The brown subway line is so much more pleasant 2013
vs 1998. Now I only travel one stop from Manhattan compared to 12 and the
beauty of an outdoor train is that you can use your phone, not to talk on, for god's sake, but to look up crap on the internet. (Downside is that
I've developed anxiety/near-phobia of tall outdoor stairs that was less
existent 14 years ago.)
It's a shame that I've just discovered how great
liquid eyeliner looks (I've always known that, but it never seemed appropriate
for daywear and now all of a sudden it does or I just don't give a shit about a
dramatic daytime eye) at the same time that my eyelids have started to crinkle,
making drawing a straight line nearly impossible. How do Baby Janes pull it off? (To be fair, I think I
noticed this creasing/wobbly line issue about four years ago and mentioned it here somewhere, but then I wasn't
interested in liquid liner as a routine option.)
Thankfully, because this is just my blog I don't have to
make succinct points. I could go multiple directions with the fact that out of the 20 or so tenants that I've seen in my new
building since moving in on Saturday, all but one has been clearly under 30.
One, I could be depressed that at 40 I finally have a
grown-up apartment and still need $800 a month help to pay for the cheapest one
bedroom ($2,950) while there are 20-somethings paying more and living like this
is normal. Seriously, who the fuck are these people? There is this perception that all new construction in once-hip neighorhoods is the domain of finance dudes, (I considered Long Island City of the aforementioned link, especially since my office is moving ot midtown, but it seemed too isolated) but really it's all a bunch of kids who may or may not work.
Two, I could be dismayed that despite the building being 99%
young, my next door neighbors are 40+ (at least the
father is; I haven't seen the mom who's probably 31) with a small child? (Did I
ever mention that the only open unit next door in the condo, a
non-stroller-in-the-hall type place that has only two families with children
out of 34 units, ended up being sold to a couple with twin 15-month-olds? Babies follow me.)
Three, ok, there isn't a third really. I am strangely
pleased with myself, though, for picking possibly the least appropriate
neighborhood for a chunky sort-of-single middle-aged woman. (I exaggerate--not about being a chunk, but that a good number of non-millennial
friends live in the vicinity.)
I did take Henry Street, the location of the
apartment in Carroll Gardens, as a sign. (Henry Thomas and all--I don't expect
anyone now to know of this ancient obsession.)
There is that dubious statistic that I don't have the energy
or wherewithal to track down that posits that moving is the most stressful life
event after death of a loved one or divorce. Ridiculous. There is also that one
about most Americans living less than 50 miles from where they were born, which
is another level of ridiculous. I kind of like moving (so does most of my family, so
maybe I'm desensitized to nomadism). Pre-NYC I probably moved once a year.
Granted, I have a lot more shit now and leases, not month-to-month are de
rigueur here, not to mention how cost-prohibitive it can be with standard fees
equaling 15% the annual rent (I've always managed to avoid this) on top of
first, last, security and all that.
That's me, trying to figure out my share of spices, baggies,
pots and pans after nearly nine years of consolidation. I did not take any of
the six or so balsamic vinegars, however, there are basics you don't think
about like canola and olive oils, black pepper, Cholula sauce. And the non-food things like a toaster, iron,
garbage cans, cleaning supplies, TV, lamps and so on.
New kitchen, neutral but not shabby. In Brooklyn luxury just means that your appliances aren't from the '80s and that you have counter space. (Do keep in mind that
my last solo rental was in a basement with red shag carpet.) I was concerned that I had too much stuff because I'd only seen the
apartment for maybe 4 minutes a month ago and was blank on the storage situation. In
reality, I have empty shelves and drawers in the kitchen, plus three full
closets (and part of an additional closet where the washer and dryer are hidden
away), enough room for Costo-sized packages of toilet paper and paper towels, an additional surburban-in-the-city comfort. There's not a thing to complain about (well, not being able to wallpaper
or paint, if I had to settle on something). All the appliances, not Bosch or Wolf, of course, are shiny and yet--to-be used with fresh manuals and warranties
in unopened plastic bags. That's luxury too, I suppose.
Now I think it's fun to buy those brooms, mops and cereal
bowls. Less so in '98 when I picked up these two vintage-looking juice glasses
at the 99-cent store. I had no idea they were still in my possession until they
recently turned up. No longer needed in my life, I'd put them in the for-Salvation Army box. But because
the for-Salvation Army box never got taken to its intended destination, I
softened and kept them for old time's sake (and was thankful to be able drag out the
duplicate cheese grater, spatulas and wooden spoons).
