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I should have focused on one other kind of pants, like khakis, but instead I tried on a mishmash of things. Some photographed very badly, too. Just for the record, here's what I tried:

( Pants... many, many pants. )

I tried on 20 pairs of pants in 4 stores this morning, in about an hour and 15 minutes. I could have gone on longer but the troops were growing restless, so we had to stop and get ice cream to mollify them.

Things I learned:

A 6 long at J. Crew and the Gap fit me really well, with only minor nuances between the fits. A J. Crew "city fit" is pretty darn low-rise, though. Hello hip bones.

A 6 long at Lands End is the right size, but all the styles they had were too loose in the hips and too tight in the waist. "Classic fit" makes this happen; if I order anything I should stick to "modern fit," and maybe consider a 4.

A 6 long at J. Jill would fit if I lost approximately 2 pounds. (An 8 long was too big.) (This surprised me, since I would have expected J. Jill to run bigger than, for example, J. Crew.) Anything that sits at the waist at J. Jill is also a no (this means "tried and true" fit is out.)

I really like wide-leg pants.

Only Gap actually had any longs at all in the store. At J. Crew I could order from the store for free shipping, and at J. Jill for a flat fee of $5.95. Lands' End had only 28 or 31 inch inseams to try on (I need at least a 34)!

J. Crew and Gap have decent lighting in their dressing rooms (at J. Crew there is a switch that allows you to check "day" lighting and "night" lighting); J. Jill is too dark (I needed the flash); about the Sears dressing rooms, no more needs be said. All mirrors were pretty dirty.

I wanted to look at Banana and Talbot's and Levi's and Docker's and Ralph Lauren, but maybe another day (the mall doesn't have an Old Navy.)