Phillip Lim show

Kendra, Kateri and I went to the Phillip Lim show at the tail-end of Fashion Week. We went because we got free tickets - but then it turned out that it wasn't a real Fashion Week event! It was an event for American Express cardmembers, and anyone could attend! They just had to buy a ticket. Ugh, I certainly felt less fashionable when I realized what the show was. And the clothing of the people brushing up next to me suddenly felt like it was made of dirty burlap, or sandpaper. Sandpaper! But it was still mildly interesting, though I wished they hadn't had Andre Leon Talley doing a "q&a" with Phillip Lim beforehand. A q&a about fashion! What is there to say? I felt like I was watching two drowning men try to convince an already-full helicopter to throw down a ladder by trying to convince the crew that they would fly the helicopter in an elliptical course, rather than in a straight line. And Andre Leon Talley needs to take the porkchop out of the frying pan, as Roxanne Shante might say. Still, we were cheered to see that there were several black models in the roster that night; here's a picture of one of them. Work it, sistah!

Coco Before Chanel

Maggie, Michelle, Patty and I went to see "Coco Before Chanel" after work. This is the sort of outing I love to be a part of - friends, peers, and former co-workers going to relax and just be together, after a long, grinding week at the office. Everyone was sort of gritting their teeth before the movie, but then it was so slow and boring and beautiful, we were able to lose ourselves in it and emerge in a new state. Audrey Tatou's performance was so amazing. And I totally related to the Coco Chanel character. I feel as hard-edged as she was made to look in that movie, all the time. Nothing makes me relax except playing with my cat and going to the movies. In real life, Coco Chanel's hard-edgedness made her a completely reprehensible person, complete with Nazi collaborations, but that is the magic of the movies, isn't it? We can relate to a little piece of a person, or a person's depiction in a script, and forget about the rest. Literally: glamour! And a little popcorn and seltzer. After the movie, as we all walked east towards our homes and trains, I told Patty, Maggie and Michelle how lucky I felt to have been a part of something as special as Harcourt was. They felt that way too.

This shirt makes me look fat!

After a long day of stressin' and confessin', nothing makes a middle-aged man like myself feel more comfortable than going out to Queens and spending the night in his dead mother's bed. I wanted to take a picture of the bed, but when I saw the picture, I realized how fat my shirt makes me look. Good! No sense hiding it. Everyone always warned me not to wear vertical stripes, but at my age, my inhibitions (and my sanity) begin to gently fall away. I got this shirt at Uniqlo, during a phase where I was planning to go down to Uniqlo once a week and buy one blouse, so that by the end of the summer, my t-shirt palette would be completely refreshed. That plan worked so well, but, as usual, only for one week. Fortunately, in this picture, my camera-phone's flash obscures my face, so that when Wilhelmina Models (middle-aged division) scours the Internet for its next not-so-fresh face, they won't know it's me.

Same sneakers

Look! Neal and I were wearing the same sneakers! Well, sorta. To take this picture, we held onto each other so our feet would be touching and my camera could take it all in. I have to say, I've never felt safer than when Neal was holding onto me. :)