Fashion or Function?

I have no idea how this came up, but I was talking to one of the women with whom I work and we got on the subject of the type of footwear/shirt a guy "should" wear.  First, I didn't realize there were any rules.*  But just for sake of discussion, let's assume there are.

Under this. . .paradigm?  Yeah, under this paradigm, I've been doing it wrong for years.  Well, my whole life, it seems.    She says that the only time it is "okay" to wear running shoes is if you are actually working out, or going to or from same.  Well, this blew my mind.  Although she has never seen me outside of work (where I always wear suits, a la Barney Stinson), I almost always wear running shoes, jeans and a T-shirt (and I add a longsleeve T-shirt when it is cold, and will forgo jeans in favor of cargo shorts/Utilikilts in the summer).  My coworker says that she is embarrassed even to wear running shoes to the grocery store--where she has no problem wearing Yoga pants and a T-shirt. . .with freakin' flip-flops of all things. 

-->Let me interject here that I have a powerful dislike of Flip-Flops.  I hate the name, which--appropriately--rhymes with "slop"--and I think under most circumstances they evidence an absence of care for one's appearance.  I think I mostly hate them because they strike me as the most impractical type of footwear ever invented.  Flip-Flops are the D students of the footwear world.  I submit that they *barely* even qualify as footwear.  Anyway, I'll do an entire rant on them one day perhaps.

She believes that a guy "should" wear an Oxford type shirt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_shirt) and brown "dress shoes" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dress_shoes) (I have to note the hilarity I perceive in the fact that this wikipedia page recognizes 7 "possible" colors for men's shoes.  So. . .the other colors are *IM*possible?  Interesting).  So, even if I'm just hanging out with my friends, I "ought" to be wearing: an Oxford shirt, dress shoes and jeans.  Interesting.  (If this blog were a train, I'd sound the whistle a couple of times and yell out, "NEXT STOP: Fakeville" ("Sorry, ma'am, the train doesn't actually stop at 'Pretentious Heights,' but you can easily take a cab from Fakeville")

What this actually leads me to conclude is that I am more out of touch with Normals than I had previously believed or even suspected.  I suppose this is how Normals see the world?  So, although they think it is awesome when one wears a suit, they think my typical (non-work) appearance is sloppy?  Do most of them really think there are particular things one "ought" to wear? Apparently a sweater ("jumper" for some of you) is also okay.  I sometimes wear sweaters, but never with an Oxford Shirt, which is what I think she was presuming.  I also think that unles your name is "Chandler Bing" you have no business wearing a sweater-vest. 

Anyway, color me surprised.  Apparently I'm something of a "way-too-casual" dresser.  Why didn't anyone ever tell me?  :-)

Anyway, that's a nice bit of frivolity for one day.  Anyone have any thoughts on this?  Agree/Disagree?  Have anything to add? 

[I just remembered, we were talking about some restaurants in town that (apparently) have dress codes which would preclude my ability to enter (absent advance warning).] 

*Barring the obvious social mores when it comes to all things sartorial.

Recycling

This year was the first Valentine's day in years in which I haven't given her anything, given our situation. "My son," however, got her a card in which "he" wrote "I love you, Mommy."  "He" also got her a metal, heart-shaped box of chocolates.  Today I found that Tin Heart empty and in the trash.

I took it out and put it in "Recycling" instead. 

Feel Free to Respond

So...just so we're clear, while I know several folks who haven't visited yet, if any of you have, it wasn't my intention that this place should be a soapbox, monologue sort of deal.  I had a pretty profound discussion with a couple of you folks yesterday and I thought it was pretty refreshing.  Feel free to bring that same sort of thing around here.  I know some of these topics may not interest you at all, and some of them are just plain depressing, but if you have *anything* even marginally noteworthy to add, please feel free. 

On the other hand, if I simply have yet to discuss anything of interest to you, that's cool.  Stick around.  Even a monkey with a typewriter supposedly has a good day on occasion. 

Kelvar

P.S. Thanks and Kudos to Sylvia for being the first to follow this.  I have some questions about your most recent post on your own blog with my favorite frog pirate.   

