How is a backpack different from a purse? Because it doesn't look like a purse? What I call my purse is a messenger bag. A bag of some sort is okay, where a purse is not?

Black jeans or straight skirts with a high slit, tailored dress shirts worn open at the collar, and with cufflinks, cowboy hat. And cowboy boots or stompy boots.

Need the skirts, have the shirts, need less formal cufflinks (mine are a hair off tuxedo-formal), (always) need more boots. When are you coming down so we can go shop?

ION, a most delightful headline on Yahoo

George Will Calls Donald Trump a 'Bloviating Ignoramus'

"I do not understand the cost benefit here," Will said on the "This Week" roundtable. "The costs are clear. The benefit - what voter is gonna vote for him (Romney) because he is seen with Donald Trump? The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious it seems to me."

Beautiful.

When are you coming down so we can go shop?

AAAAUUGH I WANT TO. We would have so much fun. Pete would shake his head a lot at us, but that's part of the fun.

Pete would shake his head a lot at us, but that's part of the fun.

M & Pete can go bond over their wacky spouses and the state of the Commonwealth.

I guess I just use it differently? Almost more like a briefcase than a purse?

I wouldn't have my backpack in a restaurant with me, hanging off my chair, for instance. Or I wouldn't be going shopping with a backpack on. I think I dislike what I perceive as limitation of mobility based on having to keep track of a purse during most social situations. Like at a party or whatnot.

So what I have in my backpack is stuff that I need for a particular function, like instructional materials for class, or my laptop and paper files for a meeting. And then I would carry it into the workplace and out, but I wouldn't carry it around during the day. Does that distinction make sense?

I'm grooving on cowboy hats and aged silver-and-amethyst jewelry right now, or everything these guys have [

LIKE! That bat in the link is beautiful.

I just went ahead and bought this to try to increase my don't-have-to-carry-a-bag time. Not sure if I will be able to wear it in the summertime, but the rest of the year it'll come in handy.

I love my purses (especially the ones with the skeletons hands), but I admit that I'm still searching for a better option. I need to talk to my friend Dimitri about making a Jilli-appropriate utility belt or something.

I think purse has immediate connotations that backpack might not. The sets don't totally overlap, and many places a purse is seen as appropriate, even the basic backpack form is not.

Which really means I've been dinged for bringing a crocheted "backpack" as my lady-bag to formal events. Even though no guy would be seen dead carrying it. And what I carry now is on the femme side of the divide, but still pooh poohed by traditionalists.

About whom I totally don't care, so whatevs. As long as I can sling it over both shoulders when need be, I'm good with it. Although the thing I have that's most gender-neutral and backpacky isn't really a backpack because it has only one strap, but it's cross-body. You try and wear it just over one shoulder and the weight falls all funny. And the cellphone pocket ends up in your armpit.

For a while in my early twenties I had a denim jacket with a bunch of pockets that I could stuff full of things that would otherwise go in a purse and it somehow didn't look bulky and that was awesome. The weight of my stuff was distributed better on my body rather than weighing down one shoulder, draping it over the back of a chair was hardly ever awkward, I pretty much needed a jacket if I was going out anyway. And then I lost it in one of my involuntary purge of belongings.

It wouldn't hold an iPad, anyway, I'm pretty sure.