The Devil Wears Prana

I knew nothing when I went for my first interview at the Daily Camera three years ago, and climbed up the metal stairs – the pathway to All Things Boulder.

I had never slept in a tent, intentionally sweat or gone more than 24 hours without showering.
I had never smelled patchouli. I thought dreadlocks were an urban myth created to frighten young girls into combing their hair.

I had never laid eyes on Iron Men or adventure racers. And here, every Boulder body was perfectly toned and rippling underneath sweat-wick-away shirts and Spandex. Even the faces in the newsroom looked like they’d stepped off an infomercial for the Chuck Norris home gym.

I’d heard from a friend of a friend – someone who’d once journeyed beyond our impossibly average Fort Collins city limits – that such an alternate universe existed under the pointy nose of the Flatirons. I’d heard it called the “Boulder Bubble,” and I was about to learn why.

Until now, my reality had revolved around designer clothes and mascara. I never wore sweat pants – not even to bed – and I reserved jeans only to tone down overly embellished Guess corsets.

The newsroom was dim and yellowy, accented by pillars of fading newspapers and old school-board agendas.

Interesting, I thought, but I meant it in the same way the Pearl Street contortionist is interesting: eye-catching and talented, but honestly, a little gross.

And intimidating. A chiseled body rolled past me, pushing a bicycle with tires still warm from the pavement. An editor was hammering on his keyboard, but hadn’t had the time to change out of his sweat-drenched Nike shirt. A reporter wearing a Prana yoga outfit conducted an interview while balancing on a blue fit ball, like she was floating.

I recognized columnist Clay Evans. He wore running shorts but no shoes – not phased by the 1,000 years of grime coating the old building’s floors. I wondered if he had run the nearby trails barefoot, too, and concluded he likely had.

I looked down at my freshly pressed designer pantsuit and pointy Jimmy Choos and wondered why I’d even bothered.

I’d heard about health reporter Lisa Marshall. I’d seen her mug in the paper, too.

I’d been hired – either for entertainment value or to fulfill some sort of refined-sugar-eating, non-athlete quota – and several years later moved into the features department. Marshall’s territory.

One day, she stopped by my desk wearing tiny running shorts and a sleeveless top.

“Ai-mee,” she said, eyeing the bag of M&Ms and Diet Coke that represented my breakfast, lunch and dinner. “I’m heading up to Mount Sanitas. What’s your favorite trail up there?”

Blank. Completely and totally blank. Mount what? I stammered for a moment, before answering, “Uh, well, I like the long trail. You know, the hardest one.”

She stared at me and shifted between her perfectly chiseled legs. Then a nod and a smile. Apparently that was the right answer. Maybe I had a chance in this city, after all.
Inspired, I decided to get in a little exercise.

I needed another Diet Coke, and it was a good five-minute trek to the vending machine.

I straightened my black-and-white striped strapless top and set out on my matching stilettos, which I justified buying from an overpriced boutique in the Dominican Republic because their brand was “Aimee’s.”

As I turned the corner, I felt eyes on my outfit. It was Sue Deans, the Camera’s editor, known for her intense blue gaze and blond hair. I’d recently dyed my blond locks dark brown. Hair dye – in Boulder! So unnatural. What was I thinking?

Deans also was known for the rare ability to balance femininity, professionalism and Boulder-worthy healthiness. She wore a long-sleeved black cardigan that made my fully exposed shoulders feel wanton.

“Wow, don’t you look trendy?” she said.

She was smiling. I thought I felt a wave of acceptance.

But then, “Have you seen ‘The Devil Wears Prada?’ Meryl Streep is great, and her outfits are just fabulous in that movie. Very classy.”

That’s when I realized she probably meant I looked “trendy” in a childish, Forever 21 kind of way.

The natural-blond beauty continued talking over her (clothed) shoulder as she walked away.

“Well, you should really see it,” she said. “And Ai-mee, could you get me a Pellegrino while you’re in the break room? That’s all.”

Photo by Flickr user TheImageGroup.

My dad: Geek chic

6/15/2006

My dad doesn’t wear Armani.

He never has and never will wear leather pants or silk anything. He likely thinks chenille is a type of meat, like veal, but from France.

But my dad is fashionable in his own right. He wrote the book on IT style.

To people who interact with humans – like face-to-face and not through flashing Instant Messaging screens and virtual meetings – “IT style” is an oxymoron. But there are actually fairly developed standards on how to rock men’s high-tech geek chic.

My dad calls it “Post-50 High-Tech Crony” style, aka P50HTC. I have no idea what that means, but I figure that’s because I studied liberal arts.

Wardrobe basics include slip-on loafers, jeans and polo shirts, preferably from Sam’s Club, located between the 26 pounds of bacon and 8-gallon tub of horseradish sauce.

Want to wear tall white socks with your sandals? Go ahead. The rules of the street don’t apply.

Virtually anything’s a go in the maze of cubicles at an Agilent or Texas Instruments office. You’ll find everything from shaven heads to man ponytails, sunglasses to pop-bottle glasses.

Cleanliness is optional.

“The operative concept is comfort, pure and simple,” my dad says.

He adds because human interaction is rare, “business casual” means “wear whatever you want and back up your egos by writing complex code, managing impossible projects and even more impossible workloads.”