Based on all the boxes piled up in the package room camouflaged
in artfully distressed wood
(seriously, I would run downstairs and take a photo of the insanity--one of the
moving guys compared the lobby to Dia: Beacon--but I'm not dressed) no 20-somethings
are buying 99-cent dishware.
While I can't seem to find the middle-aged reference online (nor the deceased's real age), this afternoon at the gym I distinctly saw "middle-aged woman" scroll down the typed captioning of the news segment describing the latest death by subway.
Sometimes I think I understand or should understand
a topic and then the more I think about it the more I get stumped and wonder if
I've actually done damage to brain cells over the years. Ostensibly, I always
say ostensibly, work in online marketing but I'm not a marketer and often will
read an online/mobile/social advertising article like five times because I
don't understand what's being done.
This is how I feel about Tumblr, which I'm fairly
certain I've said before multiple times. (If I were being current I would ponder the point of Vine.) I toyed with replacing this
blog with one a little over a year ago because it's quicker and dirtier, but
quickly got turned off because it only seems to make sense if you have a bunch
of other Tumblrs to follow and vice versa where I just like reading things
anonymously and not feeling the pressure to cultivate an online circle of
admiration. (It makes zero sense food blog-wise since I don't read any
food-based Tumblrs--or am I missing out?) I find the social aspects terrifying. I
haven't had a blogroll in years, partially because it's out of style, but also
because I don't like having to identify who I approve of and it's presumptuous
or embarrassing if the link isn't reciprocated. Like what if you follow a
zillion other people on Tumblr but never get notes or reblogs (not getting
comments here isn't quite the same because for better or worse, for me blogging
has been more broadcasting than socializing).
The real world version of this is that I
occasionally see blog types in the wild (I'm talking food now not
writer-personalities) and I know who they are, but no one knows who I am. I
don't bother saying hi. One, because I'm not well-known. But in many cases,
neither are the bloggers in question. This could be attributable to my research-loving
(i.e. stalkerish) personality. I like knowing about others, big name, little
guys, in other countries, in NYC, what people are writing, saying, etc. whereas
it seems more commonplace that bloggers only focus inward and upward. And while
I'm doubtful, it's possible that there could be people who I do this to (I did
start becoming more selective on Twitter specifically because people I don't
view as being big name didn't reciprocate, but I also will follow total
strangers who reach out first if they seem marginally non-boring and don't post diet tips,
kid-friendly recipes or inspirational quotes ) because we're all existing on
varying planes of self-importance/self-preservation. But perhaps if I cared
less about what strangers were doing I'd be more productive.
Anyway, this is all a very drawn out way of saying
that normally I don't read Emily Gould's Tumblr, but a post, not really about
hot sauce, got linked to a lot last week, presumably by a legion of Tumblr
followers who have larger online platforms. It was the previous post, though,
that caught my attention.
"I was standing outside a bar near the corner
of Houston and Avenue A, smoking a cigarette, and so was a jolly Courtney
Taylor-Taylor, looking substantially more burnt than he does in this photo but still
very rockstarish."
I've given no thought to Courtney of the Dandy
Warhols in 15 years. And I didn't really give much thought to him in the '90s
either, but the use of "burnt," by which I'm assuming meant sun burnt,
brought back a forgotten nickname. A friend and I use to refer to him as
"burnt beluga" because he looked charred and baleen. We did not know
him personally, but a mutual friend did and now I can't even remember if they'd
dated or if she just had a preoccupation with him, though I'm pretty sure there
was a story where she was a member, maybe just an observer, at some orgy he was
being gross at.
So, if I was a Tumblr type, I would reblog that post
and add a comment, a far more abbreviated version of what I'm blathering on
about here, or maybe not, just a pithy title, and then others would see it and
I would be known, if only the duration of a millisecond skim, to the original
poster's readers/followers?
Like I said, I find Tumblr behaviors, intents and
outcomes difficult to parse.
I've never followed Meghan Daum's career, though
she's age-appropriate and seems like someone I should envy. (I mean, I know her
basics, but have never actively sought out any of her writing.) In my 20s I
thought one just wrote things and they somehow got published in the right
places to the right people and then everyone loved you. There aren't many
break-out essayists--voices of a generation, if you will--it turns out.
