Jeans: It may have struck you guys that I’m not very good at dressing down. Because I work from home I have basically two modes—gym clothes and SPARKLE. And spend a lot of time (most days, actually) in gym clothes, un-make-upped, with what I like to call Uninentional Morning Hair.
Most of my coworkers have seen me thus attired via Zoom, as have a not-insignificant percentage of local baristas, co-op employees, supermarket cashiers, and basically the entire past and present staff of Carrburritos. I’m not particularly precious about being seen out in the world sans statement earrings and game face mostly because I don’t think the earrings and game face make me look all the much better or younger or special and anyway I have no idea how the rest of you still look put together after five minutes because even if I do go to the distance I look like I’ve been blustered about in a steam wind and run through the wrinkle machine within seconds of stepping out of my house
But I love the earrings, the bright red lipstick, and the clothes (the clothes are so much fun), so I do it anyway, even if I’m doomed to look like an immediate disaster. And I wear fancy dresses to the grocery store or walk around the pond, even if I’m putting them on at exactly the time of day when most of the world is changing into their sweatpants.
As a result of all of this, I’m not exactly a natural at what you might consider casual wear. The jeans/t-shirt thing for me generally can only work gussied up with something festive/stupid/unnecessary like gold lamé creepers or, like, a cardigan with glitter crowns on it. I realize I’m the odd man out here. When I go out, I really want to be able to dress for something. But I live in 21st century America at a time when other sane adults in my age bracket actually prefer hanging out parking lots full of screaming toddlers where all the beverages taste like fermented pickle relish and the only seating option is picnic tables where you sit unshaded, either too warm or too cold, wishing for a chair with a back that will not give you splinters and doesn’t smell like dog pee while some poor bastard with a sleeve tattoos and a civil war beard is does an absolutely tragic bluegrass cover of The Postal Service. These circumstances clearly demand less formal attire.
I have, like, ten pairs of jeans. They are representative of a broad crossection of styles. I don’t know if I love any of them. I’m not sure my body was built for jeans. Or maybe more accurately, I’m not sure I will ever love the look of myself in jeans, at least not the ordinary, day-to-day jeans that everyone else seems to find so comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.
These jeans are Good American, which means that they are Kardashian product. I didn’t realize that until pretty late because I’ve largely failed to keep up with the family (no slight on them in particular, I’m just not really a reality tv person unless you’re making dresses or desserts in the English countryside). These jeans are comfortable and not unflattering, though like seemingly 99% of jeans in the current marketplace, perplexingly short (I’m a bit over 5’8, so not short, but almost every pair of jeans I try on presumes the levees have broken).
Sweater: This is a lavender shaker knit velour sweater that feels like a sofa that everyone I knew bought when the graduated from college in 1998, and I probably crashed on at least once back when I still thought tequila was a good idea. It was a Christmas present and evidently came from a chain store best known for its sexy Evangelical Christian Coachella vibe, which either makes complete sense to you or it does not. It is sort of a partner to all the Mormon fairy/prairie dress brands that are still bubbling up on my Instagram feed, but it also kind of feels like it’s trolling the modesty girls in that particular southern Christian academy cheerleader my belly button ring has a crucifix on it kind of way. As a complete heathen, I have zero stakes in any of this (although, as a general rule, I think it’s polite to follow the dress code when you’re visiting other people’s sacred spaces), but given the current political climate, I’m always interested in seeing what’s hot this season on the road to Gilead.
To be clear, there was no secret evangelizing coded into the gift of this sweater, as far as I can tell. It is reasonably cute and soft. I like a silvery lavender (it’s another color, like true peacock blue, that I am intensely fond of and is often very difficult to find). This sweater says weekend. We are at a weekend. Is it daylight savings? What time is it again?
Boots: When I was a senior in high school, we were required to do a senior project—called a “demo.” These projects consisted of two lengthy papers and an oral presentation. I did mine on William Faulkner, mostly because I spent part of summer break before senior year smoking cigarettes by my grandmother’s pool, attending funerals of relatives I’d never met while they were alive, listening to “Automatic for the People” and reading The Sound and The Fury, which is the kind of thing that will break your brain at seventeen and give you all sorts of radical thoughts about punctuation.
I read four Faulkner novels for the project. Light in August was probably the most straightforward. There’s a character in the book, Lena Grove, who walks miles barefoot trying to find the father of her child. When I was researching it, I ran into something that compared Lena to Jeanie Deans, the protagonist of Sir Walter Scott’s Heart of the Midlothian, who also walked barefoot for a significant portion of that novel. And somehow that led to me carrying around Sir Walter Scott novels whenever I traveled in college, convinced that one day the spirit might move me to develop an interest in early 19th century Scottish historical fiction. But things kind of went the opposite direction book-wise and I’m okay telling you that I’ve visited the Sir Walter Scott memorial and the Writer’s Museum in Edinburgh more than once and I only made it through Ivanhoe by the skin of my teeth (and it was a chore, gang).
I did, however, in 2022 so tear up my feet wearing ill-fitting boots walking miles and miles around London and Oxford that I put serious thought into whether I wouldn’t be more comfortable walking down the Royal Mile, past the literal heart of the Midlothian, barefoot. Details are best spared here, but let me say this: you need to make absolutely sure your wearing the right shoes when you travel even if they are exact replicas of the shoes you’ve owned before. Also, when the Queen dies, the Boots operates at what is tantamount to arbitrary hours, so don’t go thinking you’re going to buy a band-aid or any painkillers, which you’ll need because when the queen dies, don’t go thinking that you’ll be able to get a ride to any place you need to go with anything like ease.
I was barely able to walk by the time we arrived in Edinburgh. So destroyed was I by the boots (and the grieving monarchists at the Boots) even my sneakers provided little relief. It’s possible I threatened to actually just lie down and die outside of Scottish Parliament. Even the shiny unicorn keyrings my best friend and I bought at the Holyrood Palace gift shop didn’t cheer me up. Fortunately my best friend located a couple of shoe shops on Princes Street and a cab. Which is how I ended up at a Clark’s store located not quite exactly across the street from the Sir Walter Scott Memorial, perplexing everyone with literary allusions that made sense only to me. There an extremely helpful salesperson helped me sort through about thirty pairs of whatever we thought might fit over my swollen toes until we arrived at these, which are actually quite cute and shockingly comfortable (my best friend bought the same pair for herself). I felt so relieved when we left that day that I befriended Lord Manderley at a cat café under our Airbnb. I am sorry to report I was unable to bring him home as well.
The Outfit: I have a bit of a cold, so mild it could be mistaken for allergies, and I thought perhaps it was until yesterday. It’s nothing serious (I have the covid tests to prove it), but I cancelled a casual Oscar night hang and spent the day reading Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses ( truly excellent, by the way) and doing a little lite organization. Tis the cleaning in preparation for spring cleaning, and also a fantastic excuse for me to figure out whether any of the cords in my desk drawer go with devices I still own.
I made salmon and watched the awards show with the cats. Found myself slightly jealous of the Oppenheimer editor’s strapless green dress and as always charmed by Jeffrey Wright, who is among my Top Five Celebrity crushes and starred in my favorite movie this year. He lost Best Actor to Cillian Murphy’s cheekbones. Which is disappointing, but sort of inevitable. It’s hard to stand against the power of the atomic bomb or uncannily pretty Irishmen with eyes that, in size and color, resemble Wedgwood saucers.
Jeans: Good American, 2023
Sweater: Altar’d State, Christmas 2023
Earrings: Peel Gallery, Carrboro, 2022
Boots: Clark’s, Edinburgh, 2024
Tiny Commotions 