P.P.S. Is there any way to set this thing up so that "fully justified" is the default setting?  It seems like every time I post I have to edit so that I can clean that shit up.  Failure to fully justify one's margins signals to me that you simply don't care.  Of course, that's just my opinion and personal pet peeve.

If you Define me, you Negate me.

It occurred to me that I never actually defined Urban Exploration when I talked about it before.  And since I'm a lawyer and not a philosopher, I think definitions are really important, and while I understand the expression I used in the title of this post, I think that it is almost an "ivory tower" sort of concern.  Of course, I guess it depends on *how* someone or something is defined.  Plus, I think "Negate" is--perhaps--an overly strong word for this context.  I think "limit" may be better.  Or it may even be better to say that when you attempt to define a person or thing, you necessarily do that person or thing an unintended injustice by the things you don't say and also by the inherent limitations of human language.  (Of course, when you say it my way it sounds a lot less quote-worthy, doesn't it?).  But let's get real.  In everyday life we need definitions to get anything done.  Otherwise we'd all just be sitting around in Birkenstocks, smoking a bowl and letting life pass us by. 

As a side note, in discussing this I cannot help but think of the TV show "Code Monkeys" (which I loved and have on DVD if any friends are interested).  I recall that there was an African-American programmer who worked for the company who everyone called "Black Steve"--even though there were no other employees named "Steve."  I think that's a decent, if lowbrow, example of a way in which this expression does hold some truth. 

Anyway, that tangent aside, Urban Exploration is basically just curious/adventurous folks who seek out places in urban environments that are typically unused, abandoned, off-limits, etc. They go behind the velvet ropes, if you will.  They want to see what isn't supposed to be seen or what is no longer being used.  They go to places that may have quite a history, but--for whatever reason--are now abandoned to the slow decay of time.  Places that once were important to someone--often, a lot of people--that now sit eerily empty--dust-filled and cobwebbed destinations, long since forgotten by nearly everyone else.  

This often involves at least minor infractions of the law for trespassing, but they deem it worth it.  Some Urban Explorers actually feel entitled to enter such places.  That is where my own values differ.  But I do sometimes yearn to visit these "secret" places and see what mysteries they hold.  And the photographs are sometimes quite evocative.  Sometimes they make you really think about how everything but time is an illusion and how all the things we do and work so hard to accomplish now are really just fleeting moments that will be completely forgotten in perhaps just a few decades.  Imagine your own office or workspace.  Imagine traveling through time to the future and returning to find your office completely abandoned.  Everything in disarray, covered in a thick layer of dust--evidence that no one has been there for a long, long time.  What small trinkets might still remain?  How unimportant would they seem?  Think of the papers on your desk.  What if you return to find them wrinkled and yellow-brown due to the passage of time?  Maybe they pertained to events that were long since made irrelevant by Time. 

This is partly why I find UE so interesting.  It is like a type of temporal voyeurism to see the remains of what once was so important to someone whose name you will never know and who passed away, perhaps before you were even born.  What mundane drudgery filled their lives?  How insignificant were the tasks on their calendars--especially the ones that went undone once the person had passed on from this world?  What about the date circled in RED?  The date that this person never lived to see.  What lessons can we take away from this, if any?  Am I just being pretentious or pedantic to even write about this?  Am I simply dwelling on things that are obvious to others and yet mysterious to me?  I can't say. 

On a "lighter" note, UE often makes me think of an apocalyptic future, where many, many people were taken before their time and all that remains are the places they used to frequent.  As someone with an interest in the Zombie Apocalypse genre, this has something of a morbid or frightening appeal to me. 

Anyway, hopefully this gives some explanation of what UE is and why it fascinates me. 

Here is (arguably) a more authoritative source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_exploration


Kelvar

Highs and Lows

So, I've come to expect that through this whole thing I'll have some highs and lows.  Today was definitely a low day.  (Note to self: crying at work is not a great idea. . .if even, seemingly, no one noticed). 

This is all I have today, folks.  Sorry. 

A Bit of Fun with Velvet Rope

Okay, so you know how at movie theaters and art museums and snooty LA clubs (I'm never subjecting myself to that again.  Ever) and many, many other places they have those fancy velvet ropes that somehow yell out, "Stay back, ye unworthy swine!"?  The sort of ropes that seem to carry their own weight of authority behind which we mere mortals fear to tread? 

