR from "Dallas," took his kerchief and proceeded to gently whisk away the beads of sweat off my exposed back and shoulders. There was no awkwardness or glint of I-know-I'm-crossing-the-line guilt in his blue-gray eyes. He wiped me down as if the gesture were as commonplace as a mother wiping dried ice cream crust of her child's chin. When he completed his task, he simply replaced the cloth to his suit, assured me the rest of me looked "just fine," nonchalantly crossed 17th St., turned left and entered AEI.

No creepy post-wipe sniff, no initiated flirtatious banter (the "fine" he used was clearly the ambivalent kind of "fine," not the you-lookin'-fine "fine") , no feeble attempt to exchange cards, no over-the-shoulder lookback -- no nothing.

And I just stood there, let an entirely new 24 second countdown expire, and wondered to myself if I'd just encountered the last truly chivalrous man in DC or perhaps the most lecherous.

Sometimes you have to tap a bitchy-looking girl on the shoulder

Without glasses, I have 20/200 vision.

With glasses, my meticulously applied eye makeup is shielded from all those DC women for whom it was meant to serve as get-up-10-minutes-earlier-and-use-your-eyelash-curler inspiration.

As such, outside of work, the movie theater and the evenings sitting on my bah'um in my living room - my only room - typing up these pieces, you'll almost always find me frames-free and blind as Josh Duhamel. Having recognized for some time that I'm about two accidental eye-pencil pokes away from guide-dog eligibility, I've taught myself never to believe what I see unless it is within 10 feet of my hazel eyes.

When you take that tried-and-true rule of thumb, add three Heineken Lights and a lunch that consisted of a nectarine, two Hershey nuggets and half a 260-calorie tray of inedible Lean Cuisine...well, those 10 feet of good vision shrink to about 10 inches. If that. This is why, on my way home last night, I stared long and hard at the back-of-the-skintight-pants stain that seemed to be growing with each step the very unfriendly-looking young woman in the giant sunglasses in front of me at the corner of 17th and M was taking before I took the drastic action I eventually did.

An action, up until yesterday, I had never taken.

(tapping her on the shoulder) "Excuse me, Miss?"

(taking out her left iBud) "Yes?"

"Um, I just needed to tell you that you should wrap your jacket around your waist."

"Excuse me?" (the italics really don't do her attitude justice)

"I'm not trying to be weird, sorry, I'm...it's just that, well, you have a stain on the back of your pants, and I think it's..."

"What? Oh my...(turning around and looking down), oh my God! Oh my God! What do I do?"

"...getting bigger."

"No seriously, what do I do?? I'm on my way to dinner with people from work - my boss will be there! - and I'm supposed to meet them right now on 14th Street."

"You could walk back up to Connecticut and buy another..."

"(looking at her watch) Shit, it's past 8:30 Everything's closed!"

"What size are you?"

"What?"

"What size are you?"

"An eight - why?"

"Well, I don't have anything that'll fit you well, but you're welcome to walk back with me to my place and at least get something clean."

(her tone softening) "Are you serious?"

"You're about to have dinner with people from work. As someone who constantly complains about DC fashion, I can't in good conscience let you walk in and sit down on that (pointing to the now even larger oblong oval crawling down her right pant leg)."

And so she wrapped her black sweater around the seat of her pants, and we walked the few blocks back to my place discussing high heels ("what's the point of a one-inch heel, honestly?" she asked), her initial bad attitude ("I was a total bitch, wasn't I?"), the vague allusion to my love/hate relationship with random meetings on the corner of 17th/M ("there's just something about this intersection that invites drama...") and of course, our mutual affection for Neil Diamond ("Cracklin' Rose? Are you kidding me? Shilo is clearly his best work!").

Don't worry Mom and Dad, I didn't drunkenly invite a stranger into my apartment, but I did let her into my building, elevator her down four options (two skirts and two pairs of jersey trousers) to try on in the lobby restroom, and as a result earn a very sincere hug and promise to return the skirt, which, to both our surprises, fit her like a perfect pair of cashmere-lined leather gloves.

