For some time now, summer plans have taken shape and form based not on the amount of weddings I’m invited to, but on the number of those I am able to attend.
From May on through to Labor Day, the march is on. Blushing brides are heading down the aisles, while the rest of us go running toward the nearest bridal registries. As guests at these weddings, we can hardly be blamed. Any one of twelve might land a table setting, but it is only the anxious and fortunate few who triumphantly snatch up the Delonghi Gran Dama Espresso Maker.
There was a span of time during which I decided that the bridal registry was something to eschew. I know it is filled with things that the bride and groom have asked for, but come on, already. Who sits around in thirty years and says, “Oh, Honey… remember this soup ladle? George and Nina Banks bought us this soup ladle!”
Truth be told, I’m not convinced that registries still matter.
Going back a generation or more, people truly needed place settings. They didn’t have tumblers, or television trays, or any of those otherwise fancier things. Guys and girls would go from their childhood homes straight onto the bridal suite. They did so without those basic tools that could transform a house into a home.
Nowadays, the landscape has shifted. Society isn’t what it used to be; neither are priorities, meaning that those of the marrying kind are choosing to wait before walking down the aisle. Frankly, it’s because they can.
Women are having kids at a later age, and so people are putting the wedding off for a while. Instead, they are going places and doing things. They are choosing first to see the world, and figuring out what it’s like to be single. As for the filling of kitchen cupboards, it is a straightforward process. In every port of call along the way, they find themselves a Crate & Barrel.
Considerate of the circumstances, and being mindful of how far we’ve come, isn’t it fair to say that we’ve got this whole thing wrong? It is not the marrying lot that needs the registries; it’s the single people!
Give the KitchenAid® Tilt-Head Stand-Up Mixer to the kid who has just graduated from college. I mean, let’s be honest. We’re talking about someone who still believes that a Hot Pocket constitutes a full meal, and therefore an integral part of a balanced diet. The least we can do is help to wean him off the toaster oven.
When I got out of college, I didn’t have two spoons to rub together, let alone a can opener. The sheets didn’t match. Neither did the towels. My flatware I found at a nearby garage sale. (I liked to tell people that it was vintage.)
Those things have been remedied, over time, but not without some effort. I now have what people might consider a respectable abode. Maybe the lean years made me appreciate it more, but I’ve still got to wonder.
Where was Williams & Sonoma when I needed them most?
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
MYSTIFIED
Will someone please explain to me the puzzle that is Capri pants on men?
I’m honestly not certain if they’re pants or shorts, and therein lay the problem. When Thom Browne upped the hemline on his signature suits, it was by mere inches. Though to my mind, his pants looked adolescent and a bit immature, you knew full well—still—that they were made to be purposeful, if not proper, suit pants. But Capri pants? I just don’t understand.
This afternoon, as I was making my way down to Wall Street, there was a guy on the 2 train who was wearing these… “pants”. Hitting, as they did, just below the knee, those things didn’t do a single thing for him. It was as though he woke up in the morning and said, “Yeah, I want to cover my legs in big, skinny tubes that have no drape to them, whatsoever, and therefore cling to me in truly unfortunate places.”
Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t the whole purpose of shorts simply this: That when you’re wearing them, you’re not wearing pants? There is a reason that civilized people don’t eat with the spork. I’m thinking that in the case of the Capri “short”, the same logic should apply.
Guys aren’t always the most fashion-conscious of people. I am a guy, and I’ll be the first to admit it. But here and now, I’m instituting a new rule. Unless you’re a woman, else a person from Europe who has the accent enough to compensate, there shall be no wearing of Capri pants.
They freak me out.
I’m honestly not certain if they’re pants or shorts, and therein lay the problem. When Thom Browne upped the hemline on his signature suits, it was by mere inches. Though to my mind, his pants looked adolescent and a bit immature, you knew full well—still—that they were made to be purposeful, if not proper, suit pants. But Capri pants? I just don’t understand.
This afternoon, as I was making my way down to Wall Street, there was a guy on the 2 train who was wearing these… “pants”. Hitting, as they did, just below the knee, those things didn’t do a single thing for him. It was as though he woke up in the morning and said, “Yeah, I want to cover my legs in big, skinny tubes that have no drape to them, whatsoever, and therefore cling to me in truly unfortunate places.”
Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t the whole purpose of shorts simply this: That when you’re wearing them, you’re not wearing pants? There is a reason that civilized people don’t eat with the spork. I’m thinking that in the case of the Capri “short”, the same logic should apply.
Guys aren’t always the most fashion-conscious of people. I am a guy, and I’ll be the first to admit it. But here and now, I’m instituting a new rule. Unless you’re a woman, else a person from Europe who has the accent enough to compensate, there shall be no wearing of Capri pants.
