Tag Archives: clothes

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. People in large groups. Concerts are one of the very few times I’ll concede to intentionally heading out into a crowed place. In just about every other endeavor, I make efforts to avoid finding myself in that situation. As Agent Kay well knew, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.” The sheer density of people in large venues makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I’ll overcome it given enough motivation, but I’ll never manage to be entirely comfortable with it. 

2. Pope Francis. According to a news report I read, “Pope Francis praised Indonesians on Wednesday for their large families and suggested that people in other countries are choosing to have pets rather than bring up children.” That’s fine, but Jesus Christ there are now more than 8 billion people on the planet already. How can someone with such reach and influence honestly believe that the solution to any of the current problems facing the planet is to throw more people into the mix. The world population has grown by one billion people in the last 14 years, and you can see the hash we’ve made of that. Maybe, even with the words of the Holy Father to the contrary, it’s time we look at trying something else, because just throwing more bodies at our problems clearly isn’t getting the job done.

3. Clothes shopping. One of the many “fun” facts about weight loss is that clothes I was wearing at the beginning of this past spring no longer fit. Coats, sweatshirts, sweaters, long sleeve shirts of all varieties – not one in ten winter/cool weather things in my closet come close to fitting properly. I’m attempting to rectify that through online shopping, but my house has mostly become a waypoint for clothing as I shuffle it from a business’s shipping office back to their receiving desk in hopes that a refund may eventually be applied. Nothing fucking fits right, sizes make no sense, and I’m once again sick to death of shopping. I honestly have no idea how anyone has a good time with this process.

One thirty down and I have some thoughts…

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It’s been just about a year since I made the conscious decision to get my weight down towards something that wouldn’t trigger such a serious lecture every time I walked into a doctor’s office. Realizing that I was, in fact, both destructible and well past the demographic definition of middle-age gave me a level of motivation I’d never had before. Score one for the motivating power of fear and self-preservation. 

In any case, dropping 130 pounds over the last year hasn’t exactly been an adventure. I’m agitated every day about the foods – and lifestyle – I had to give up in order to achieve what would be easy to assume was purely a vanity exercise. I won’t pretend I don’t have my vanities, but none of them have ever been tied to my appearance, which is probably for the best.

I’m sure when I wander back to my doctor for my next scheduled checkup, he’ll make all the appropriate approving noises. My most recent bloodwork came back with significantly marked improvements over its historic baseline. Even if we haven’t gotten to the root causes of what was causing my heart to ramp up to a sprint of its own accord, it’s hard to argue against my innards being healthier than they were a year ago. 

What no one mentioned as they encouraged me through this process, though, was all the minor annoyances that would accompany this process. I just did my second cull of the clothes hanging in my closet and came to the unhappy realization that I only have eight shirts and two pair of pants that fit now. The rest – some of my favorite shirts mind you – are now comically oversized on my new frame. 

I’m going to have to take some time during this little Independence Week vacation for clothes shopping. I spent time doing that already this spring. This means I’ve spent more time shopping for clothes in the last three months than I have in the last three years. In fact, it will probably account for more time than I’ve spent shopping in the last decade.

I used to know the brands I liked and the appropriate sizes. It was easy enough finding them online and reordering as needed. Now, every damned shirt is a roll of the dice. It’s an enormous pain in the ass and feels a little bit like adding insult to injury. Sure, I’ll do it because wandering around naked is frowned upon by western civilization (and winter is coming), but there’s no power in heaven or earth than can make me enjoy the process. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Failure to plan. I’ve rented you the hall. I’ve provided the stage. I’ve laid on the cameras and the furniture. I’ve blocked off all the time in the world for people to rehearse, dry run, and generally get to feel comfortable with their part. What I can’t make people do, of course, is actually show up and do any of those things. Mostly I put in the effort because I want people to be successful – or at least I want to set the conditions for their success. What I’ll be intensely intolerant of, however, is when those same people who have displayed conspicuous indifference in planning find themselves in a panic five minutes before things go live next week… Because that’s almost inevitable while also being nearly 100% avoidable.

2. Work clothes. Having spent the majority of the last two years working from home, it hasn’t been necessary to keep much in the way of a “work” wardrobe. I mean mine almost exclusively consists of khakis and polos, anyway, but that’s all stuff I’d wear day-to-day in my real life. After two years of little exposure to the general public some, perhaps most of it, is starting to look a little tatty around the edges. That’s an issue I hadn’t noticed until I realized I needed something more or less presentable for five days this week instead of my normal one or two. If you think the idea of needing to buy clothes specifically so I can drive 40 minutes to sit in a cubicle isn’t grinding my gears, you must be new here.

3. The end of April. The back half of April is my hardest two weeks of the year. The only thing holding my temper just barely in check is not wanting to be unemployed. Stress is up because I’m supposed to be delivering a product that no one else gives a shit about until the day it goes live. My blood pressure is through the roof. I can track it year over year and it consistently spikes during these two weeks. I’m eating like shit, tossing and turning through the night, and generally just not taking the time to do the normal things that more or less keep me on an even keel the rest of the year. All in all, it’s not a great time when your general outlook is often described in such glowing terms as “bleak” and “kind of dark” on the good days.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Over sensitive douchenozzels. Many documents we pass around require some kind of specific coversheet. For years now, hanging on the back wall of all the cubes I’ve inhabited are fictitious versions of these covers, identifying them as coversheets for information that is Stupid, Futile, Bullshit, etc. In the wake of morale hitting rock bottom and starting to dig, it seems that those little bits of paper have now been adjudicated as being “not funny and inappropriate.” I wish more people understood sarcasm. I also wish people were less thin-skinned. Most of all, I wish I didn’t spend five days a week in the company of at least one cowardly douchnozzle whose identity is unknown, because as of this week I know there’s at least one person in that room who can’t be trusted.

