The Illustrated Man

Coming home from work on Friday I realized that I could tell a story about everything I was wearing:

SHIRT - I hold a dinner party every 5 years whether I want to or not. My last one was an insane Mole Turkey fest that took 12 straight hours of cooking. Thank you Rick Bayless! It was yummy but I have had to take the past 4 years off just to recover. One day in San Fran off Union Square at the Kenneth Cole shop I found a shirt that looks just like a shimmering panfull of mole sauce. Currently the pride of the wardrobe.

TEE SHIRT - Sounds creepy, but some time after my Dad died I took like all his undershirts home with me. Hey, we’ve got Scottish blood in us; it honestly would have pleased him to know that someone was getting the value out of them. And I will not have to buy undershirts for, oh, say, 10 years.

PANTS - Sporting my Luckies -- a brand I had never heard of since I am so woefully old (are there options other than Levis, Wranglers, and Toughskins?) but that my pal Nancy put me into in Denver at the Cherry Creek Mall. We were on a work trip that turned into a ski resort vacation and I needed to replace some woooorn out jeans from the 90s. I hard core pretended to be from the deep South at the information desk at the Mall. Heh. I am always slightly scandalized --and faintly depressed to be the only one reading it--by the phrase “Lucky You” sewn into the zipper when you open them.

SHOES - On a recent trip to LA, I actually went to Rodeo Drive. Many of the staff in the stores made me feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but the nice people at Cole Hahn sold me a ‘spensive pair of sweet kicks that I like to wear on Casual Friday because who the hell knows how to dress on Casual Friday? So I abuse the system by wearing jeans but then add a pair of shoes only Steve Martin could really afford and double-dog dare anyone to think it’s too cash.

SOCKS - Seriously, I have a sock story, too. Sorry. One day I was getting dressed for work and my only pair of clean socks had a humongous hole in the toe. So, when I got to work I took a lunch break at Filene’s Basement and went all kinds of nutty and purchased a pair of argyle socks. Now, then, aren’t you glad you heard that?

WATCH - In graduate school my girlfriend gave me a very well-designed Swatch for my birthday. Well, it broke eventually and so on a trip to NYC I dropped by the Times Square store and picked up this fairly cool see-through watch with one of those swiveling arms that keeps the thing wound up as you walk around.

GLASSES - I have a great friend who hated my old George Bush, Senior glasses and while I was on a trip to Manhattan to visit her we went to work out and as we were heading to the gym she said, “Leave your glasses on the table, you will never be wearing them ever again.” On the way, we stopped into Hour Eyes and she and a gaggle of ladies pored over me saying stuff like “No, his face is way to long to pull those off” and “He’d need cheekbones to get away with those.” Eventually, we settled on a hep new pair of Armanis and they were custom cut to my leagally-blind prescription while we sweated away on some exercise bike staring out the window at latte-drinking Gothamites busily headed about their day. Later, as I took possession of what amounted to major debt on my nonprofit salary, she said, “And don’t wait ten years to replace them next time!” So I didn’t. These new Ray Ban specs are proof that I listened. They show off my double chin nicely.

PS - The underwear have no story. Look, not everything can be intentional. It is fun to care about where you get stuff and to have a story for your belongings but it leaves you woefully exposed to pomposity and to collecting way too may event-specific tee shirts. (As my buddy Anne said when I asked what I should keep in mind to better dress for the ladies, “Tee shirts should be for the gym.”) Oh, and “The Littlest Birds” by The Be Good Tanyas is engaging; now playing on iTunes.