Pilcrow

Getting dressed this morning, I remembered a funny quirk of my youth: for six years or so, I refused to wear jeans. When I was little, I wore Toughskins jeans a lot. I remember at one point I had Toughskins in red and in green as well as typical blue jeans. However, at some point toward the end of elementary school, I decided I didn’t like jeans anymore. I think part of the reason was that my mom would buy corduroys and trousers for me to wear to school, and as I got new ones the old ones would become playtime clothes. Another part was that as I got older, I was spending less time getting dirty when I was outside playing, and more time just riding my bike or hanging out talking with friends, so I no longer needed to change into playtime clothes; I could just get dressed in the morning for school and stay dressed that way for the rest of the day. A third part is that I may have started associating jeans with the “bad” kids. This is patently ridiculous, of course, since most kids wore jeans. However, once I started junior high, I definitely did associate denim jackets with the older and tougher kids, and so I did not like those jackets.

In any case, by the time I could start buying my own clothes, I was set against jeans. I don’t recall indicating to my mom that I didn’t want jeans, but I know I wasn’t given any as Christmas or birthday presents, either. This led to me wearing a lot of tan trousers and navy or brown corduroys. It also contributed to my overall dorkish appearance, though I never really thought about it at the time. Actually it’s kind of odd, I don’t recall feeling self-conscious about my dress style most of the time. Maybe on occasion I’d feel I looked awkward, but for the most part I don’t recall really giving it much thought; I had decent clothes that fit me and matched, so I was okay.

Toward the end of high school, my feelings about pants shifted again. I became sick of wearing tan trousers and decided they were at best bland, if not horribly ugly. Meanwhile, I had started working at a department store, which had a dress code. So now I had to wear trousers at least for work, and I switched over to shades of grey, navy, and black. To this day, I still dislike tan or khaki trousers and will not buy or wear them. I’m not strongly opposed to green trousers, in dark shades, but I’ve never seen any I really wanted to buy, either.

However, at that time I also realized that hey, jeans weren’t just blue, they also came in black, and for whatever reason I decided that black jeans were cool. So I bought my first pair of jeans since childhood, and started wearing black jeans when I was going out on Friday nights. Once I’d switched to black jeans, it was easy to get back into blue jeans as well, and so during college jeans became my everyday wear while pleated trousers were work wear.

As the years went on I liked the trousers less and less. Because I had to wear them for work, especially once I entered the professional world, I felt they looked too dressy for casual wear and I didn’t like the way I looked wearing them. (This was due in part to feeling I had to wear button-down shirts with trousers, and not caring for those either, particularly because I now associated those with having to wear a tie, which I have always strongly disliked.) I moved toward wearing only black trousers at work; I would still buy grey ones for variety but inevitably find myself dissatisfied with them, feeling the shade of grey was ugly. Then I moved to Seattle and started working in the software industry, where the dress code is still much more casual than the East Coast professional setting, and suddenly it was almost inappropriate to wear trousers to work. Trousers were promptly relegated to dress-up occasions, and I’ve worn jeans most of the time ever since.

Over the past few years I’ve had cross-impulses regarding jeans and my general fashion: I’ve felt more like dressing up nicely, “dressing like an adult,” but this has meant being more interested in upscale pricey jeans that I could get away with wearing to semi-formal occasions, rather than being interested in nice trousers again. I haven’t had much money to put toward improving my wardrobe—nor have I had much interest in rummaging through vintage/used clothing stores—but I do feel a pull toward changing my style some, indeed having more of a defined style instead of just the standard American jeans-and-a-t-shirt look, and hopefully I’ll be able to play with that in the near future.

I'm sure you, my dedicated readers, have all had one question burning in your minds these past few months, to wit^, "When is Phil going to write more about his quest for pants?" Fear not, your wait is over!

This Saturday my friend kittenaskat is getting married, and I'm invited to attend the wedding. I own a single suit, having got rid last spring of my first suit (which I'm sure hasn't fit in at least five years) and my second suit (which I never actually wore, and which also didn't fit), along with another sport coat that also didn't fit and was missing buttons. The suit that I do still own, I last wore two years ago for parkbenchzine's wedding, and before that was another two years prior for another friend's wedding. I also own three shirts that I consider to be specifically dress shirts, to be worn mainly on occasions when I'd at least consider wearing a suit, and two pairs of charcoal-grey trousers suitable as "business attire".

