Lagerfeld Shmagerfeld

My fashion sense is for shit, which is strange because I lived in New York for years so you’d think some of that style would’ve sunk into me like the cool osmosis of a contact high.  I’m a jeans & t-shirt guy, or button-down to give me some sense of semi-accomplished man.  Sometimes I feel like an orthodox Jew who wears the same thing everyday with no sense of what decade we’re in.  Rumor has it that Einstein streamlined his wardrobe to free his mind to ponder the ponderous and not get weighed down in materialism.  Other than that, not much we have in common.  

I’m a deeply menacing 5’5” (5’6” with Jewfro) with an average build, yet shirts nor pants fit upon purchase.  Every item must be hemmed to fit my laughably non-standardized human body.   This makes shopping a challenge. 

I’ve usually stocked up on t-shirts at The Gap, mainly because the 3 for $20 is a bargain during unemployment stints.  Or perhaps because I clumsily rationalized that t-shirts “hand-crafted” in Asia, by Asians, are closer to Jew-size.  That was before American Apparel made shirts that feel dreamily akin to an afternoon on a floating Maldives cabana after making love with a beautiful fiancé for the 9^th time with the glow of her perfect infinite smile laced deep into my soul.   I’m single, can you tell?  

Gap t-shirts fit so well I dared extend my range to the jeans.  I asked this cute sales girl why the 31W / 28L combo is such a rarity?  Cute Sales Girl said I shouldn’t compare myself to others “because I was handsome and perfect for my size.”  The movie in my head took a twist and I thought if we fall in love I could piggyback on her 40% discount.  Then she said you should try Gap Kids – the boys jeans might fit better.  How I went from her bedroom to stroller in 3 seconds still astounds me. 

Adult male MANnequins at The Gap looked cool, put-together.  They knew how to layer and were always looking off into a vague nearby paradise.   But they glared at me like I snuck into the party.  The BOYequins in Gap Kids were friendly, adorable, like the perfect miniature husbands that wives and moms dream to have. 

In Gap Kids, I noticed my brain beseech the BOYequins for the sartorial counsel I was missing as a single guy without a lover.  I wanted to believe that moms shop there because they have enough control over their little boys to costume them the way they wish they could their husbands.

{Confession: I’m currently a single guy who has a list of childrens’ names in my wallet because everyday I dream of being a dad - but this story was a while ago when getting laid was higher priority.}

Like a non-dog-owner in a dog park, sometimes it got a bit weird.  

Most conversations with the Gap Kids moms started like this:

MOM: How old is your little boy?

ME: Um, I’m actually here for myself.

MOM: Really?  But you’re…

ME: An adult, I know. 

To smooth out the awkwardness I’d ask a question about layering, if denim really does match with everything, or with one mom this happened:

MOM: How old is your little boy?

ME: Um, I’m actually here for myself.

MOM: Really?  But you’re…

ME: An adult, I know.  (Beat)  How do you feel about zippers versus button-fly jeans?

Of course my innocent inquiry went misunderstood.  She felt ambushed, as if I was preying upon her in neutral territory like the innocent waterhole that is Gap Kids.  As much as my Youporn search terms might indicate I dig Milfs, on strict principle I never hit on married women.  

A million times worse, one mom bizarrely fretted over the specter of the criminally fucked up P-word (pedophilia).   Because I was in Gap Kids looking for boy-jeans?   I was mortified until an older saleswoman came to my rescue and told me that some of these moms are irrationally overprotective and she was surprised that that mom didn’t have one of those allegedly child-friendly leashes on her kid.  I don’t have any children (that I know of) but I’d instantly fire the putz that licensed the patent on those leashes.   

Yet a few moms pitied me because it was “cute” that I was in Gap Kids, as a grown man, trying on kids jeans.  A few even generously opined on how the jeans fit after I tried them on in those little dressing rooms built for little kids NOT GROWN MEN.

Overall, I felt like I Gary Coleman’ed myself in search of the perfect fit.   After two shopping sessions on separate days and many memorable conversations later, thankfully kids jeans don’t fit.  Gap Kids wasn’t the denim Shangri-La I dreamt of.   At 37, my jeans saga persists and I’m still stuck somewhere between any jeans store and the nearest tailor shop. 

The k

So this happened at a party, again….

ME: How’s your night tonight?

STRANGER:  Good, I’m having fun but I can’t drink too much because I’m running a 5k in the morning. 

