Weatherproof

Me and Maxine went over to Dad's house to go through his things. We were quite the pair ... Maxine is a pack-rat who doted on Dad so much that she saw him almost every day of her life. I am a cold-blooded Manhattan bastard whose apartment is so small that possessions are not my friends. And lately, I've gotten even worse. I remember one year Enya was nominated for an Oscar for the song "Only Time," and the camera cut to her face as she didn't win. I swear, she looked so angry I thought she was going to transform herself into a wintry wind to cut through the light blouses of the audience members. That's the way I've blown through my own life from time to time. Just last year alone I did two major de-clutterings of my apartment. I threw away clothes, old records, my VCRs, even books, precious books, some that I had never read but always thought I would some day. So, looking through the boxes and boxes of stuff that Dad had accumulated through his nine-plus decades of life, I didn't know what I could save.

But, still, I wanted something of his, you know?

We'll go back again soon and go through more boxes. But for now, I kept this hat. It was technically his. I gave it to him one year for Christmas or Father's Day or his birthday. I always wanted him to display a little color, rather than the blues and greys that formed most of his uniform. This hat is green ... a splash of color, Dad! I held it in my hand and saw that the tags were still on it. That's the way he was. You couldn't really shop for him any more, because he had no desires left. I bought him books that he never read, games that he refused to play. Maxine and I bought him an expensive motorized wheelchair one year, and he rode it once and then said that he was afraid he was going to accidentally ride down the stairs on it. It sits in the garage now. I bought him some ties one year and he asked me to move some furniture around so that I could see the dozens of ties he already had hanging there. He had enough ties! I guess. It turned into a game with me. I spent less and less time shopping for him because I knew that whatever I bought would stay in its box forever. On his birthday this past December, four days before he died, I literally walked across the street from my office and bought him a cardigan at Uniqlo. That was my personal best, time-wise.

I get afraid sometimes that I'll lose my mobility and then just sit in my wheelchair and watch television like he did. I know on some level that I'll never do that. I'll always be working on some doomed writing project that will never see the light of day. I'll always do my little yoga tapes to salvage the little flexibility I have left. Maybe in years to come I'll pick up some time-consuming hobby, like sewing or painting. Maybe I'll accidentally stab myself with the needles, causing a fatal blood infection, or accidentally cause myself brain damage by forgetting to close the paints and inhaling the fumes all night. Things like that happen to old people, you know. Old people have the worst luck.

Uniqlo tee

I went out to Queens last night, and walked in to find my father and sister looking through my father's ADT papers. His ADT alarm was malfunctioning, so every few minutes, it was emitting a tooth-grinding shriek. But the only person who knew the security code to turn off the alarm was Miss Webster, his former home health aide, who recently moved back to St. Kitts! They forced me to get on the phone with ADT, and ADT walked me through the steps of disabling the alarm - I felt like Macgyver with a screwdriver in my hand, disabling an alarm - it felt like I was disabling a bomb. Why doesn't my father - an accomplished man with a strange fear that bands of roving maladroits are rampant in Queens, lurking about and waiting for the opportunity to kidnap 90-year-old men with incontinence issues - know the code to his house's security system?

Afterwards, my nerves still on edge from the shrieking of the alarm, my father sat me down and told me that my real father's estate may have finally been settled, and that there may be "some money there waiting for me." Ha! That estate has been in a mysterious limbo for 30-plus years, and I don't believe it will ever truly be settled. But that's between you and me. My father told me to call my cousin Ann in Antigua, who is the lawyer for the estate. What an awkward conversation that will be - especially since Ann's daughter Joy herself was kidnapped a couple of weeks ago (it turned out okay) and I haven't called Ann yet to see how she's doing. My slowness in showing my concern for my relatives has cost me dearly in the past, and that trend continues, it seems.

After that weird talk with my father, I went into the kitchen and saw a roach! Gaaaa! Maxine wanted to spray it, but I refused to use the spray, instead choosing to kill it with my bare hands. People are far too squeamish about using their hands to kill roaches, I feel - it's the most environmentally friendly method, and you get to kill a living being with your bare hands! (If you sometimes feel powerless, killing is one way to take your power back. Over the years - especially my childhood years - I have clapped mosquitoes between my palms, squeezed beetles, de-winged moths - and now, in my adulthood, I feel a strange sense of power, which sometimes manifests itself as a paralyzing anxiety). After I killed the roach, my sister smiled weakly and said "eEeEeEeE." I cracked up. Then I went downstairs into my childhood bathroom and took this picture. I'm wearing a recent purchase, a dark grey tee from Uniqlo. There were many options of colors in this particular tee shirt model, but I chose this color and a purple one, too - because those reminded me of tee shirts of mine from the past. To someone who is powerful, though, ahem, "between inheritances," with a seemingly never-ending gig providing technical support to a surprisingly helpless father and sister, wearing a familiar tee is perhaps the only self-comfort available at times. That, and Paxil.