I tried on the suit on Sunday, and was unsurprised to discover that the suit pants no longer fit, they are much too tight around the waist. Now, I'm a slim guy, and I spent over a decade as the Earth's Gravitational Constant, but even my waist has expanded a bit, so that (for some styles of pants at least) I now need a 32 waist rather than a 30. My leg length however has not changed, again depending on the pant style it's 29 or 30. The suit coat did seem to still fit okay, however the suit is a very dark grey with light grey pinstripes. I was concerned about being able to match the coat with new pants, so I decided that I should buy all-new clothes. (My other charcoal-grey trousers, it turned out, were also too tight around the waist; my white dress shirt was too tight at the collar but too long in the sleeves, while my light blue and light grey shirts fit fine in the collar and sleeves, but really are too wide and loose around my body.)

I went to Macy's, which conveniently was having a sale, and a couple nice salespeople helped me pick out a good ensemble. I explained that I did not actually want a suit as such, because it's so rare that I wear one, I wanted separates that I could wear on other occasions. We found a nice black sport coat that I can also wear on more casual occasions with blue jeans**, a good medium-blue shirt, and nice charcoal-grey trousers... that were just too long, with a 30 length. Unfortunately, the salesperson determined that that brand simply did not come with a shorter length, and actually he didn't really have anything else in charcoal grey with a 29 length. No matter, now that I knew that's what I wanted for pants, I figured I could find some elsewhere.

I'm sure you all see where this is going, but I'll spell it out anyhow. I went to another, larger, Macy's, thinking (who knows?) they might have a larger selection, and they did have grey pants with a 29 length, but those started with 36 waists and went up. Hrm. I checked The Gap at the same mall, they didn't have any, then I went to Nordstroms. The dress pants at Nordstroms are sold "unfinished", the length is tailored for each pair. Great! And their cheapest pants, which is what the sales clerk had picked out on his own initiative, were $145. YIKES. So much for Nordstroms. Today I went to a different Gap downtown, and determined once again that they really didn't have anything in a 32 waist that was less than 30 length; apparently, all short guys are also rotund.

I ended up buying a pair of 32/30s at the Gap that fit okay, but really the legs are still too long. Tomorrow I'm going to try the Men's Wearhouse to see whether I can find the combination of reasonable price, right color and correct length; judging by the website, it seems they just might come to my rescue.

Meanwhile now that autumn's finally here, I can start wearing black jeans again. I never did get any grey casual trousers for the summer; John P has some Carhardts that I believe are exactly what I've been wanting, but I haven't actually found any in stores yet - clearly I've been looking in the wrong stores.

^ My sister has noted astutely that I had made an error on this idiom, which I have corrected. Originally I had written "to whit," but in fact it ought to be "to wit." I am of course abashed and embarrassed at my grievous error. Fortunately, even though I'm admitting it here publicly, who's going to bother re-reading this long entry and discover the correction?

** Those of you who know me in person are thinking, "yeah right Phil, when do you ever go out on a casual occasion wearing a sport coat?" And that's a fair objection. But I found that I actually do like the idea of wearing the coat sometimes, say if I'm going out to a fancy bar with some friends for drinks; it'd be nice to be a tiny bit stylish, and I like that I can have that as an option. More to the point though, I didn't want a suit because I wanted to be able to wear the pants on occasions when I need to be dressy but don't actually need the suit coat. Again, it's now uncommon enough for me to be dressy that anything I buy ought to be wearable on various occasions and not just weddings or funerals.

I feel like I need a new post, but I don't have a particular topic.

One of my favorite Boston bands, Freezepop, came to town lastThursday* night and I got to go to the show. Seattle was their second-to-last stop on a two-week West Coast tour, and yet they showed a phenomenal amount of energy and good spirits on stage; they were clearly enjoying the show a lot, and even seemed to be a bit overwhelmed by the very enthusiastic crowd response. I got to speak to lizenthusiasm and she said we were the best audience they'd had on the tour, which was very good to hear. As a New Englander who loves my new home of Seattle as much as I love Boston, I'm happy that my fellow Seattleites gave one of my favorite bands such a warm welcome.

(* I tried making this post last night but something happened to my internet connection just as I tried to update - my computer still claimed I was connected to the internet, but I couldn't connect to any sites whatsoever. Very annoying.)

You might want to look at the unofficial LJ fan group freezepop4ever for more about their show and the band.

Other topics...

I'm still adjusting to braces. They still occasionally catch my cheek painfully, mainly when trying to eat, and they still cause me to occasionally bite down on my lips as well while trying to eat. Hmm, one month down already, eleven or so to go.

With $4,500 worth of metal (and related orthodontic services) in my mouth, I still haven't decided whether to go home for Christmas, as that will undoubtedly add another $500 to $700 to my credit card bills. However, I did just find out my friend Eldy will be back in Nashua for Christmas, and also my friend Jase (parkbenchzine) just had a baby girl, so there's a couple good reasons to make a visit (though I don't know whether I'd actually get a chance to visit Jase and see the new baby).

