Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

Perhaps it is a pull of the moon, the extensive rain, or just luck itself but I've got a disproportionate amount of friends wearing tin foil hats as of late.  I mean, their local grocery runs out of white bread and it turns into a conspiracy to make them fatter and starve them out.  The aforementioned rain makes the wifi slow, it must be government spies looking in to see what they are buying online.  And then, while using an iPhone, proclaiming that we are all being controlled by machines.  Yeah, there's a relative tin foil hat parade happening around me. I look to my left.  I look to my right.  I've got a match people. Late last week I thought that, perhaps, I was at the apex of it when some ballsy assed mother fucker blew on my shoulder blades.  Why yes, while on the seven train and sporting a sundress on a 90+ degree day, I clearly needed a fucking burka.  I know . . . I know . . . I totally asked for it. That being said, I came up with ...

Sometimes life has a way of becoming a shit show.  A prolonged one.  This past week and a half has been one of those for me.  Some of it involves first world, white people problems like trying to upgrade my phone and encountering corporate robots, the grocery being out of my favorite beer, running out of coffee, and exploding coffee all over my kitchen (yeah, there was coffee on my CEILING).  More problematic things involved nearly everything I touched becoming a prolonged, nightmare of a project; having the fucktards at my CVS pharmacy act like I was a lunatic when I asked for a prescription refill and where the muscle ointment was (seriously, when someone asks for something like an ace bandage and you work in a pharmacy . . . as you say you have to get the manager--after she asks three times--because you are too stupid to respond . . . ); middle aged malarkey; medical hell; and learning that you aren't worth the time, hotel room, or moment away you start to wonder ...

In the larger realm of all things white people, there is little funnier than a white woman--usually of the clean cut appearance--throwing down to gangsta rap.  And, in that regard I mean messy bun, old sweats fuzzy with holes in them, a white Hanes tee that's probably snug up top as it's from an old lover or some such, and that hair . . . yeah, that's like three day old hair that hasn't been washed.  Yeah, when that woman throws down, starts dropping gangsta signs, slipping out motherfuckers, dicks, and tits while jumping around her house in pure single girl, moment alone, who gives a shit fashion movies always tell us that shit is about to become epic. In that regard, that has been my week.  Epic.  Coffee, bun, sweats, and mother fucking gangsta rap.  Yeah, I dropped that out earlier this week and people who claim to know me jaw dropped like a fat kid salivating for cake.  Except, they weren't wanting cake.  Instead, they were downright flabbergaste...

1 May . . . the day in the sewing world, online voyeurism enclave, of the start of Me Made.  In that regard, I guess I've been doing Me Made since 2013 now.  That being said, I've made no quiet voice about the disdain of selfies . . . and the body image notations one makes during the 30 days of Me Made. Though, in 2013 I was nearing a year of being married, and what most now know is that my marriage was already on a very painful death.  That actually started six weeks after I do.  I'm not going into that here, but let's just say I stayed and held on for as long as I did from shame, status quo, and fear.  None of them are good reasons to stay . . . Though, looking back on the pictures the memories come back, in floods and spoils, about the incredible amount of begging to get him to take a photo, to partially engage in something I do (which, being a writer and with someone who doesn't believe in it  . . . ), and the skill changes. There was clear escapism ...

In the end, it is always about those left behind.  This we always know, but as the throws of life prove to us (every time) we never remember it until an end has arisen.  Every. time. In 2013 I met a woman named Barb, and when I met her she was recovering from just having discovered a cancer the size of a football in her leg.  A football.  A fucking football.  Barb with her three kids, a widower herself, a new husband with two nearly grown teenagers, and a suburban house.   When we met, she was just starting her home daycare up again . . . her Dad got certified so he could help her, and her family moved the daycare chaos up to the main floor since the surgery and cancer made walking up and down the stairs to the basement difficult on a good day and near impossible on most. I hadn't been married a year, when Barb and I met.  After that January meeting we saw each other again in the spring, after I helped moved a friend up there.  There was a par...

I haven't really posted anything about sewing in a while, since--well--probably in earnest since before Oregon . . . in all fairness, I doubt anyone wants another run down of my sculpting scraps into a swanky, borderline hooker bra, the abuse I'm giving my serger with a well crafted raglan after another, or of the hilariously obscene things I add to the crotches of my jeans and say while making them (okay the fly details are just drop dead jovial, and I will not apologize for kisses on my fly, compasses, or xoxo labels). Yet . . . I've also found myself making more basics and eschewing the need to deviate from classics, tried and true, and what I know works.  Why? Part of that comes from the six or so weeks I spent out left last summer.  I left New York with a backpack, a carry on, and one well-crafted suitcase.  In two months--during insomnia hours--reading and pinning notes on the capsule wardrobe craze, and then I spent several days combing through my closet and dr...

As any honest jet-setter will tell you, not every locale is splendid and storybook exciting.   Sometimes a stop along the way is just that . . . a stop, a meander, a moment.   Last spring I spent about a week in Romania.   I was there for a professional conference, but as with how these things go I also squeezed in some moderate sights along the way . . . as most travelers do.   Yet, this petite country on the edges of the once Communist impressed Eastern Europe and on the fringes of the old Ottoman Empire and nestled at the base of the Balkans served more as a conversation piece.   Unlike Rome—during the 2012 Christmas season with marzipan delights toppling counters and market stalls and Vatican City abuzz with clergy seemingly dancing in the unusual snowfall of the festive air, Romania was more of a cup of tea on a porch swing and not a debutant’s ball. I arrived in Bucharest, on a spring evening, and after the airport and hotel drop I wandere...