But I wasn't surprised that Billfold commenters
found her bit on carpet-hating to be classist and dated (loved the Wings
reference, personally). It's the way I feel about those dressing room bulbs over
particle board vanities and Magic Chef ovens in kitchens that are barely
kitchens but a nook of appliances shoved into a corner or against a wall with
no countertops that are standard in 90% of Brooklyn apartments. I don't care if
I'm dick for inadvertently insulting practically everyone who coexists
peacefully with those suicide-inducing features by adamantly refusing to have
them in my world (at a cost) anymore, but sometimes you just want a few nice things in your life (it's passing
quickly, right) and it doesn't make you an insufferable House Hunter who thinks
her $3,000 square foot house carved completely from a solid block of granite is
too small.
If you happen to like nooky kitchens, however, the one pictured above is only $1,150/month in Prospect Park South. (Yes, I searched Streeteasy and ranked Low-to-High by price--it took me four pages, though, to find the type of kitchen I meant so maybe things aren't so bad out there.)
I couldn't sleep past 8:30am (unheard of on a
weekday, let alone a Saturday) because it's so damn bright out. Too much
reflective snow.
I don't consider snow extreme weather--it's the
normal winter stuff we never see anymore--but wind-wise, I've never experienced
such extremes as in the past three months and can't tell if I'm just noticing
it more since I'm surrounded by windows and am up in the air (though six
stories is hardly high-rise) or this has been an unusual span of time. No one
would complain about possessing a large private terrace in NYC, but mostly it's
been too cold to use it (I've been trying to paint a table and shelf since Christmas
but the weather has never been predictable enough to that I feel comfortable
leaving a piece of furniture out to cure for more than 24 hours) so its main
purpose has been for storage. There's just too much crap to fit inside the
condo (and it had to be removed from the parking spot, which is a huge, boring
source of contention I won't bother going into) and this is causing problems,
not from an ugliness perspective, but because there have been multiple
instances of winds so strong they've rivaled Hurricane Sandy's gusts. Scary,
extremely violent wind.
Last week there were 50-mile-an-hour gusts, enough
to pop open the lid on a large Rubbermaid storage shed (upper left corner in photo) that had been weighted
down with a 42 lb bag of cat litter blew. It blew off and disappeared during
the night--for the second time in a month. Last time it drited into the empty
lot next door and construction workers let us pick it up.
After searching the street futilely this time, we
spied it on a rooftop three lots over (?!) I have no idea how to retrieve it
since the neighboring buildings aren't residential but warehouses with no
signage or windows, just the occasional Chinese guy coming in and out an
unmarked side door. This is the view from the elevator bank, by the way. The terrace is completely on the other side of the building sticking out of the left side of the photo.
My 2005 Jones holiday soda pack was a casualty.
And my 1950s diner table that I tried giving away to
no avail has become a victim of rainstorms and snow drifts, along with an '80s oak table and a red Ikea thing on wheels. The terrace has
become a graveyard of homeless furniture.
"I looked like Matt Dillon" --Denis Leary's wife, who seems like a funny, grounded middle-aged lady who
probably isn't anything like his fictional wife on Rescue Me even though that's
how I picture her. She has a book coming out.
Thinking about what 2013 style is (I still don't
know) but I do know what screams 2012 and I'm buying all sorts of versions of
it for my new apartment (which comes with an expiration date, itself--I doubt
I'll stay beyond a year's lease). Yellow and gray, chevron, ikat, it's all
going to look dangerously dated, or rather it already is, as you could argue
once a trend shows up at Target. Whatever. I embrace cheap and throwaway over
timeless classics. So what if I get rid of a shower curtain or chair (not the
rug, couch or wallpaper) after a few years (yes, the environment hates me).
A $34 on sale West Elm shower curtain (and $20-somthing bath mat) which isn't
really cheap at all, even more so considering their horrendous shipping fees
(I'm irked both a consumer and an ecommerce analyst) which suck even harder
considering there's a physical store in Brooklyn that never has the things you
want in stock.
And a $700 (plus oversized delivery surcharge) rug, which I guess is par for its 8'x10' size,
but once again, not exactly cheap.
I haven't bought these Etsy pillows, but I just might to really push the 2012 style over the top.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I bought a couch (I know sofa sounds nicer, but couch comes more naturally to me--at least I don't say davenport) on Thursday. With a sale, plus an extra discount, the Clare in ochre was only $620 (before shipping and taxes) at Macy's. Originally, I was thinking Room & Board, a Reese ($2,449, ouch) or the new Murphy (a more reasonable $1,399) in default emerald green, 2013's color of the year (green is actually my favorite color and I'm using it in my bedroom instead) but my thriftiness got in the way as it usually does.