Sorry kids, nothing new to say about pants. The colored mid-rise briefs are working out nicely, thank you very much.

I've started training in aikido with my friend John. It's good to finally be getting back into some kind of martial arts training, though I still miss forms and weapons.

I've also started playing my violin again, messing around with my friend Tony S. (see his band Library Science) on guitar, playing melody or accompaniement to songs he's made up. I'm a bit surprised actually at how much fun it is to get my violin out again, but to be just making up stuff instead of sawing away at classical music.

Guess that's about it for now...

I bought a package of the Hanes Classic mid-rise briefs (colored black), sized M (32-34). Although those do seem to have the right height, they are a little loose and uncomfortable. So those are out.

I made a mistake in my earlier entry about "pants" (July 14). The Fruit of the Loom briefs that I bought were size S. Even better, size S for them is 30-32, which is exactly the correct range for me. So they fit just fine. Fruit of the Loom wins! I'm also amused by them because the waistband is labelled "FTL" around the outside, rather than "FOTL" or "Fruit of the Loom". And I automatically read "FTL" as "faster than light", because I'm a sci-fi geek. So apparently my underwear's rated for faster-than-light travel.

Because I've already tried a few different kinds of underwear to find what's comfortable, I figured I might as well try a few more kinds, sticking with the Fruit of the Loom brand and size S (30-32). So I bought some boxer briefs, and I bought some mid-rise (or "fashion") briefs - yes, even though they came in non-white colors.

The boxer briefs are... different. About halfway through the day when I first tried them, I realized it felt like I was wearing swim trunks under my pants. They're okay, but I definitely prefer real briefs over these weird hybrid things.

I found that I really like the mid-rise "fashion" briefs. They're comfortable and fit well. So now I'm trying to decide whether I like them more than the regular white briefs, or equally. The Fruit of the Loom mid-rise briefs only seem to come in packages of 5, though - which is what I had to buy to try them - and I've also got six of the regular white briefs. So it's not like I have to decide soon, because I've got plenty of underwear for now. (Yes, I do laundry every week.)

(*Note: it's my journal and I'll pun if I want to.)

I apologize in advance for the frivolity of this post, but it's something that's been bugging me for a couple weeks now. And it's my journal so I'm going to post a frivolous rant if I want to.

It's about time I got some new underwear ("pants" in the UK). Currently I have Hanes size 30 white briefs.

I went to a store, they had Hanes "Classic" briefs. I bought some. After washing, they turned out to be a little too tight around the waist - not shocking, my belly actually has expanded a little bit in the past few years though it's hardly noticeable (still a skinny white guy) - but also a little too high at the waist, coming up an inch or two higher than my current underwear. It may be the thing among the kids to have your underwear showing above your belt line, but I'm not down with that.

I went back to the store. Hanes Classic also has "mid-length" briefs, which seems like what I'd need. But instead of single-even-numbered sizes (28, 30, 32, etc.), they have ranges: S (28-30), M (32-34), and so on. Presumably M 32-34 would be the right fit. However, they also apparently only come in colors other than white. Me wearing colored underwear strikes me as silly - other guys, sure, but why would I wear colored underwear? It doesn't seem right.

I went to a different store. They had (regular) Hanes and Hanes "Premium", neither of which has a "mid-length" size. They also had Fruit of the Loom underwear. I bought a package of that, size M (32-34). Now that I've opened the package, it looks like it'll be much too large. I still have to wash them and try them, but I doubt they'll work.

Maybe I've just forgotten how much underwear shrinks over time.

I also want to get some new trousers ("pants" in the US). Currently I have blue jeans and black jeans. I decided the black jeans are uncomfortably warm during the summer - if I'm driving, they do get hotter in sunlight than the blue ones - and I wanted something else to wear.

I want pants that look casual, but aren't more jeans. Dockers do not look casual. Cargo pants might be the right idea. Something perhaps made out of denim but not styled the same as regular jeans, but clearly casual.

I want pants that are not khaki - not any shade of beige or off-white-tan, and preferably not army-drab-olive-green khaki. I do not want khakis. Grey, I thought, would be a good color.

I've been to six or so different stores so far, and so far, such pants seem not to exist. I am not happy.

However, at Old Navy I did pick up four new t-shirts in different colors (including, shock, maroon and rust-orange) and five short-sleeve collared button-down shirts, which gives me a variety of different things to wear at work and lets me move away from wearing black concert t-shirts all the time. And that has made me happy.