Simple Snake

Doing an outfit-post involves a lot of work for me. Without disclosing TG details, the process requires more effort than you guys have to invest. Lately work's drained my energy so I haven't had a chance to do one of these posts, which was making me blue. Today I knocked off work early to remedy that.

There's a piece I've been wanting to wear -- a blue, faux-snakeskin skirt I bought while thrifting last month with Patti. It's a fun pattern and I show a detail of it in the second photo.

After putting my stuff away, I looked at the pictures and realize the outfit has problems. It's shapeless and the top clashes a little with the skirt. But -- and this is a big but -- I had fun. I enjoyed myself. Indulging in playful activity puts a smile on my face. So the less-than-attractive outcome is okay. I'm not trying to impress anyone, just be happy. That's okay, isn't it?

Prom Ingenuity

A Long Island girl bought a prom gown at Lord & Taylor but, days before the event, learned one of her friends will wear the same dress. To avoid that fiasco, she went back to L&T and bought a simple blue gown -- and she painted flowers on it. The girl's name is Lily so, of course, she added lilies. That's her in the picture above.

People are impressed with Lily's project. She explains painting is a hobby of hers and she wants to be creative and save money.

I believe she did a good job. What do you think?

Canada's 150th Anniversary

Canada is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. (Canada Day is July 1st.)

There are many celebrations planned. The Toronto Blue Jays baseball team is wearing special uniforms. Tim Hortons is doing a popular coffee-cup contest. My favorite effort is KFC which, for the Summer, is re-naming itself K'efFC (pronounced the same).

Gender and... Coins?

As someone who's been mis-gendered my whole life, I pay careful attention to gender rules. It's surprising how deeply social edicts penetrate. Even areas where you don't expect gender rules to apply often have them -- with unspoken praise or criticism for meeting or violating the prescriptions.

Among a long list of experiences I could cite, let me relate one that happened last week. I was at Target buying a product and the cash-register rang up $12.02. I pulled a $10 bill and two singles out of my wallet; I announced to the cashier I have two cents and fished for pennies in the handful of coins in my front pocket.

What role could gender play in this scenario? None, I expected. But the cashier, a woman in her forties, was visibly taken aback. She looked at me and said, "I'm surprised you have coins. Men never carry change."

I tried to process her words. Men don't carry coins? What do they do with their change? When shopping, I always have a handful of coins in my pocket and use them for precisely this situation. Yes, I know women frequently have little coin-purses in their bags and helpfully pull them out to make purchases easier but I wasn't carrying a handbag, I wasn't using a coin-purse; I was merely doing what I thought all humans did in commerce regardless of gender. But to the cashier -- who interacts with customers all day long -- I am an outlier. A gender-bending pioneer with pennies. She didn't say her remark with condemnation; rather, she was simply expressing surprise.

Does my habit of carrying coins deserve comment? Is that how far gender has taken us?

Your thoughts?

Halston, Fashion Designer

I was looking for something to do yesterday so I rode my motorcycle to the Nassau County Museum of Art which has an in-depth retrospective on the life and work of famed fashion designer Roy Halston Frowick. Halston became so famous last century that he went by a single name (his middle), like Cher and Madonna.

What interests me about Halston is not his fashion designs but his role in society. In the Seventies, he was a celebrity who hung out at Studio 54 with close friends Liza Minelli, Bianca Jagger and Andy Warhol. Even more significant, in the Eighties he was the first haute couture designer to launch a line of low-priced clothes in a discount store (JC Penneys). That experiment was a failure but led to later efforts in the same direction by other designers. The clothing line he sold at JC Penneys, called Halston III, was attractive but prompted high-end stores like Bergdorf Goodman to drop him, fearing Halston's association with lower-class retailers would ruin their own elitist reputation.

Halston started out as a young gay boy in the Midwest whose seamstress mother taught him how to sew hats. He gathered attention for his creative hats which allowed him to move into the fashion industry. The pinnacle of his success was designing hats for Jackie Kennedy (Onassis) who wore his famous Pillbox Hat at JFK's 1961 inauguration.