ME: That’s awesome, a 3.1 miler.  Wise choice, not drinking too much.

STRANGER:  Yea, it’s a 5k for charity.

ME: 3.1 miles for charity, very noble.  What’s the cause?

STRANGER: I’m running a 5k to raise $2,500 for children with brain cancer. 

ME: 3.1 miles for a great cause!  You’re one of the good ones.

STRANGER: Yea, lots of people running the 5k in the morning.

ME:  You mean lots of people running 3.1 miles in the morning.

STRANGER:  Yea, a 5k.

ME:  Like I said, 3.1 miles…

And this will continue ad barfeum until I somehow get that person to admit, confess, concede, that a 5k is 3.1 miles and a 10k is nothing more than 6.21371.

OCD, ADD, ASPD, there’s a casually clinical continuum of manageable madness we all possess beneath our skulls.  We’re all diagnosable in some way, of some thing, to some one in any moment in time.  In this circumstance, OCD.  ADD is another chapter I’ll hit soon enough if I don’t interrupt myself in this very sentence which I haven’t yet so far but I could so soon very soon very very very soon but I digress.... 

The K correction, this unstoppable Larry Davidesque reflex howls out no matter where I am or who I’m with.  I could be on a first date with my future wife, in a pitch meeting with the head of some network (years from now), or Skyping with God and still I can’t block the impulse.

GOD:  Nathan, listen, I’ve given you a great family, friends, women and opportunity, you have time on your hands, you’re a healthy guy, why not raise money for childrens’ leukemia and run a 10k?

ME: You mean a…

The K bothers me.  Perhaps it’s because people use the K to make it seem like they’re doing more than they are – especially when raising money for a noble cause.  Maybe there’s a valid sociological reason for it.  Maybe not.   

I ran 2 marathons (26.2 miles) yet never bragged about how the 41^st kilometer near destroyed me.  I buy my milk in gallons, soda in liters, marijuana in ounces and cocaine in grams.  Ok, David Duchovny on Californication said the white horse rides in on grams.  Without doing a full report on the metric v. imperial system of measurement, I still think all those wonderful people raising money for charity are wise for drinking less at a party the night before a 3.1 miler. 

Dusting off the past

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night."
--Steve Martin


And with that perfect genius above, of seeing things as they are, I share a posting from years ago that oddly enough made Best of Craigslist in the early 70s.

Dust Ball for Sale - Needs Good Home

I was cleaning my apartment yesterday and I found a dustball. As conditioned, I walked over to the garbage and threw it away. Then, moments later, I sat on the floor of my apartment, starring at the dustball, musing into the particles that were once part of my life. I wondered: whose hair is that, Amy or Julia or Guinnevere, do they know it's missing? I wondered: maybe some of that dust is skinflakes from some stranger on the subway who had a baby yesterday, or entered rehab, or learned how to masturbate, or finished a dissertation, or won an award for Best Grandpa and got a coffee mug with his initials on it? I thought: it's not just a dustball, it's a collection of memories - it's life. I thought again: why throw this away when I could sell it to someone on Craigslist who might either not have any dustballs of their own for whatever reason or to a serious dustball collector.

It's a really really pretty dustball, the kind you might see floating by and wink at you or even on display in a museum one day. I am not predicting any such fame for this particular dustball. That would be wildly foolish and truly uncharacteristic of me. I will say that this dustball, of which I have not yet named (in hopes of a future owner who will do the honor), can easily be placed in a coatpocket or small purse. It is waterproof, loves to dance salsa, able to take long walks without complaining or getting tired, and will listen to you when you think all your friends are too consumed with the velocity of their own damn lives. This dustball will never lie, never fake an orgasm, and never ever tell you that those black pants you love make you look fat. If you're patient, it will tell you stories about the good times and remind you that no matter how bad it gets, you will never be alone as long as you share your life with dust.

Measurements: 1" by 3", 0.09 ounces, muilt-colored (predominantly greyish).

$2.37 OBO 

Breaking the Seal

"Always remember that you are absolutely unique.  Just like everyone else."
--Margaret Mead

Thanks Margiebaby, you said it all.  So that's how it began - this blog, a shout in the wind to find a home for words light enough to be swept away then possibly heavy enough to sink to the bottom of a small dark hole called Nathantic.blogspot.com.  

If anything, my mom can visit 14 times a day then call me to lambast Margaret as a liar, a crook, and declare that I alone am the most unique being of all.  I'll let those two fight it out.