Well, guess what?  Today I found where one may puchase this very thing.  Have a priceless faberge egg sitting around that you're worried about being fondled by some uncouth guests (and let's face it, who doesn't have a few of those just laying around--eggs that is, not guests), well, now you can rope it off in proper fashion to let your unwashed hangers-on know that they are OFF limits!  Or maybe you have been playing Magic The Gathering so long that you have an unbeatable deck that you want to formally declare "off limits" to your "friends" and their greedy little paws?  Maybe there's a special room in your house that you think of as your "throne room" (if you know what I mean)?  Well, what better way to show the world that you are a big shot and they are mere peons who--if they're lucky--might (at best) catch a slight glimpse of the wondrous treasures you have tucked away in your treasure room.  (You do have a treasure room don't you? You know, filled with all manner of delicate, priceless and useless objets d'art?). 

Well, let me tell you, there is no better way to mark those spaces and treasured valuables than with a bona fide velvet rope.  You can't question the rope.  The rope is there.  It means stay back.  It isn't meant to be pondered or questioned or even thought about. 

Well, now such aloof and snooty barriers are yours at affordable prices:
http://www.allendisplay.com/Store-Fixtures/Traditional-Post-and-Rope


For only $123.95, this bad boy can serve duty in your own well-appointed abode.

And, obviously you need the rope, available for the bargain basement price of only $15.95

Now, am I the only one who sees many great comedy scenarios that could arise from gleeful misuse of these products?   "I'm sorry, sir, you can't use the men's room.  William Shatner is in there, and by the sounds of it, he's taking a double Shatner so I think he's going to be a while.  Feel free to use the ladies' room until we reopen." 

Or, if you're like some people I know (who totally are not me), maybe you'd be more comfortable "reading a magazine" at work in the relaxation of your own private washroom. . .

Or, place it obsessively around some mundane object that in no way requires such treatment.  Maybe there's a certain Swingline stapler your boss has had his eye on?  Well this says, mitts off, Mr. Lumburgh!

My friend Whitney pointed out that this could be useful in signaling to your coworkers that that special sandwich in the lunchroom is only for you, and not for the likes of such plebians! 

Maybe you could find a bar that does not charge a cover, and set up outside charging your own cover until you get busted.  Then you could easily run away, cackling gleefully as you shoulder your fancy equipment while imagining banjo driven get away music playing. . .

You could buy a really pretty, really expensive and desirable Doll that your neice really wants, and invite her over, but tell her she isn't allowed to touch the dolly, just to admire it.  Maybe a friend in a faux security uniform could forcefully eject her from the premises if she fails to follow the rules.  Hey, your place, your rules, right?  Besides, what kind of a knuckle-dragging neanderthal doesn't know to respect the rope?  Hello!   It's RED.  It's VELVET.  This means mitts off to everyone but those of use who have the "in" with the glitterati. 

Of course, to really sell it, you could probably benefit from one of these:

Nothing says, "I'm important" quite like an object that has been placed on a Doric column and surrounded by red velvet ropes.  I think that's how we're supposed to know what ART truly is.  "Is it art?"  "Well, it is resting on a column and surrounded by red velvet ropes...of course it is art!  What sort of a rube are you?"  Who's up for sneaking in to an art gallery with me, and setting up a colum, brass bars, red velvet ropes, placing an ordinary Campbell's Tomato Soup can on top and maybe some type of self-righteous placard declaring the brilliance of the piece and then sitting back and letting the magic happen.  Tell me there would not be a fair number of people to stop and "Admire" the "work" while trying to devine its meaning?  (It's all about commercialism, duh!).  We'd basically be taking Warhol's work and improving on it.  "See, ours is *three dimensional*!  Please try viewing it through the special "viewing lense" (a cheap, children's viewfinder) to get the full depth and painstaking talent that went into replicating the original product of Warhol's fame. . .""  

I think, perhaps, though, using it to feign importance with everyday objects may be the most hilarious use for this. 

"Oh, that urinal?  I'm sorry, sir, but that one is reserved for Mr. Kelvar."  :-)

Does anyone have any other suggestions of how these things might be misused to hilarious effect?

Kelvar.