art-language-code

So it's come to this...

No, that's not a Photoshop effect.  That's really me in a suit.  At work.

Today was a grant foundation's site visit for one of the organizations I work with.  Usually I get to be the "cool guy" with the untucked collared shirt and fashionable jeans (though that may end soon; see yesterday's post).  But since this was a very important visit, we were all advised "tie at a minimum, suit at a maximum".  So I went for the suit.  Needless to say, everyone at work (both jobs) commented on it, since to see me out of jeans, you usually have to be getting married or dead.  Well OK, I guess technically the folks at the gym see me out of jeans every day, and during the summer I wear shorts and... it was just a turn of phrase, OK?!

So the suit.  I actually like dressing up occasionally, but I don't like it during a workday.  Because my job involves so much running around and being silly with people, I feel really restrained in a suit. Then again, that's probably why they still make so many 9-5 corporate guys wear them.

I'm also neurotic about how the suit looks on me.  Part of it is the "I can't have nice things" syndrome from yesterday's post: Am I going to spill on it? Do I have to get it drycleaned again? (probably and probably) What if someone invites me to join a pickup rugby game? (doubtful).  The rest of it is my being self-conscious about the fact that I know a suit isn't my normal mode of dress and wondering if I'm pulling it off: Are my pants pulled too high?  Does my dress shirt poof out funny?  Which button do I keep buttoned on the jacket? (usually, always, and none).

The other reason the suit thing gets to me, despite my joy of playing dressup, is the fact that the whole time I am aware that I'm not playing.  Although running a game design company is serious business, it's easy to trick yourself into thinking that everything you do is fun.  Wearing a suit makes that a little harder.

Anyway, the presentation went fine, and even the people there were surprised I followed the dress code.  Now we'll just have to see what kind of funding my fashion coordinating rakes in...

This is why...

So for Christmas 2006, my boyfriend bought me a $150.00 gift certificate to Riccardi, with the intention that I use it to buy "nice jeans".  Now, I've never paid more than $50.00 for a pair of jeans, and partly this is because I'm a nerd with a limited fashion budget, but mostly this is because I know how hard I am on pants.  My friends (at least one subset of them) used to joke about how I must spend so much time on my knees because of the holes.  In fact, they were right, though as you might imagine, the reason was not what they were implying.  I used to do a lot of large-scale artwork, which involved working on the floor of my room on my hands and knees.  Come to think of it, whenever I do a piece of art that isn't on the computer, I find some reason to do it on my knees... let's not pursue this line of discussion any further.  It'll just embarrass us both.

Speaking of embarrassment, about a year ago, I started noticing a new jeans problem: holes appearing right at the crotch of the jeans on either side.  And, as you might imagine, the jokes started again.  The truth of how I was getting the holes is actually even more embarrassing than the jokes, and for now, because I am writing this BEFORE having my evening drink, we won't take this any further.

But the point is this: it took me until February 2008 (over a year later) to use the darned gift certificate, partly because I was intimidated by the Riccardi store (having someone help me to try on jeans?  so weird!), and partly because, well, I knew what would happen: I would discover that  I like expensive jeans, and then this would become A Bad Habit, given my inability to keep clothes from getting messed up.

Sure enough, the really nice salesperson (who embraced my nerdiness wholeheartedly, even accepting my requirement that the jeans have "big enough pockets for geek stuff" without batting an eyelash) talked me into a pair that cost $200, so I ended up dropping the amount of money I  pay for my USUAL jeans on top of the gift certificate money.  But they were pretty cool jeans.

Flash forward two months, and I notice the cool stitching on one of the pockets is beginning to unravel.  This is yet another mystery to be solved: do I lean more heavily on one side than the other?  I've been working on my posture this year (grandma would be so proud!), so I've actually been thinking about such things.  Wouldn't I have noticed that? And no, I don't carry anything in my back pockets (three months living in NYC in the 1990s would break you of that habit, too).

Later that same month, I find there is now a hole in the crotch of these jeans, even though I have been super-careful not to do the thing that causes the crotch-holes (don't ask).  So I immediately take them to the nice tailor ladies down the street (in my head they are the Russian version of The Fates) and pay another $20 to ensure that my $200 investment will last a bit longer.  There's nothing to be done about the pocket stitching except to try to tie off the loose threads and cut them, so I do that myself.

And then I go and let Andrew talk me into a second pair of expensive (but not quite as expensive) jeans, because this pair will be better, while the first pair is being repaired.  That is another story.  And yes, part of my problem is that I tend to wear out one pair of jeans and one pair of shoes at a time.  See also, I'm a big nerd.

So last night Andrew says to me "Are those your NEW jeans?  Is there ALREADY a hole in them?"  I remind him that I got the hole fixed a month ago and that he must just see the thread, but no, he's right.  ANOTHER hole in the EXACT SAME PLACE on the opposite side!

Fortunately I have the second pair of jeans, which do seem sturdier than the first ones, mostly because they are "raw denim", which is apparently "a la mode", which is, I gather, French for "uncomfortably stiff".  (I know what it really means.  Y'all can stop emailing me about it now.)

However, I think this will be the end of the expensive jeans habit.  When I think about how many cups of coffee I could have bought with this money, or for that matter how many games for my Wii (assuming I can ever wrest it away from my fiancé!), I feel like there's a giant hole where my wallet used to be.  Oh wait, it must have fallen out.  Dangit!

Wiidow

OK, I SUCK AT BLOGGING!  I admit it.  How can I not, since this is my first post in months.  A longer assessment of my weaknesses in this area will follow.  For now, I thought I'd try something new.  Inspired by Pamela Ribon's stickies series of photos, I'm posting one-word comics of myself.  The idea was from Pamie; the fact that we both happen to do the face-in-one-hand-looking-unimpressed thing a lot is just something we have in common.

Anyway, I was all proud of myself when I came up with Wiidow earlier today after losing my fiancé (Oh yeah, we're engaged.  So many updates I should have made here this year!) to Super Paper Mario for the afternoon (I wasn't really upset; it gave me more time to mess around on learning Japanese.  Yes, I am a total nerd even on my days off.) BUT then I Googled and found out the term is already in Urban Dictionary.  This is the problem with the Internet; it's pretty damned hard to be first at anything.  No wonder people still post "FIRST!" in the comments threads, despite that being so '90s...