As You Wait For Him

Back in March--maybe April, I can't remember now--Coach held a contest as part of their Poppy campaign to write the ending to a story about a Saturday in New York City. It was written by Irina Reyn, who I took my first writing class with at the University of Pittsburgh. I have no idea if she read the submissions, but I decided to write an ending, mostly for kicks, but also because there was a little self-centered, irrational voice that kept telling me Irina would read it and remember me and my story about gay, high school cross-country runners, persuade whomever chose the winners to pick me, pick me, and then I'd be famous and rich and world-renowned, etc. Oh well. I didn't win. But I liked my entry, nonetheless.

(Irina's story: A woman walks through New York on a Saturday morning, shopping, eating, drinking. In the evening, she ends up at a cafe eating olives and red wine and gets a call/message from a man. She waits for him.)

As you wait for him—no, you are not waiting for him. You haven’t waited for him since the end of September. Still, your fingers remember how to pick at the pale grey polish on your nails and you feel the minutes passing, silent and slow.

You choose a fat, purple olive. Its flesh is sour and salty and you savor it. You roll the pit with your tongue, you dare it to break the skin of the roof of your mouth.

As a trumpet hovers again above the hum of early evening, the door of the bar opens with a whine and silences it. You wonder if it's him and you smell the sugar and the pine of his skin, the sweat and the warm air he used to carry after biking across town.

You look, it is not him. You leave the bar and begin to walk. A drummer busks a block ahead and when you fall into rhythm with him, your heels hit the concrete with the control of a metronome. You let New York carry you.

I read this again, and it's not perfect, I want to change it, but I am so excited about New York. 

Hot Hot Heat

This is the last post I wrote, on April 1, 2010, started but never posted...

A few weeks ago I wrote about how painful early Spring feels in Pittsburgh, how slowly and clumsily the city wakes up from winter, how Spring doesn't really feel like it's here until June and then all of a sudden it's Summer. Well, Pittsburgh is still waking up, but maybe it had a mimosa or something because today, tomorrow, and this weekend will be sunny and above 70, oh my!

I was right about how June arrives and then all of a sudden it's summer. If this first week of Summer is any indication, it's going to be an angry one. I'm already feeling quite uninspired by my wardrobe, mostly because the heat and humidity that sit over the city for three months make me want to not wear any clothes at all, and especially not leather shorts and thigh-highs, which Refinery29 thinks is a good option for summer.  Unbearable heat along with pale skin that just feels paler, frizzy waves that just get frizzier, and not a single toned muscle can quite easily turn my excitement for summer plans into pure disdain. Don't get me wrong, I still love summer destinations like the beach, summer cocktails, and yes, fine, even that moment after I've climbed inside my parked car and the heat is overwhelming but I sit there, windows up, AC off, to see how long I can stand it. It's just that I give up on feeling attractive pretty quick, every single year.

I have to remember that I'm not the only one who's sweating. Yes, my shirt is wet down the middle of my back, but yours is too.

Another Post on Being Nostalgic

I Have To Tell You

I have to tell you,
there are times when
the sun strikes me
like a gong,
and I remember everything,
even your ears.

It is not so much that I miss you

It is not so much that I miss you
as the remembering
which I suppose is a form of missing
except more positive,
like the time of the blackout
when fear was my first response
followed by love of the dark.



DOROTHEA GROSSMAN

Spring Sprang Sprung

When Spring begins in Pittsburgh it feels like the city has woken up with a really ugly hangover. The potholes are miles deep, getting deeper, and spewing out bits of loose asphalt for months before winter's bad decisions have been forgotten for good. The days are warmer and longer and so there's this feeling of hope and everyone's smiling and saying things like "The sunshine today turned my frown upside down!" but the fact remains that the hills are always gray and brown until May so it's like we're all just trying to convince ourselves that things are getting better. In Pittsburgh, Spring is a state of mind (barf) until it's definitely summer, potholes patched and black snow gone and it all kind of happens at once.

So needless to say, I'm still drinking red wine at night and hot coffee in the morning--I know it's definitely summer when I make the switch to white wine and iced coffee--and getting all hot and bothered by Fall 2010 RTW collections. I painted my nails with Tropical Temptation by Revlon last night as part of the convincing-myself-it's-spring process, but then I saw the Fall Hermes collection and I just want to wear leather and black tights and top hats again. A whole lot of good Tropical Temptation did. If there was such a place as Menswear for Broads Heaven, Hermes would own it:

Ok, fine. I will try harder. 3.1 Phillip Lim Spring 2010 RTW:

All photos via Style.com

Warm and Fuzzy

While in New York last December, I met this girl who was wearing an oversized, cream-colored cotton sweater, which she shed once inside a warm bar and revealed a black blazer underneath. It's important to note that this girl was was very thin, and I never would have guessed she was wearing anything under the sweater, especially something as bulky as a blazer. I thought it was a great and unexpected way to not have to deal with a big winter coat all night, but I decided then and there that the 20 pounds I had on this girl would not adapt very well to two heavy, non-form-fitting layers. Didn't your mother ever tell you cable knits were bad for your arms, along with cap sleeves and tank tops? Yes. Well. I've concluded that I can do the oversized sweater, because it is comfortable and warm but I probably won't wear it over a blazer. Obviously, the look is not about showing the shape of your body. Didn't your mother also try to tell you that boys didn't like to see everything, that a little conservative dressing added intrigue and drew them to what they knew was there but couldn't see? Yes. Well.

Below is the oversized sweater look that I've been thinking a lot about lately. Dries Van Noten RTW Fall 2009 has been in the back of my mind all year. I loved the colors--each look contrasted a subdued taupe or beige or other pastel with a bright lavender or bold teal, royal blue, mustard yellow, etc. The masculine cut of the all the trousers, jackets and blouses contrasted the feminine red/orange lips and messy, loosely pulled back hair with side swept bangs.

(via Style.com)

I also really like these oversized sweater looks from Reed Krakoff RTW Fall 2010:

(via Style.com)
The wide leg trouser is a huge step away from all the leggings we've been wearing, and not wearing if you're a shorts with tights or no-pants-at-all kind of girl. This outfit makes me want to crawl up into a ball on my couch for the weekend while winter carries on with its strength and fury. Come Monday I'd wrap a belt around my waist and I'd be ready to go.

Another luxurious sweater, this time as a dress, with a leather bomber jacket and lace-ups:

(via Style.com)

I think this look would be interesting with Vena Cava's fishnets, also it would be warmer. Powers that be, I'll take a few more weeks of winter, please, but you can keep all the snow. Thanks.

Can we talk about Vena Cava for a minute?

Great, thanks. I've felt conflicted for a long time about fishnet tights. They always seem necessary at Halloween, but then when I try to incorporate them into my day-to-day, problems arise. Namely, that I look and feel like I'm about to turn some tricks, and not in the Secret Diary of a Call Girl way. Nope, more like look down there, on the corner, in the cold, there I am shivering because all I'm wearing is a loosely woven pair of fishnet tights! This might sound a bit drastic, but I'm so excited to announce that Vena Cava RTW Fall 2010 has completely changed my perspective, and I'm feeling that fishnets are my new favorite way to politely add some melodrama and a tablespoon (or more, depending on your audience) of sexiness to an outfit. There is something very austere about fishnets, something promiscuous but also classic, timeless, and mindless--that is, of course you're wearing fishnets, what else would you wear because you've been wearing them forever and ever, etc. Bask now, in the glory that is the following excerpt from Vena Cava RTW Fall 2010:

(via Style.com)

(via Style.com)

(via Style.com)

Really, what I love most, is that I already own shoes similar to those worn in all of these looks, and that I can skip on over to Goodwill and replicate the rest for under $10. FTW.

Happy Valentine's.

Dear Mr. McQueen:

What are we supposed to do.

I'm sorry if that sounds accusatory, or if it appears to imply that your death is not about you but about me and all of the other women and men you've inspired and impassioned from the beginning of your time. I'm sorry, that's not how I meant it. It's just that I can't imagine reading about another Fashion Week without also reading your name. Fashion goes on, you do not.

Word on the street is that you took your own life, and if that's the truth I know you didn't do it on purpose. That is, I trust that in that moment, as you were deciding that you were going to do it, you really did want it all to end and you were ready enough to do it yourself. But I also trust that you would have chosen to live had living without the pain you felt been a conceivable option to you. I am so sad that it wasn't.

My love affair with your work has been short, but it was immediate and constant. Thank you for this dress, it completely changed the way I think about clothes.


(via The New York Times)

About a year ago I was in New York for the first time in about five years. J's brother had taken us to a bar in the Meat Packing District and then there was your store, lights out, and there was this dress, or one like it, I can't remember and I'm kicking myself for it, I am. My heart beat fast, my hands shook, and perhaps this is sad and telling of something not for this blog, but my heart and hands felt more for your storefront in that moment than they've ever felt for any man. Ew, that sounds like I'm one of those people who falls in love with the Eiffel Tower and tries to marry it, but I promise you it's different. Falling in love with people and falling in love with art are similar in that our bodies sometimes respond in the same way, but I have no plans to propose to this dress. I'd need it in my possession first, of course.

I hope you have found some relief, some rest and some peace. You will be missed.

XOXO

K.