in this short Life that only lasts an hour
I have this thing with decisions where I am bad at them. Let me loose in the candy aisle of a 7-11 and stand back to watch me drag out my eventual choice of peanut butter m&ms into a longer process than you could possibly imagine. I can wander in a museum gift shop and lose time like you wouldn't believe, only to emerge with exactly 2 postcards. I like to examine all of the options before making a choice, even if that choice is destined to be the same choice it has always been. This is why clothing is a nightmare for me.
My mom has had a walk-in closet in every home we've lived in since I was born, and every one has been full of an array of colors and fabrics. She thinks in outfits rather than garments and she loves to shop. I imagine her brain looks just like the computer program Cher used to choose her clothing in Clueless. She has her style and things she prefers not to wear, but she loves variety.
I don't. Variety is overwhelming. The more things I have to choose from, the longer it will take. The longer it takes, the more exhausted I get. The more exhausted I get, the likelier it is that I will snap up anything just to make it stop. Going out dress shopping and coming home with sweats has not been an uncommon occurrence in my life. And then my friend Coleman changed everything.
A few years ago, Coleman decided to give himself a set of rules for his wardrobe. He made a little comic about it, which I love, and which I am posting part of here with his permission.
In an effort to insert some stability into his life, Coleman decided to drastically limit the color palette in his wardrobe. I can only assume it worked, as he still wears this palette to this day, and is a very stable dude. My reasons were different, but the idea captured me. I chewed on it for a while. I moved to a place with a tiny closet and an active culture of clothing consignment. I took a long hard look at what I had, and what I actually wore. I looked at selfies I had taken. Which colors made me feel good, and which didn't? Purple was out, pretty quickly. Any pastel. Brown. Blue, to my shock. Once I knew what I didn't like, I focused on what I did. What I had, at the end of it, was something like this:
I cannot tell you how easy it is, how joyful, to be able to glance at something and know in a moment that it won't work. To haphazardly pack a bag for a trip with the confidence that it'll probably be fine because everything I have mostly goes with everything else (and it is, on balance, still mostly black). It keeps me from making regrettable shopping choices (mostly), and means dressing in the morning, even for work, is always quick.
Which is great, you know. Clears up time for studying every single pastry in the coffee shop's window (even though I'm going to get a croissant).
Dog Thing
Mixed Media
good reads: In our last installment I mentioned the Bad Gays podcast; now I'm here to tell you I have also read the book and it was great. It retread some of the same territory as the podcast, but had a very clear thesis it was structured around so even the familiar figures felt fresh. Highly recommend if you're interested in the development of the modern homosexual identity and how it is inextricably entwined with colonialism. Speaking of gays (good), I read Unwritten Rules by K.D. Casey, about two baseball players, and Sailor's Delight by Rose Lerner, about a bookkeeper in love with the sailor whose accounts he oversees. I liked them both, but one of the protagonists in Unwritten Rules made me very anxious. I read Becky Chambers' A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, the second in her Monk & Robot series of novellas, and loved it. I would love to live inside of those books. Finally, I read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, about an injured detective who decides to solve a centuries-old mystery from his sickbed. Enjoyed it immensely.
good film: While I didn't embark on as determined a spooky watch this October as I did last year, I managed to get some good ones in, including repeated viewings of The Fog, which prompted my friend to make this unfortunately very accurate observation:
In addition to my beloved creepy piece of wood, I watched The Woman in Black (1989), The Innocents (1961), Haunted (1995), and Wait Until Dark (1967), which my mom told me when I was a teenager was the scariest movie she'd ever seen, and it remained enshrined in my mind as such from then on. It's definitely still very, very effective. As part of my older murder mystery watching, I finally got to Sleuth (1972), which is a truly wild movie. I had a fantastic time.
good tv: I've been watching a lot of good murder mystery tv, from all over the globe, so bear with me here. I watched: Un asunto privado (A Private Affair--trailer is in Spanish), which felt like a spiritual successor to Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Shetland, which I watched so quickly I dreamed in Scottish accents for a week, Recipes for Love and Murder, which is more about food than it is about mysteries but it is nevertheless very, very good, Unforgotten, which is about cold cases and Nicola Walker being strikingly beautiful, and lastly Karen Pirie, about a woman investigating a cold case reopened due to the interest of a true crime podcast. I loved it. In non-murders, I watched The Midnight Club, which I liked but wished it had delivered as thoroughly on the spookiness as it did on the sadness, and Homegrown, about an urban farmer in Atlanta who helps people convert their yards into food gardens.
good fics:
Natural Wonders by glimmerglanger. Clone Wars, Obi-Wan/Cody, Modern/Shifter AU. This is set primarily in Yellowstone Park, where Obi-Wan is a ranger and Cody is visiting while working as a wildlife photographer. Loved the setting and characterization, would have read many chapters more.
North of Everywhere by Dorinda. Shetland, Jimmy/Duncan, post-series 5. I jokingly referred to Shetland as the "sad dads show" while I was watching it, but it's not inaccurate: there are dads, they are sad. What if they were also together.
The King Said, Very Gravely by brigitttt. Clone Wars, Obi-Wan/Cody, M*A*S*H AU. This is a little thing, but it really captured me.
Lastly
I was recently in New York and went to the Guggenheim for the first time ever and was blown away, both by the space and the current exhibition, an Alex Katz retrospective. Katz's work is incredible in person and the Guggenheim is an incredible stage.