Camo

I recently made my first and only purchase of camouflage clothes. I've always been fundamentally against the idea of using camo in contemporary fashion. These are war clothes. American war clothes.

The purchase was made sight unseen from 800-OLD-NAVY because their primitive website can't handle Safari and I couldn't actually select what I wanted. Since I wear cargo shorts to work year-round but they don't stock them in their stores in fall and winter, I had to make the purchase over the phone. The friendly customer service rep listed all of the colors and styles available in my size, including green and blue camouflage.

"Sure," I said, without thinking. "Give me the camo. Why not?"

About a year ago I read an article in an arts and culture magazine about some fashion company that specialized in creative camo. There was this whole line of rhetoric about reclaiming camo from its warmongering associations. About how the more we wear camo in the streets the more diluted its military link becomes. I thought this was a lot of bullshit, too.

There is a lot of bullshit.

So do they look good or what?

Eye Contact

I've always been lousy at eye contact. It's terrible. It makes me look sneaky, or dishonest, or bored, or disinterested, or that I'm leering at women in the background. I'm conscious of it, though, and I recognize that I'm looking away when its happening. But I can't help myself. I just don't like staring at people's faces for long periods of time.

Perhaps this is why my Celebrity Sightings sidebar is so lame. I go through life with my head down, largely, in a book or otherwise. I'm not going to make that celebrity sighting because I'm not so into the idea of looking at people in general. Z, of course, has had tons of recent celebrity sightings--including waiting at the valet with Dan Rather and sitting next to comedienne Judy Tenuda on the plane--but usually I only have sightings when I'm with someone else who puts their identity together. Then I confirm it or deny it. This is my role in life. To say, yes, you're right, but they look a little OLDER. Or to say, no, i don't think so, nice try, though.

So today I'm trying to start the Eyecontact Performance and Maintenance Directive (EPMD). I will look at people until it's uncomfortable for both of us and then I'll continue to stare into their eyeballs. This morning I went up to the Coffee Bean and felt something happening in my periphery...and instead of ignoring it I turned my head and flicked my eyes over instantly and caught a cute book-reading woman checking me out. She immediately looked down into her book, embarrassed--humilated really! It could have been my vintage green Lucky Charms shirt. Or my charming bedhead. Or perhaps she wasn't even looking at me. But by seizing the moment and not looking away, I reclaimed control of the situation. She feels like she was caught staring, even if she wasn't. Ha ha! Look at all of this fine entertainment one can have by looking people right in the face! My god, who knew?

When the Proactive Measure You're Taking To Avoid the Awful Thing in the Distant Future Instead Causes the Awful Event To Occur In the Miserable Prese

First of all, I'd like to say that Blogger could not accommodate my lengthy title by a margin of two letters. This is bullshit. The last word of the title is "present."

Secondly, I'd like to say that I went down to the hardware store to copy my house keys and car keys, of which I only have one set of each. So far things haven't been a problem but I can easily see that day when I lose a set of keys and have to resort to the others to gain entry to my life again. If there are others...

So I marched down to the local hardware store (Laurel Hardware, not Home Depot, support the little guy) and the old man (it has to be good, an ancient man runs the place!) goes into the back and I hear furious metallic grinding noises and then a couple of minutes later he returns with my originals and the copies on separate little rings and I pay the trifle and then go home and when I stick my key into the lock nothing happens but I think I've just used the wrong key perhaps that's it but no none of the other keys work neither nothing works on either key ring, old and new.

So I march back down to the hardware store, feeling enraged, feeling like I'm the verge of a problem here and that I need to make a serious effort or I'm going to blow up at the old man and that just isn't admirable behavior. The small problem is that I've been sold a product that doesn't work. The big problem is that this has undone something that did work, that is, getting into my house. So one of three things has transpired.

1. The old man set my keys on a surface next to some other keys, made an involuntary switcheroo, then copied the wrong key and returned the two impostors to me (old and new).

2. Putting the original key into the "Play" component of the key thing somehow damages it so that when the "record" side does its thing it records the newly damaged lines of the original.

3. Someone knows I'm going to get my keys copied and quickly changes the locks on my door as an elaborate practical joke.

I tell the old man what has happened. "F***" he says. He goes into the back for awhile then comes back, empty handed. I make some comment and he disappears again. This time when he returns he's holding a new lock in his hand. "S***," he says, "call a locksmith and send me the bill." He hands me the lock and I return home.

I don't want to call a locksmith so I force entry through my small kitchen window, scale the wall, and jump in over my dirty dishes. Then I change the lock.

Now my landlord (who lives elsewhere and wouldn't answer my calls after 5pm) is angry b/c I've changed the locks and is demanding something. What is he demanding again? Who are these people?

Sheesh.

The right thing to do would have been not to plan and not be organize and not think about preventing the bad thing from happening.

The right thing to do is to be lazy and forgetful.

And today I locked myself out of my car when a woman driving an SUV was so far up my ass that when I signalled and slowed to parallel park she couldn't get around me and just honked and yelled and gestured while I did the same thing. After about a minute she finally got around me and I could back into my spot but I was so enraged that I shut the car off but got out with the key forward in the ignition and the car in reverse.

The engine was off but making that humming clicking "I am receptive, please start me now" noise for well over 30 minutes until the vato in the molester van with the giant key on the side took a coat hanger to my door and set me free.

Listing

When you move house you find some old things and lose some new things. I moved over 6 months ago but I'm still coming across stuff that has been buried for years.

Yesterday I found this:



It's a list of books read and movies seen for the first five or six months of 2005. Because of this list I remember the period vividly: moving from Middlebrow's place in Bellingham to the U-District in Seattle, working at a software publisher in Kent, feeling very alone and isolated.

I'd say that 80% of these books and movies I had totally forgotten about. But seeing them now brings them back vividly.

I'm kind of amazed that I was able to crank through this many books while working full-time and enduring a long commute. And since I didn't have a TV or a VCR all of the movies were seen in the theater (up to Ed Wood and below, which were seen while housesitting).

Every two or three years I'll get inspired and try to start a current list of reads and watches...but it always peters out. Finding the list makes me think about all of the other books and films and experiences that have been lost forever. Listing these things prevents them from disappearing...and keeps those periods of my life and all of their nuances from slipping into nonexistence as well.

Seeing "Jefferson in Paris" with my aunt at the Egyptian, the awkward Hal Hartley date "Amateur" at the same theater, the TS Eliot biopic "Tom & Viv" at the Metro, "Miss Parker & the Vicious Circle," Albert Finney in the forgotten Oscar Wilde thang "A Man of No Importance."

I haven't thought about these things in over 10 years...but boy it all seems crystal clear right now.

I suppose Lisa B. knows this which is why she lists her movies (and reviews) in this fashion....

BTW, am I insane, or wasn't there a single-screen theater on 45th in the U-District that was east of the Metro and the Neptune but west of the Ave and the Varsity? I feel like I saw a 70mm print of The Wild Bunch there as well as the original Parker Posey vehicle Party Girl... Hm.

Anyone remember this theater?