Women stopped wearing hats in the Sixties so Halston moved to designing clothes. His designs were simple and elegant. There are several on display in these photos. The last two pictures show the inexpensive clothes he designed for JC Penney -- which appeal to me. Despite their low cost, they possess subtle style.

Halston was also known for being one of the first celebrities to license his name for other products (e.g., perfume). He is often associated with the synthetic fabric Ultrasuede.

Halston's longest relationship (16 years) was with a man who was working as a male prostitute. Halston died in 1990 from AIDS.

Do you recognize his name? What do you think of his designs?

Love and Art

I visited a local art museum today and saw a Halston exhibition I'll write about tomorrow. Until then, here's a picture of my favorite statue. It reaches my heart.

Men In Skirts

This Summer, the weather in France is hot. So hot that male bus-drivers want to wear shorts at work. Unfortunately, a dress-code rule for their employment forbids shorts. The drivers protested but to no avail.

So what did they choose to do? Wearing skirts! Skirts are permitted by the dress-code. Even though obviously intended for women, the rule doesn't limit skirts to women so they are technically permitted for anyone, male or female.

Here's the story. No word on whether the drivers are shaving their legs...  :-)

What do you think?

Another Reason To Love Canada!

Our compassionate neighbor to the north just passed a law protecting transgender people from discrimination and harm. It's described in this news article.

One might think this protection is so self-evident it ought to be law everywhere but you'd be surprised. Many U.S. states don't have it and neither does U.S. federal law. There are a few local laws here and there but, on the whole, transgender people in my country are subject to discrimination and harm without legal redress.

An important significance of laws like this are their cultural symbolism. This is what a Canadian legislator said: "Transgender and gender-diverse people deserve to know that they are welcome and accepted, embraced and protected, and that in Canada they are free to be their true selves."

Amen!

Defying Expectations

My whole life I've defied expectations. People make assumptions about me based on external appearances but their assumptions are wrong. It happened again today, in a different direction than usual.

Every motorcyclist will tell you we get approached by strangers in public. The encounters are usually pleasant and fall into two categories. Most common are older men who compliment your bike and tell you they rode in their youth. Their story usually ends with "...then I got married and my wife said I couldn't ride any more." These guys are wistful and sad.

The second group of strangers, frequently older women, want to scold you. They tell you that their neighbor's brother's kid got killed on a motorcycle and imply that such is your fate. Explaining the satisfying joy of motorcycle-riding to these people is a futile endeavor.

So I'm out on The Jolly Roger today, my fiery red sportbike. I pull into a parking lot and notice a kid in his twenties mesmerized by my bike. He gawks at my expensive gear and can't take his eyes off me. When I remove my helmet, he really wigs out. From ten feet away, he yells "Dude! You're old!"

I wasn't sure what he meant by that so I didn't react. He quickly turns apologetic and tries to explain himself. "I mean, that bike's got balls! I never expected you to be riding it." Okay, so it was seeing my grey hair that shocked him. He didn't expect to see a geezer like me piloting a motorcycle this sporty. I smiled and said, "You're only old when you choose to be old."

If I wanted to further surprise the kid, I could have told him I'm really a girl. But that would have caused his head to explode and I didn't want to clean pieces of his brain off the bike.

Life On Two Wheels

Heading out on an aimless motorcycle ride
relaxed yet spirited pace
into the night
on my poem of a bike
which pours my soul into the wind

Survival

Today is the last day for the Goethals Bridge which connects New York to New Jersey. The bridge, erected 89 years ago, is being torn down. Starting tomorrow, traffic will flow over a new bridge built next to the old one. The new crossing is the first bridge built in New York since 1931.