"You should just keep it."

"No, I couldn't..."

"I haven't worn it in two years. Seriously, keep it."

So she did - or will - and just like that, I took one DC woman from a pair of too-tight trousers and put her in a fitted, flattering chocolate brown pencil skirt.

Like my old header used to say, "I'm taking the DC style intervention one woman at a time..."

"Johanna, there'll be others."

As I've mentioned here before, without fail, my father's first in-private reaction to meeting my new boyfriends has always consisted of the same four words: "Johanna, there'll be others."

Didn't matter if they were a still-hanging-out-with-high-school-kids community college burnout, an Ivy League educated World Champion rower, a kind-hearted bi-curious Hawaiian getting his Ph.D. in biophysics, a soap-opera-haired lobbyist two years my junior earning four times my salary, or the man over whom I'm still very much torn - the one who holds dear the Cherry Bowl, the one who properly introduced me to the glory of Manhattan (the seared foie gras at Picholine, in particular), the one who inspired me to finally pursue my two true passions: fashion and self-promotion.

All good men in their own rites, all thoughtfully dismissed by the one person whose opinion means more to me than even my own.

And so far, he's been right. Even on this last one, unfortunately.

This morning, during my familiar four block jaunt down M Street to work, listening to my freshly downloaded "The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore" (James Morrison), I saw yet another beautiful size-four with shiny hair, moisturized skin, runner's legs and an elegant heel-walk wearing the Diane von Furstenberg navy and white Gingko print 'Jessica' wrapdress that after three fruitless months of pining for its silk jersey softness and dress-it-up-or-down versatility, I still can't put out of my mind. I visit her often at nordstrom.com and Betsy Fisher, even wrapping her Japanese flowers around me when I'm feeling especially low, but inevitably the time comes when I have to accept the cold hard truth that $345-plus-tax is much more smartly spent on running shoes and under-eye concealer for me and untainted gourmet dog food and boutique health insurance for Montesquieu. That's the right thing to do, my friends and family tell me. Budget, necessities, and function, not excess, luxury and fashion. Most of the time I'm fine with this more mature, more responsible lifestyle, but when something's right there, when it's only a few budget cuts and twists of Sugar Daddy fate within reach, the pain compounds exponentially.

But just as it does with a man you meet unexpectedly at a red light intersection on a warm May afternoon, the most powerful and perfect love you feel for that one cocktail dress, that one pair of peeptoes or that one incredible twill coat can hit you so hard and so suddenly you'll never be able to satisfactorily explain the why or the how. It just is.

As I came to 17th and M, I smiled at the likely prospect every time I enter a vintage store for the rest of my life, I'll unconsciously search for those items that eluded me in my younger, more fiscally conservative years. It's the clothing equivalent of Google-ing the former boyfriend you now realize you should've held onto more tightly but didn't. With clothes, as opposed to lovers, you have a much higher probability of remedying past wrongs in ways that don't involve skulking around your own city and paying for expensive dinners with cash. And that's a very good thing.

As I passed another of my steadfast but more than slightly out-of-reach unrequited loves, the Burberry short trench, always there on the corner of ConnAve/M behind the shiny glass reminding me in its reflection, "Yes, your makeup, bangs and legs do look good today, but that doesn't change the fact you can't have me," I began to think about my Dad's theory on love.

"Johanna, there'll be others."

Crossing ConnAve and walking the twenty or so steps up to my building, I repeated those four words under my breath several times, unconvinced and confused, wondering why I've always been able to believe him when it comes to men - this last one, aside - but never to clothing.

By admitting a predisposition for forging deeper, longer-lasting attachments to fine leather, unique necklines and rosette-detailing than to human beings, I believe I've reached a new height, the zenith perhaps, of superficiality.

Either that, or I've yet to meet the available Ernest Hemingway to my Marlene Dietrich who'll rock my world and make me forget my insatiable desire for all things pretty, mini and DVF.

I'll consider both theories while I go now and grace ConnAve with my toned-calves-and-peeptoes presence...