This is what I wear to school each day: a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar. A navy-blue kilt. Argyle knee-socks. Penny loafers. A tortoiseshell headband or a navy-blue scrunchie. On chilly days, I wear a navy wool cardigan. I carry a brown leather briefcase that matches my loafers.

You might think that I attend a school with uniforms. A very strict private school where even the ubiquitous L.L.Bean and JanSport backpacks aren't allowed. I don't, though. I go to a public school, one where most of my classmates wear jeans and flip-flops. I know my clothing choices are unique, but I'm not about to change. I just think I was meant to be born in a different era.

Probably, I was meant to be born in a different state, too. California definitely doesn't understand me. I think I might fit better in a place like Connecticut or England. I've never been to Connecticut or England, though, so I can't be sure. I've lived in San Francisco my whole life. Warmth, a laid-back mentality, general optimism--these are all widely true impressions that outsiders have about California. It's just that I enjoy rules and precision and the snug sensation of swaddling myself in outerwear on a frigid day.

That, and I've always had a penchant for wanting to know the answers flat-out rather than feeling my way toward them. When I was in first grade, for example, I had no patience for phonics. Whenever I didn't know how to spell a word, I asked my mother. If I tried to sound it out, I'd risk getting the wrong spelling stuck in my head.

I should mention that my mother did not always agree to spell words out for me, and she still doesn't, even though I'm in ninth grade and long past phonics lessons. Back in first grade, when they were tough words, such as aardvark and vacuum, she'd step in and help, but most of the time she just leaned over the back of the couch, kissed the top of my head, and said, "Phonics has a purpose, my dear." These days she points to the dictionary by the computer desk before prancing away to paint.

Yes, my mother is an artist. She wears long peasant skirts or tie-dye leggings with oversize T-shirts that spout feminist slogans or have pictures of cats. This is her uniform. When I was young, she insisted her clothes were the height of fashion. Now, she says, she wears them ironically. That is, she wears everything but the feminist T-shirts ironically. "Women's rights," she has said on more than one occasion, "are not to be trifled with." Whenever she says this, I mentally rearrange the sentence so it does not end with a preposition.

© 2010 by Elizabeth A. Larsson