Toni L. - Pjs& Bathrobes - Group 1   

There are days I want to stay in my pajamas.  Is that so wrong, every once in a while to just keep on my baggy flannels with the sheep jumping over fences on them?  On the way to the kid’s school, I see some of the 7^th and 8^th grade girls wearing plaid pajama bottoms with the mandatory footwear of their age: Uggs.  I would have liked that at 13, to wear pajamas to school without anybody thinking I’d suffered  a brain injury during the night.   

The thing here is, though that I don’t mean I want to wear my pajamas outside the house, what I mean, is I’d like to wear them inside the house and without feeling the tiniest bit bad about the fact that I’m not waking up, throwing on my workout clothes, getting the kids ready for school, getting myself over to the gym,coming home, taking a shower, food shopping (aren’t you at the market  too much when all the grocery baggers  know when you’re getting your period), checking my e-mail, doing whatever work & school volunteer projects I have, cleaning up the kitchen (which even after I clean it, seems dirty one minute later—perhaps I am the new David Blaine?), throwing in a load of laundry (which, let me tell you, is a whole Mickey Mouse Fantasia situation—the more wash I do, the more dirty clothes that appear), host three eighth grade girls that my 7^th grade son is now bringing home to play guitar hero with (in hopes that one of them, one of them will say yes they will “go out” with him, which by the way, is now defined as talking on the phone and computer-cating through facebook, but does not include doing any actual live activites), picking up my daughter and getting her to a) voice lessons b) soccer practice c) drama class d) e) basketball practice e)to buy another fucking eraser for her fucking eraser collection that she cannot stop talking to us about, pulling together a dinner, cleaning up after said pulled together dinner, and promptly collapsing on the couch to watch the news, while nagging my son to finish his homework, and my daughter to stop talking about her fucking eraser collection.     

I would like to not be sick, not have an irritated back that would make it ok and acceptable to be in my pajamas for the day, but to be well, to feel great and stay in my pajamas and laze around the house without worrying that I am not doing all the stuff I do in my normal day.  I would like to just stay in those cozy pj’s without the everyday list of chores and errands and work obligations I need to accomplish, or any of my back-up-think-about-it-everyday-but –never-have-time-to-do-it stuff haunting me, like cleaning out my third floor closets, jammed with the kid’s school work (like, all of it, not some of it, BUT EVERY PIECE OF IT FROM EVERY GRADE) and old bedding I’m saving for my summer house (which I don’t have) and all the ads I’ve ever written, photos I’ve ever taken, words I’ve ever committed to paper.  Or the nagging daily reminder of having to (or wanting to) clean my office, which is overflowing with past work, present work, wrapping paper, ribbon (I have a gift for wrapping a nice gift) card making supplies, advertising and writing books, and stuff that I don’t have a place for because I don’t know what the hell category it even falls under.  And there’s always the nagging and persistent problem of organizing my actual closet, where the clothes I wear outnumber the clothes I don’t wear, by like, 1,000 to 1.      

Yeah, I’d like to stay home in my pajamas without thinking about anything more than eating pancakes with butter and syrup and watching good movies and reading bad magazines without feeling like the FBI productivity unit is going to come over and bust me for not filling up every moment of my day.  I feel bad about myself when I’m not overwhelmed with a to do list, like I’m a lazy slacker, an unworthy person.  It’s good old fashioned guilt, and I ought to know about guilt, being half Italian Catholic and half Jewish. Guilt like an irritating drip, drip, drip in the bathroom sink that makes you want to move into a hotel in the middle of the night, like a papercut on your finger that gets caught on everything, like a nasty, August sunburn you worry will turn into a questionable freckle in five years.      

I’d give up my favorite worn pajamas, for just a day without a  list, without a must, without a hint of guilt that I’m not channeling the energizer bunny. For just ONE day, one relaxing day, in my pajamas.