They freak me out.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
THESE ARMS OF MINE
What am I doing right now, at this very moment?
I am going to tell you.
This evening, while I am here and you’re away, I am listening to the music of Mr. Otis Redding. God knows what I was thinking, when I pressed the button labeled “Play”, but I should have known that this wouldn’t be a good idea.
Anyone familiar with the music of Mister Otis Redding (remember Dirty Dancing?) cannot help but appreciate the passion as it pours from every single lyric that man delivers. Just listen to him. This man is hurting, and bad. Either that, or he is feeling it, just as badly, with every sweet, soulful syllable spit from that mouth, that beautiful, dead mouth of his.
Did Otis Redding have a beautiful mouth? I don’t even know what the man looked like, but I can tell you how he sounds. He sounds like something that I shouldn’t be listening to alone.
It’s the blessing and the curse of this, now isn’t it? Here I am, spending time with something of such quality, something so very good, and yet I can’t quite enjoy it in the way that I should, not unless it is something that I can share.
Suffice to say, but these arms of mine? Well, it’s just as Mr. Otis Redding sings... so sweetly, so earnestly, with that beautiful, dead mouth of his.
I am going to tell you.
This evening, while I am here and you’re away, I am listening to the music of Mr. Otis Redding. God knows what I was thinking, when I pressed the button labeled “Play”, but I should have known that this wouldn’t be a good idea.
Anyone familiar with the music of Mister Otis Redding (remember Dirty Dancing?) cannot help but appreciate the passion as it pours from every single lyric that man delivers. Just listen to him. This man is hurting, and bad. Either that, or he is feeling it, just as badly, with every sweet, soulful syllable spit from that mouth, that beautiful, dead mouth of his.
Did Otis Redding have a beautiful mouth? I don’t even know what the man looked like, but I can tell you how he sounds. He sounds like something that I shouldn’t be listening to alone.
It’s the blessing and the curse of this, now isn’t it? Here I am, spending time with something of such quality, something so very good, and yet I can’t quite enjoy it in the way that I should, not unless it is something that I can share.
Suffice to say, but these arms of mine? Well, it’s just as Mr. Otis Redding sings... so sweetly, so earnestly, with that beautiful, dead mouth of his.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
TERPSICHOREAN
Come with me.
Far from the frenzy and the steeped skyscrapers, away from the noise of the nattering class, we can find a place.
There we will spend our days barefoot, wandering up and down the shore, until the nighttime skies come alive with wonder, peppered with the pinpricks of primordial light.
I want to go there, to that place where I can hear your heart beating, even as I feel it, hand held in mine.
We’ll pack light. What we don’t have we can buy; else blithely go without.
Far from those places with the rarified air, where blue-blooded people employ “summer” as a verb, we will find ourselves a sanctuary. In a shack or a chalet, in a cabin by the woods, our days will idle by, spent absent of our mobile phones, without a laundry list of things to do.
This, my Dear, will be living.
In my life, I have known of places much like this. It is where I have been these many days, away from it all and in a place like this. I want to go back, before long, and quite often. I just don’t want to do it in the very same way—not alone, not by myself. Not anymore.
Come with me, and soon.
Let us find that place together, and when we do? Say that you will grant me but one request: Dance with me. Be it in the mornings or in the waning hours, I want to be the one to spin you round the room, to make you float across a well-worn floor until we both fall over, laughing, giddy, dizzy with delight.
I do so like it when we dance.
Far from the frenzy and the steeped skyscrapers, away from the noise of the nattering class, we can find a place.
There we will spend our days barefoot, wandering up and down the shore, until the nighttime skies come alive with wonder, peppered with the pinpricks of primordial light.
I want to go there, to that place where I can hear your heart beating, even as I feel it, hand held in mine.
We’ll pack light. What we don’t have we can buy; else blithely go without.
Far from those places with the rarified air, where blue-blooded people employ “summer” as a verb, we will find ourselves a sanctuary. In a shack or a chalet, in a cabin by the woods, our days will idle by, spent absent of our mobile phones, without a laundry list of things to do.
This, my Dear, will be living.
In my life, I have known of places much like this. It is where I have been these many days, away from it all and in a place like this. I want to go back, before long, and quite often. I just don’t want to do it in the very same way—not alone, not by myself. Not anymore.
Come with me, and soon.
Let us find that place together, and when we do? Say that you will grant me but one request: Dance with me. Be it in the mornings or in the waning hours, I want to be the one to spin you round the room, to make you float across a well-worn floor until we both fall over, laughing, giddy, dizzy with delight.
I do so like it when we dance.
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