i usually dress up for work. a week or two ago, i wore a t-shirt, which is unusual for me. my favorite underworld tee which says ‘i need sugar.’

and i forgot i had a meeting with external clients. scheduled at the same time as big internal dev meeting.

so i was underdressed for the meeting and had to juggle it with im’s about this other meeting that i was missing.

net result: i appeared as the complete engineering nerd.

Popularity: 1% [?]

A couple of weekends ago, I saw a guy with an Iron Maiden “The Trooper” T-shirt. And I realized I’ve never owned a Maiden shirt. And that perhaps I should.

This is also exactly the same feeling I have harbored for years about getting a Mistfits T-shirt. Both have gone unpurchased thus far — every time I think I’ve outgrown the urge, I’ll be reminded that there is still the 8th grader in me. And the 9th. 10th. Freshman in college. And so on.

It’s easy to get old and “professional” and forget about all the crap and silliness that surrounded you as a youth. It’s like smelling cloves when I went roller skating.

Maybe I just need to hang out in San Jose more.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Cute little ‘Bekah. It’s colder now, so you’ve been wearing your jacket here and there. I cannot tell you how it swells my heart when you ask me: “Put my neighbor-hood up?” Gladly, sweetie.

Popularity: 2% [?]

i want to hang with this guy.

failing that, i want this shirt.

from: lazyrot.com

Popularity: 1% [?]

1. meat.

i don’t spoeak russian, so i can’t explain this, but i can say there are a ton more images of women wearing meat on their heads on this live journal post.

2. creepy knitted stockings.

see more of these masks.

Popularity: 2% [?]

“clothes make the man”

i believe that i behave not entirely unlike other people. there are many elements in life, many pieces. and one finds a status quo in many, a system that works, and they put it on the backburner. this frees one up to concentrate on other pieces, pieces that perhaps one derives more enjoyment from. to some extent, we all do it. we have to.

but there are pieces that deserve to be revisited from time to time. pieces that deserve to be relearned.

take, for instance, clothes.

many of you have known me for a long time. mike has known me since pre-mullet days. eric has known me since high school. petunia, since college. john and kurt since grad school. all have known various pieces of me, various versions of tripp.

it took rachael many years, but she has slowly weaned me into more ‘adult’ (read: non-baggy) clothes. clothing (and a style) that has been my uniform for years: a pair of jnco’s and a t-shirt. i’m good with that; after years of looking and poking, i have found brands i really like now, brands that look good and fit me.

water under the bridge a bit.

because the real issue, to me, is that i never wear out clothes. and i never really get rid of clothes. why would i? they still fit me, they are still perfectly good.

and last week, i wore a shirt that i have had since junior year of high school. high school. i have had the shirt almost 15 years. and you know what? i put it on and wore it to work. and felt lame the entire day. i did not enjoy wearing it.

that was that. this weekend, i got rid of it, along with some t-shirts, ties and some other shirts. i have taken the (long-overdue) approach of ‘if i don’t like wearing it, get rid of it’. there is no reason to feel less than good. there is no reason to hold on to items i will never wear or wear out of some sort of perverse guilt.

today i wore a tie to work. and unlike one of previous employers, the one who sat me down after i wore a tie to work and told me that i should no longer dress up to come to work, i have gotten compliments today from most everyone in the office. i feel good. i feel like i am dressed as i should be, as i want to be. i’m owning it. (perhaps my favorite comment was from a co-worker who seemed to marvel over the actual tie: ‘where did you find a white tie?’ as if i had performed some sort of strange magic before his eyes. i replied, lamely: ‘a store.’)

feeling good is a mindset.

and i am sure for many of you, you read this and think about how silly i am being, how slow i am to make these realizations. that’s ok — as i said to start with, sometimes it takes a while to revisit topics in life.

i’ve spent the last 6 or 8 months talking, over and over, about getting my life in shape. about getting organized and put back together the way i want to be. this is another piece of the puzzle. it’s quite pleasing to have a timeline, an end goal. and it’s even more pleasing to feel perfectly on track.

Popularity: 1% [?]

r and i went to point reyes this past weekend. i decided i had to get out of town, compounded when i realized that it had been last august since i had taken a trip. (barring holiday travel to the east coast).

point reyes was beautiful and exactly what i needed. we had a wonderful room in the point reyes seaside lodge — no tv, a windowseat and a fireplace. coupled with the complete lack of cell phone signal and my leaving the laptop at home, i finally was unplugged for a few days. perhaps even for the longest amount since we went to japan a year and a half ago.

we saw a veritable menagerie while we were there: dogs, cats, many many birds (including some vultures — up close in the backyard of the lodge), cows, horses, sheep, dozens of deer, dozens more of elk, some giant slugs, a possum and even an ostrich.

we hiked, we went to the beaches, we saw the lighthouse there. we had wonderful meals and sat in the woods. we saw rolling farmland right up against a crashing ocean.

i can’t recommend it enough. though r’s legs killed when we got back and i woke up this morning (a full day and a half after getting back) wondering if i could still walk.

last night was spent at ugly’s as most monday nights are. it was empty until about 9.30 and rachel, our normal bartender, had the night off. it’s ok, because we made friends with bobbi, a nice 40 year old woman who has just moved here from chicago. she’s feisty and as the night wore on, she ran with it. i won’t go into too many details, but suffice to say we now know her opinions about ‘licking lolli’, how straight she is, how she isn’t having any sexual relations with rachael or myself and various other unmentionables. all unprovoked and highly entertaining.

she traded phone numbers with r, wanting to go out to coffee. i’m excited through proxy — she seems fun and i think it’ll be fun for r, especially since she is so introverted. heartless bastard i am, i’m hoping for rachael to be pulled out of her comfort zone. i do hope to hear good stories.

i ride caltrain 3 times a week up into the city. its a fine commute — long enough to be exhausting (leave the house at 7am, get back home at 7pm), but tempered by being able to relax for an hour each direction. prime gameboy/reading/writing time, esp since there is no wireless on the train. me and video podcasts have gotten pretty close too.

anyway, i ride 3 times a week. and after 6 months, i know the people who ride my train and who sit in my car. i sit in the same areas on the train everyday, as most other people do as well. it’s this whole familiar stranger thing. you learn.

so there is a girl who rides my train that i think is awesome. she’s like 13. you look at this girl and think ‘wow, she is going to be gorgeous in a few years’. there’s nothing weird or sketchy about me thinking she is cool, so let’s skip that whole thing. you develop opinions about pretty much everyone you see on a regular basis, my opinion of her is just higher than most. one of the first times i rode the train, she was waiting and reading ‘the alchemist’ which i still haven’t read, but have always heard good reviews of from people i like. so she got a point from me there. random observances go a long way towards forming opinions of strangers.

anyway. why bring any of this up, knowing my friends and the type of grief i am likely to get?

cause today she showed up to the station wearing a jean skirt with — and this is the punchline — hot pink fishnet leggings.

that matched her sneakers.

this was about an hour ago and i am no closer to digesting this article of clothes.

hot pink fishnet leggings.

hima, petunia, someone? can someone explain this to me?

it’s almost like my cyclical theory of movies (a movie can be so bad, it is good again). i mean, i give this girl mad props for wearing them cause, well, how can i not? at the same time, i’m so utterly confused by them that i don’t know what to think. i had to preface it like i did, because i believe that someone in middle school wearing these is different than a grown woman wearing them. but it doesn’t make my understanding any more clear.

i hate hate hate leggings. but the inclusion of several other adjectives almost transforms these leggings into something else entirely. it’s like mad libs or a grant morrison comic book.

can anyone help me form an opinion here?

Popularity: 2% [?]