Before.
After.
I had bold mustard and silver wallpaper put up in
the condo kitchen and don't regret it one bit. And this was pricey from a
materials and labor standpoint. Graphic wallpaper, if I recall, started
reviving around 2004 so it's not exactly a new trend. And it's not as if I used
that now-a-design-cliche Woods wallpaper (I'd argue it peaked in 2007, not
2010, as this post states).
Rumors was more the soundtrack to my childhood, but
my ears certainly perked up as "Tusk" appeared at the
beginning and end of this week's The Americans pilot, a show I didn't even know
I would be interested in (I watched it twice and it didn't annoy me, something that often happens when I watch a show alone and then a second time because I happen to be in the living room when it's being watched again).
Who knew "Tusk" meant so much to so many? It has
appeared on Facebook from "friends" who've never indicated any
interest in Fleetwood Mac, a search on Twitter while watching the show brought
up plenty of tweets composed of no more than five characters: Tusk! In addition
to the recap, Vulture has a post devoted to the song. (I also stumbled upon
this craziness.)
I have mixed feelings about the '80s, and I somewhat
regret bemoaning their resurgence in the '00s because that only led to the '90s
coming on strong post-2010 and that's far far worse. The thing is '80s means
something narrow and specific to a segment of the population that was too young
to remember them first-hand (I did not become a legal adult until 1990 so it's
not as if I'm full of rich knowledge of the era, myself, but I probably have a
good ten years on the '90s nostalgists.). There were complaint comments in the
recap that the styles were wrong, no big hair and Madonna.
Um, 1981, when this show was set, was not about that.
All first years in a decade are cuspy, still resembling the past. 1981 looked
very '70s, just as 1991 wasn't radically different from 1989 style-wise. Now
that it's 2013, we should know how the teens differ from the early aughts (ugh,
I kind of hate that nickname) since we've had two years to transition. I'm
still not sure, though.
There is clothing and home decor from 2003 that's
still in my life. I don't think I'm less style conscious because I'm older
(just an argument some might make); I'm just not offended by the sensibility of
a pillow, candlestick holder, winter coat or cardigan that are ten years old
(shoes and pants are trickier).
But the Guess jeans Kerri Russel was wearing did not ring true to me one bit. Jordache would've made more sense for a big name jean maybe. Guess was founded in 1981 and didn't get famous with its iconic ad campaigns until later in the decade. Claudia Schiffer wasn't the face of the brand until 1989, which blurs together in my mind with Anna Nicole Smith's early '90s ads.
So, I was only nine in 1981. But if there's
anything grade school girls are experts at, it's fashion--or at least knowing
what brands are cool and the detriment of not owning them. Guess played no role
in my coveting ever.
I have no way of knowing how regional the style
trends were that are imprinted on my brain. Obviously TV commercials and
magazine ads existed (though I don't recall a single one of the following
brands ever being on TV--maybe in teen mags?) but it's not as if there was the
universal sharing of trends that's opened up with the internet and eommerce. In fact, the
internet really let me down while trying to track down examples of all of the
jeans that were hot shit in my 1981 world. At this point you'd think there was
a niche site for everything, but I could find scant evidence in images or words
of popular clothing from the suburban Northwest.
Brittania and Esprit were easy to find and likely
national, Genera and Benetton came a little later. I'd like to say Fiorucci
meant something, but that's a brand I've come to know with age and moving to
NYC. No one in Gresham, Oregon wore Fiorucci.
This is what I know:
Lawman. Apparently this brand still exists (?!)
or has been retooled, which makes it hard to find older examples, keyword searching-wise. Even the ones described as vintage
'80s on Etsy are not the styles I'm thinking of, but are more Western and have
a big fat leather label on the waistband. This was by far the most influential
brand on my grade school years. I wasn't allowed to have a pair of
"designer" jeans until fourth grade, 1981, and Lawman was what my
first had to be. They were crazy expensive at $32 and the only pair I ever
owned. (I've discussed this before, how clothing was so much more cost
prohibitive pre-'90s. $9.99 Old Navy and Target stuff didn't exist.) That's
$80.83 in 2013 dollars. To this day, my mom and grandma can't agree on which of
them bought these jeans for me. It was a landmark occasion. And a traumatic
one. I couldn't fit into sizes in the children's department at Meier &
Frank, so I got to go to the cooler older person store, Jean Machine, but it
wasn't cool that I had a 30" waist. That's about a contemporary size 10.
