Self-portrait with Parisian socks

I bought these socks in Paris, in a little shop just around the corner from our apartment in the Rue de Saint-Denis. I bought them with the knowledge that my legs were the wrong shape for above-knee socks, that they would invariably slip down and drive me crazy, but I loved the print and the colour so I bought them anyway. The shop was in between a Lebanese restaurant which sold the most delicious stuffed eggplants, and a chacuterie, where I bought a slab of goat’s cheese. I wish I lived in Paris.

My ribbed turquoise jersey I bought in Palmerston North, in an op-shop off Pioneer Highway, where the circus used to come when I was a child. The circus, the circus! I remember the circus coming to my school, with its little shetland ponies and scary clowns, its trapeze artists with callouses behind their knees. Where are those little circuses now? How can I run away and join them?

I used my socks as a guide for colouring a comic:

Socks can be very useful, even when they slip down.