Strange evening

What a strange evening I had on Friday! I went to see "Dinner for Schmucks" with Teresa. On the way to get cupcakes beforehand, we ran into Matthew, the fashionista from a few posts back. I called him "Andrew" by mistake - whoopsie! :)

After we saw the movie, I took the train towards my home, but decided to take it a few extra stops so that I could take a long walk home. On my way to my apartment, I ran into Aaron, who was looking scrumptious as ever. I was wearing the same shirt that he had told me once that he also possessed - we both got it at Uniqlo. I didn't mention this, although I weirdly felt awkward running into him wearing that shirt! I affectionately punched him in the shoulder - but I punched him really hard by accident. Ouch. Oh, well - he already thinks I'm crazy. Now he can add violent Gregory to his list of Gregorys.

I headed for the East Side, and I ran into a fellow who looked very familiar. He reminded me that I had spent the night with him seven years ago. Ah! I remember that night very well, actually! Here's why: I literally spent the last money I had then to take him out to lunch at a Tex Mex place on Park Avenue the next day. After that, I had no job, no money, and no prospects, and I survived only because my friends Fionna, Mary, and Vicki rose to the occasion to help me, which I'll never forget. (And plus, I got sober and stayed that way for years. You could say this fellow was my "rock bottom."). We exchanged cards, but I didn't hear from him seven years ago, and I certainly don't expect to hear from him now. Plus, as I was chatting with him, I noticed him discreetly passing a small baggie to a friend of his.

Continuing up Second Ave, I heard someone calling out "Gregory ... " I turned around, but I didn't recognize the couple who was calling out to me. They told me that they had just visited my ex Joshie in SF, and he had been showing them pictures of me in a photo album, and talking about me. How flattering! I told the couple to tell Joshie that I looked fabulous.

Nearing 13th Street, I took this picture of myself, so I could remember not to wear this obviously powerful outfit again in the future, unless I was prepared for wildness, for coincidence, for magic ... then I went home.

Alyse in Madrid

As some of you know, my cousin Alyse is traveling through Europe currently. This picture is from a batch she posted on her Facebook page. In it, she is wearing a striped tee from American Apparel, jeans from Uniqlo (with the super low crotch cut / boy cut), some high top Vietnamese Converse knock offs from a vintage shop in Brooklyn, and a multicolored backpack from a vintage shop in LA. She is all over the map in this pic, as it were.

I like the forlorn-ness of this pic. What is she looking at? Who is she photographing? Perhaps Alyse herself doesn't know.

Often in my life, I have formed lasting bonds with people only to have them move away. In high school, it was Fatima P. After college, it was Alia S. Recently, my friend Tim moved to Berlin, where he blogs in a blog in which he has never mentioned me. I am very self-absorbed, as you must know by now, as you are reading a blog in which I reveal my life story through my outfits.

The most recent example of these friendships-with-separations was the intense bond I formed with Alyse last year. For a while, we were inseparable. We traded awkward stories starring my type-A sister, Maxine. Alyse cat-sitted for the Colonel. I mocked her other friendships (especially her friendship with her friend Midori, who can barely speak English!). Then she left, breaking my heart.

Where is Alyse now, on her European tour? She could be in Lisbon, I guess. She could be just about anywhere. She says she may return to NYC in the fall. I know, I know, I will probably be dead by then. But I will try to hang on, even if just to see what she's wearing then.

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.

In drag

I have a bit of a date tonight, I think, so I decided to dress in drag again. I'm wearing Gap and Uniqlo, my old standbys when I don't want to startle someone with my outfits, or provoke a fight. But my shoes are as current as next fall. I believe that several animals were slain to make them. (They knew the risks!) My adorable friend C. M. took this picture of me. I'm holding Caroline Weber's book Queen of Fashion, even! Of course, Weber's book is about Marie Antoinette, and her penchant for fashion missteps. My mother used to sit down after a long day at work, sigh and say, "Ah, to be queen for a day." I would never wish for that, myself. With my luck, if I were queen for a day, it would probably be the day of the revolution. :(