2. Cicadas. I found the first evidence of cicadas on the back porch this very morning. The two things that stick with me from the last round of these little beasts being above ground is the unholy amount of noise they generate and a particular chocolate lab who thought they were treats in the wing called forth just for her indulgence. Of course I deny these dogs almost nothing, but watching them chow down on a yard full of bugs is just a bridge too far. I wonder if somewhere on the dark web someone is selling a can of DDT. It would be awfully tempting if I thought that would do the trick.

3. Shopping for clothing. I don’t know that there’s a word in the English language strong enough to describe just how much I hate clothes shopping for myself. It ranks well below tagging along while other people shop for clothes, if that tells you anything about where it falls on the list. There was a time when I would just force myself to physically go to the store and do it. Now, mostly I just go to the closet, find the brand and size of something I have and already like and then order the exact same thing (or as close to it as is currently available) in three or four different colors. I don’t suppose I’ll ever need to wonder why my basic wardrobe hasn’t much evolved since the late 1990s. Still, it’s better than leaving the house for clothing.

Cant type… cat on keyboard…

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Before I get to the meat of today’s post I should note that we’ve reached the part of the journey through kittenhood where Hershel seems to want to either be on top of the keyboard or is trying to lacerate my fingers while I’m typing. In any case this situation does not lead towards unbridled happiness for either of us. It’s an awfully good thing that small animals are so damned adorable during this phase of life. If they weren’t, I have no earthy idea why we’d tolerate them… but that’s not really the point.

Fortunately, I was able to keep the keyboard clear long enough to do a bit of post Thanksgiving shopping. If I accomplish nothing else over the next few days I’m expecting a shipment of my favored formerly-made-in-England footwear to show up on my doorstep. I wore a standard part of eight-hole Doc Martens all through college and my attempt at a teaching career. A little paste wax and they were good as new for year after year. I changed it up a bit when I went all corporate and switched over to the more “professional” looking oxfords. Still, they were the Made in England accept no substitutes real deal. If I though I could get away with wearing my black “weekend” boots with the parade of khaki pants and polo shirts that are my wardrobe I’d do it in a second… but even my fashion sensibilities have their limits.

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to make brown boots in England anymore, but they make a pretty good replica of the boot I wore for years somewhere in Asia now. It still has 8 eyes. I’m willing to bet it will still fit my foot like the proverbial glove. More importantly I’ve reached an age where I don’t give a damn if Aztec brown combat boots are considered office attire or not. This long time enthusiast is going back to his roots with a pair of English boots, designed by a German seventy or so years ago, and manufactured in China.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Protocol. Apparently over the last week we’ve had royalty in America. The reason I know this is because on several occasions, I ran across articles written to advise my countrymen on the proper manner of bowing before the future English sovereign and his future queen. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Brits – their television, their sense of humor, and yes, even their quaint old fashioned notions of nobility… but here in the States, we’re citizens rather than subjects. On points of procedure for when it’s appropriate for an American to bow to the future monarchs of a foreign power, even one with whom we have a long and special relationship, the correct answer is simply “it isn’t.” We’re Americans. We don’t dip our colors and we don’t bow to royalty (or anyone else for that matter).

2. Sweats. In conversation many months ago a friend was shocked when I mentioned something about not having worn sweat pants since some time in the George H. W. Bush administration. She was shocked – possibly appalled – at my lack of concern for issues of comfort. In an effort to show that I do occasionally try something new, I picked up a pair recently and was duly impressed by their level of comfort compared to my usual Wrangler jeans. I supposed the biggest problem is I’m not exactly the type to go through the day just lounging about. Generally I’m doing something even if never leaving the confines of historic Rental Casa de Jeff. My real problem was what the hell you’re supposed to do with all the ephemera that usually ends up in my pockets – a pen knife, my phone, keys, etc. Sure, they were plenty comfortable, but I found myself trying to reach into pockets that weren’t there for objects that over the course of the day ended up scattered all over the house. As far as I’m concerned that level of inconvenience is too high a price to pay for a stretchier pair of pants.

3. The 113th Congress. The honorable members of the House of Representatives once again are spending the dying hours of a continuing resolution haggling over what amounts to peanuts in terms of the federal budgetary process. While no one is seriously talking about another shut down at midnight tonight it’s a possibility at the outside if they can’t find their way clear to passing a CR to cover the next few days while they rehash the omnibus spending bill before them. That they finish this way sums up the totality of this Congress nicely – even unto the end they’re collectively incapable of exercising one of the very few responsibilities entrusted to them in the letter of the Constitution. How very typical. Asshats, one and all.

Losing…

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If there’s a silver lining to spending a big part of the day with a debilitating stomach ache, it’s that it has made a heroic contribution to my ongoing weight loss campaign and put me over the 50 lbs lost mark. I still can’t say that I feel any different or have magically found more energy, but really I suppose all that is secondary to the whole not dropping dead thing.

I’ve also found that I’ve reached the point in this experience where some new clothes are going to be necessary… and my viceral dislike of shopping in almost any form has me thinking that maybe adding a few pounds back may not be so bad after all. Certainly better than a forced march through the mall. There’s a fair chance that this weekend I’ll just go to go to Home Depot and buy a leather punch to keep adjusting my belt than I am to go to Macy’s for new pants. I’m considering it pain avoidance behavior.