Showin' Some Leg

"Oh, he's got nice legs," she said as I passed by in the hallway!

"There's more where that came from, if you'll go to the dance with me." I didn't say this out loud, I thought it. But I'm sure she wouldn't go to the dance with me, even if my thought was more than just a random quote from Napoleon Dynamite. I'm not even sure she can walk. She's about 80 years old and was scooting herself in a wheelchair by shuffling her slippered feet along the floor, Security in slow pursuit.

I didn't know women look at men's legs. When they do, what kind of pleasure do they get? Do they get a surge of hormones that races like a quick-burning flame through their bloodstream? Or is it more subtle, like walking through an art exhibit where you only realize you're having a good time when you're all done? Whichever it is the pleasure must continue late into life, if this morning's experience has any universal implication.

It took well into the summer for me to get comfortable wearing running shorts this year. Winter was long and dark, and spring was wet and cold. Even when the weather was getting warm enough, I just felt like I was revealing too much thigh; they didn't feel natural. I bought a pair of "man capris," as Margaret likes to call them, for casual wear and for climbing. They aren't man capris, I tell her; they're knickers. There's a difference, gosh! My running shorts feel like bikini bottoms in comparison.

The thing I'm enjoying most about this summer is morning sunlight. I accepted the old system of Daylight Savings. It began when I was 2 years old, so I've never known anything different. But the changes that took place in 2007 mean that 6 am is dark in Minnesota an extra month of every year, and 6 am is when I run to work. Whether the summer mornings are wet or dry, warm or cold, at least there's light.

As I continued down the hospital hallway this morning my admirer commented on my tan. I chuckled as I looked back. She chuckled as she rounded the next corner. And we both enjoyed the start of another summer day.