Guess may not have been a NW thing in '81, but
Nike, based in a Portland suburb, was always a HUGE part of youthful sartorial
longing. I got one new pair a year. I never did get the lavender and white
combo of my grade school dreams until I found a pair in my exact mildly
difficult size 9.5 at an East Village
flea market in the late '90s--with the extra sexy striped laces, no less. I
never ever wear these, not so much to preserve them but because I don't really wear tennis shoes. (Bizarrely, there's an all-lavender pair in size 9.5 on eBay right now and I'm half-tempted to buy them.)
A. Smile Gelati. Recognizable by the triangular tag with a pastel ice cream cone. There were pants, as well as the
more famous colorful tie-back overalls. I honestly can't remember if mine were teal or
purple (it blurs with the pair my sister had) but I do know that in sixth grade
I hemmed a too-long pair (instead of doing a cool roll like the girl above) so they
came well above my ankles and everyone called them "high-waters" or
yelled "where's the flood?" But this was middle school, not grade
school, when kids are more hormonal and crueler.
Normandy Rose. No photos, but mentioned here. These came in all sorts of colors,
not just denim. They were just jeans that had a rose appliqué. This story of a
mom who tried making a homemade version for her daughter who rejected them is
heartbreaking (but no, imitations would not do). I had a weird pair that were
pleated and pinstriped, if you can imagine. Pleated jeans with no pockets are a
nightmare on a chunky figure, which is why I can't buy into any revival. I do
give props to all the young fatshionistas who wear crops and pleats with no
compunction. One, two, of many examples. It's a different era.
Sara Jeans. Also impossible to search because there
is a Playboy model named Sara Jean Underwood. These cost even more than Lawmans
and were dark denim with silver threads woven through so they sparkled. These
were slutty jeans for girls with big feathered hair and foundation lines
between their face and neck. There was an older girl whose name I can't
remember who got on at the bus stop at bottom of the hill who owned these. And
no, I'm not calling her a slut. The only reference to them is in the comments on a page about
A. Smile.
San Franciscos. Technically San Francisco Riding
Gear. And a little more late '70s, I think. I never owned them, but I definitely remember buckle-backs. These are men's jeans, by the way.
Dee Cee. They also made a lot of pants, painter
pants, carpenter pants, whatever you call them, in candy colors. I never had a
pair of these either. Why that style with lots of pockets and loops was
popular, I have no idea. If you were really cool, you'd have a plastic comb
tucked into one of the many pockets. Ok, this is only brand so far where I've
found a broader geographic reference, i.e. New Yorky. It looks like they were a thing
in 1979 in New York and sold at Canal Jeans (r.i.p.) which seems about right
that they would be big two-to-three years later in a west coast suburb.
Off subject, but apparently, there was disco, or rather a "literary discoteque" called the Library
during this era and no denim was allowed. Clearly, Manhattan was a different
world.
It now seems clearer how many of these brands are western,
and maybe never trickled beyond borders, a phenomena I doubt occurs in the US
anymore. (There was a definite regional brand called Seattle Blues, but I was
never interested in those jeans because Seattle had no cachet.) This person (on
an Angelfire site, of course) name-checks San Francisco, Lawman and A. Smile
and appears to be from Oregon. This 1981 ad for a Lawman jeans sale "including
the favorite painter pant" is from the Bend Bulletin, also Oregon. The
Etsy store selling the one pair of Lawmans I could find, as well as the one
that had a pair of A. Smiles, are both based in Seattle. And nearly everyone on
this comment thread about San Francisco Riding Gear mentions Washington or
Oregon.
Did jeans play a major role in your early '80s life? Which brands did you long for? If you tell me Guess, I guess I'll believe you.
Oh shit. I'm half-way through 40 today. And still
nothing to show for it. I will make my second half amazing, I promise, but
first I need to get dressed, get over this flu, get out of the apartment. You
will not recognize me come July 25.
I finally watchedThe Future last night and it was
kind of horrible and kind of brilliant. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to
strangers. I got more out of readingIt Chooses You, which was written while
making this film, and I guess touches on similar themes. Trying to connect?