This development has personal significance to me. Fifteen years ago I almost died on the Goethals Bridge -- and I'm not exaggerating. Hit by a car while riding my motorcycle, I was thrown off my bike and ended up on the cold roadway with four broken ribs and a collapsed lung. As I lay on my back, I tried to breathe. I couldn't. I simply could not breathe. That condition seemed to last forever and I became increasingly alarmed at the fact that if I did not start breathing, it was going to be lights out. My mind focused with the intensity that comes when you face death up close.

Part of the reason I was in this accident was the bridge's poor design. It has two lanes each way with no shoulder. Traffic in the right lane is cramped by a waist-high concrete railing that offers no space for lateral movement.

I was riding home in the left lane after spending Thanksgiving in New Jersey. A young man in the right lane was speeding and suddenly realized his car was going going to rear-end and crash into the vehicle in front of him. Unable to veer right onto a shoulder, he veered left without looking. And I happened to be in that space on my motorcycle.

I spent a week in a Staten Island hospital and a month recovering at home. Fortunately I'm fully healed with no lingering physical effects.

I often think about what would have happened had I been unable to start breathing during my unplanned visit to the bridge's pavement. Instead of telling you this story, I would have been buried and quietly forgotten. Fifteen years ago blogs didn't exist and most of you who've met me here would not have ever known about me.

I'm happy to report that the new bridge has 12-foot shoulders, giving poor drivers a place to go when speeding and panicking.

Tim Hortons

Pop quiz -- Where am I?

Most of you know how fond I am of our neighbor to the north. I've visited Canada several times and plan to ride up there again next month to see Suzanne in Toronto.

Tim Hortons is a ubiquitous coffee-shop with thousands of locations throughout Canada. It is their Dunkin Donuts. Tim Hortons coffee has even entered the culture of the country, with customers ordering "Double Doubles" and everyone knowing what that means.

I'm not in Canada (yet). I discovered the single Tim Hortons coffee-shop on Long Island. It's tucked into a gas-station in Westbury. I'm here today on my way home from court to sample their wares.

Tim Hortons offers breakfast foods and baked goods but the star of their show is the coffee. It is excellent. The beans are mild like Dunkin Donuts but with much richer flavor. For those who prefer regular coffee to gourmet-blends (e.g., Starbucks), Tim Hortons' coffee is simply perfect.

While I'm only 15 minutes away from home, I feel like a Canadian right now. I'm rooting for a hockey team and plan to add an extension to my igloo.

Have you ever tried Tim Hortons' coffee?

NYC With A Friend

Riding into Manhattan yesterday, the view from my train window of the blue sky and white clouds was spectacular.

I went into the city to see Patti, a fashion blogger who lives in Florida but visits New York twice a year. It was my 5th time meeting her in person. We share a common BFF, the irresistible Suzanne.

After a light brunch, Patti and I went shopping at some well-curated urban thrift-stores. One was Housing Works, a charitable organization that helps people with AIDS and those who are homeless. I found a fun skirt there in a faux reptile-skin print. Its bright blue color telegraphs it as obviously fake while the animal-print is visually interesting. I'm going to build a fun outfit around it this week.

Coincidentally, we later went to a museum exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology on the subject of how nature influences fashion ("Force of Nature"). The pieces on display were thought-provoking. Art and fashion have looked to nature for hundreds of years. Leonardo daVinci once said that “those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above all masters, are laboring in vain.”

What did you do this weekend?

Ally Homemaker

I often dream of being a homemaker. It'll probably never happen but the idea is one of my fondest fantasies.

On two recent visits to Rosie's Vintage, I found pieces that suit the role -- an authentic vintage dress from the 1950's and a new retro-style kitchen apron. I love the feel and look of the dress. It captures the domestic style of that bygone era.

Because the dress is sheer, I needed to purchase a black slip and found one at Kohls. I actually welcomed that opportunity because slips were regularly worn by women of my mother's generation and symbolize the femininity I aspire to. Today, slips are rarely used as most clothes don't require them. Do you have any slips?

I like this outfit. Is there anything you'd recommend to enhance the domestic look? The cute heels are from Torrid.