I needed to buy dress shoes because I wasn’t satisfied with the ones I had. I didn’t know why I was dissatisfied, but probably because I just bought whatever looked “good enough” in the moment.
So I researched what made a good shoe.
And settled on a true Oxford/Balmoral style (not Derby/Bucher), at least five eyelets, a half-brougue toe cap, leather upper, leather insole, perhaps a wing tip design, and for under $150.
I did find some shoes from the best of the best: Allen Edmonds, Alden, and John Lobb. And when I have $350-$500 to blow on a pair of shoes, I’ll consider it.
Meet the Florsheim Lexington Wing Tip. $110. Average of four stars from 75 reviews. And it fits (get it?) every one of my requirements.
And I didn’t know what any of those shoe terms meant this morning.
Stephen Colbert: “It gets better.”
Something similar happened to me, but only when I was a graduate student. Before that, I had endured bullying the hard way: returning insults, ignoring, walking away, and crying.
I was at a bar with friends one night. They were sitting down while I was standing near the bar looking at a hand-written chalkboard menu of specials. I’m not a beer connoisseur by any means, so it takes me a few minutes to decide what I want. I think I was squinting at the menu because I wasn’t wearing my glasses.
“Hey, fag,” someone said. “You wanna suck on this?”
A stranger standing next to me with a moronic expression on his face had lifted his T-shirt and exposed his right nipple to me. His douche bag sidekick was standing next to him with a similar grin on his face.
I was shocked and then embarrassed. I’m the kid whose phobia of middle school lunchrooms stuck with him to the bars. This kind of bullshit is exactly why I don’t like going out, and I didn’t know if I should run away or punch him in the face.
But then some kind of calm took over me. I said nothing and looked at him in the eye. Then I leaned in his direction, stuck my tongue out, and flicked my tongue up and down in front of him.
“Ew!” he said. “Gross!”
And he and his sidekick ran away to hide in some corner of the bar.
By somehow having the confidence to appear to be in agreement, I exposed him as the jackass that he was.
Stepping out of the moment, no longer taking anything as personal, and taking life less seriously by laughing at it are all similar lessons, and I only wish I had learned them earlier.
Funny, sad, and true at the same time.
It probably has to do with NASA as a government program, while all the other items are consumer goods and subject to competition in the market. It would be pretty interesting to see how the private market would tackle space travel. I’d like to think it would come in my life time.
I was catching up on some 190 North podcasts today (ABC channel 7’s Chicago entertainment show) and I saw one of the most fun vintage shops in a long time.
It’s not a pretentious Wicker Park vintage shop that aspires to an idea of what vintage is, but instead showcases the 80s and 90s crap from your childhood. Watch the whole 190 North segment (#218).
Rad Vintage just made it to my Chicago bucket list.
“I Dream of Chicago” by Parlours.
Watched a story last night on the news on how the last episode of Chicago Code will feature the song. The band, being so small, hasn’t been able to even play in Chicago.
I think they’re going to catch on quickly.
It appears NBC has its first contender to Mad Men coming this fall: The Playboy Club. Watch the trailer.
As much as I love women embracing their beauty and femininity, Nick Dalton is no Don Draper. And the writing doesn’t seem as sharp. But that’s fine, although it’s a little odd Alan Taylor is directing when he worked on Mad Men, too.
In the same vein, I did just buy a new suit and shirt (and tie clip!) from Indochino with a Groupon. It’s about time I had at least one custom suit. My last suit was off the rack and, um, from 1999.
For prom.
Actually, it has been a decent suit for many years on many job interviews, but I think it’s time for something better fitted and more stylish.
I also consulted my Details Men’s Style Manual in discovering what makes a truly great suit. That’s right: Guys aren’t innately born with this knowledge, and my dad wasn’t in my life much, so I have to figure this stuff out on my own.
Some of the finer points I learned:
I’m going to wear the suit with the skinny, black tie my favorite girl once gave to me for Christmas, and I’m going to see if my mom can’t give me a handkerchief for a corner square, just for something sentimental to soften the look.
The style manual has chapters on shirts, pants, blazers, ties, and more. It’s not like I replaced my entire wardrobe when I bought the book, but whenever I buy new clothing, I do flip through it.
I used to be jealous of the amount of information available for women’s fashion. Now I’m very happy with my style manual and can’t imagine living in the schizophrenic (and sometimes contradictory?) world of women’s fashion.
Amazing in-life cameos from this past weekend’s Ambiguously Gay Duo on SNL.
Some trivial facts only relevant to my life:
“Famous girls who wear glasses”
I can’t tell if Life is dumbing its titles down for search engines or for us. Probably both.
Still, some very cute glasses on these very cute girls. Some, not most.