Dear Uptight Seattleite,

I know you’ve covered the topic of Northwest fashion before, but there’s still one thing I’d like you to explain: Where do all the men here get their pants in that sort of brownish color that’s too drab to even be called a color, usually paired with similarly colored hiking shoes?

—Horton

Dear Horton,

Drabpants.com. Rather than tell you that, my first impulse was to address your fixation on judging people based on their appearance. In my experience, that’s often the mark of someone who fails to grasp the benefits of dedicated bicycle lanes. So I was going to invite you on a journey into your own thought processes, a journey with its share of laughter and pain, but ultimately marked with tears of grateful recognition that the narrow-minded habits of the past have been transcended.

But I decided that satisfying your curiosity with a direct answer might be a more efficient way to help you move beyond your apparent fixation on our simple, sensible style of winter garb—and to possibly open your mind to how the Dutch do transportation so much better than we.

This doesn’t mean you can’t make such a journey of self-discovery on your own. It can be pretty neat when you realize that you don’t have to be right about everything. And, hey, guess what? It turns out you were wrong about our pants. They come in more than just one color. Check that site I mentioned, and you’ll see a full rainbow of choices, from Brackish Khaki to Defeatist Pine.

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

I see my neighborhood UPS guy so often that I thought I might as well introduce myself, but he seemed sort of alarmed by this. This was confusing, because I’m from a town where we make it a point of pride to greet each other by name. Was he intimidated by my moustache?

—Southern Manny

Dear Manny,

There’s one thing you didn’t mention: the UPS guy’s shorts. Or are you going to pretend that you didn’t notice that flash of well-toned man leg? Hey, relax! I’m not insinuating anything here! I meant only what I said: that you must have noticed his shorts, and yet you suppressed this detail in your description.

Or maybe he wasn’t wearing shorts. UPS shorts (on drivers of both genders) have been in remission with the dropping temperatures, though the heartiest drivers seem to wear them year-round. But in that case, weren’t the shorts even more prominent by their absence? Yet you persist with the suppression. And for whatever reason, you felt that these shorts of his were in some kind of confrontation with your moustache. The question then becomes: What are you intimidated by?

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

Although I am just shy of 82 years old, I am still quite hip. Your column is the highlight of our week here at the senior center. As your answers have nothing at all to do with the questions you print, why not just print answers, or better yet, one big meaningless answer?

—Mature Victor

Dear Victor,

One benefit of the trees losing their leaves is that you can see the birds sitting in them a lot better. The other day I saw a crow land on a long, skinny branch that was sticking straight up in the air. He struggled to maintain his balance as the branch swayed under his weight. At one point, he hunched over as though he were ready to take off, but in the end he held his position and the branch came to rest in its new center.

Is that the kind of answer you’re referring to, Victor? Sure, I could be a little more explicit, but I believe in the power of trust. I trust people’s ability to find the invisible threads between one thing and another. And it would be downright presumptuous of me to think that someone such as yourself—who’s distinguished himself with so many trips around the sun—can’t see invisible threads for himself.

But to pursue your point a little bit further: When you suggest “one big meaningless answer,” it’s almost as if you’re suggesting that some kind of book-type project might be a good format for my thoughts. An intriguing idea, Victor!

Oh, and speaking of the sun and going around it, I would like to wish you and everyone else reading this a belated winter solstice. Things are definitely getting brighter now!

Questions? Write uptight@seattleweekly.com.