He compiled the following questions to help you build an appropriate P50HTC outfit:
1.) Is it comfortable? (Answer must be yes.)
2.) Is it functional? (Ditto above.)
3.) Can you wear it multiple days in a row? (This is helpful on business trips.)
4.) Does it easily show dirt? (Desired answer here is no, but can be traded off for either above three answers.)
5.) Is it cheap? (Should be yes, but balanced by overpriced camping/outdoor clothing for the weekends.)
6.) Will people know what you do by looking at the way you are dressed? (Should answer no. You could be either a custodian or software engineer.)

Tattoos also are fine, despite the naggings from your sixth-grade teacher that “no one will ever hire you with a flaming poodle on your left shoulder.”

My dad has a tattoo on his arm (not a flaming poodle, although that’d be cool). My uber-conservative mom has one on each ankle. I have a hip/buttical region tat of a fleur-de-lis that matches my mom’s, aunt’s, sis-in-law’s and 70-something-year-old grandma’s.

More than a third of all 18-to-29 year-old Americans sports a tattoo, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Twenty-four percent of all 18-to-50 year-olds do. And that doesn’t even count 70-year-olds.

Out of nowhere last week I decided I wanted to get a tattoo of a cross on my left wrist. I thought it seemed unique. Until I looked online and found links to wrist tats on celebrities such as Christina Aguilera, Pink, Aaliyah and, worst of all, Lindsay Lohan.

Have I been subliminally influenced by pop culture? Am I unknowingly imitating celebrities? Because otherwise, I don’t know where my idea came from.

Unless – yes, that’s it. I think a data-warehouse manager at my dad’s office has a wrist tat. A flaming poodle or something.

I have been subliminally inspired by geek chic.

Photo by Flickr user Rocío Lara.

Ball and chain

I need to break up with my handbag. We’ve been together way too long, and he’s starting to smother me.

(Yes, my handbag is a “he.” Everything I own is a “he,” as to ensure I am always the Ultimate Feminine.)

Said handbag is sexy and complimentary, both tan and black, so he matches everything I wear. He is tough, with silver studs and a chain strap that is deliciously chilly on my shoulder when I’m walking down the sweltering Pearl Street Mall.

I was initially attracted to his fun, urban attitude (made by Rocawear) – a slight gaudiness I find imperative for any worthy accessory this season.

But I have outgrown him. Literally. I can’t zip him anymore, so when I accidentally drop or knock him over, a tsunami of coins, lip glosses, receipts, earrings and iPod accessories rages forth.

I would have to give up a lot to make this relationship work. He is cramping my ways. Stifling me.

Plus, we’ve been monogamous for about two months, a record uncomfortably outside of my normal faithless ways. I’m an accessory-hopper. A new bag every week. Nay, every night. I am a fashion rolling stone, and I cannot be tethered.

No more. I’m ending this right now.

Photo by Flickr user eightfivezero.

Daylight is putting a cramp in my style

It’s hopeless to look fashionable when you hate mornings as much as I do.

I’ve never woken up feeling rejuvenated or even remotely joyful. My mom used to joke that I have no internal alarm clock. Like some twisted Newton’s Law of Sleep: If I am at rest, I will stay at rest unless acted upon by some outside force. I know you won’t believe me, but I promise after New Year’s 2000, I slept until late Jan. 3.

I am a night-showerer. Back in the day of poufy bangs, I used to do my hair before bed and sleep in a night cap. Everything I do is to maximize the amount of time I can hit snooze in the morning.
And even then, while lying there despising every ounce of sunlight dripping through my blinds, I come up with brilliant ways to compress my morning routine: I can do my mascara in the car (even though most eye injuries are wand-related). Who needs breakfast? Ponytails are cute. My dog can hold it nine more hours while I’m at work; he already held it through the night. Heck, I can hold it, too.

As a little girl, I used to sleep in the clothes I wanted to wear the next day. And by “little girl,” I mean intermittently throughout college. And maybe on Tuesday.

My mom did uncover one magic way to crack my eyelids without receiving my fist to her jaw. She would peek through my bedroom door and remind me of my new jelly shoes or banana clip (we’re back in the day, here, folks), and I would feel a flicker of excitement.

Almost enough to drag me out of bed. Almost.

Photo by Flickr user ParanoidMonk.

Brittany: Beturn, the dark side of shopping

I have three white dresses, a black gown and a jacket that I didn’t really want and certainly couldn’t afford, but I now own.

You see, I tried — unsuccessfully — to join the cult of the beturners, folks who buy something with the explicit intention of using it one time and returning it. It’s part stealing, part retail-borrowing, and pure evil. We all know about beturning, but no one likes to talk about it.

The five flaws with beturning, as well as the barriers that keeps me safe from its tempting grasp, are as follows:

1. You cannot lose the receipt. (Bam, I am already doomed.)

2. You cannot squirt spaghetti sauce/cranberry juice/red wine on, say, your white dress(es).

3. You have to be willing to wear your clothes with itchy tags grinding on your armpits, and be willing to slither away in shame when someone sees said tags.

4. You must be versed in every store’s specific return policies. Remember this one. It will come into play when we talk about the “beturn block.”

5. You have to have no soul.

The only exception to No. 5 is the what I call the hurried beturn. You’re scrambling for an outfit because you are too important and busy to set aside proper shopping time, or you are a procrastinator. So you grab the first five things to try on at home, or in the car on your way to the fundraiser, and you plan on returning the four reject outfits.

That is how my boyfriend ended up with three pairs of black pants and four white button-ups. Late for fundraiser. What receipts?

I told him he should get a job as a waiter to pay for the unneeded items; after all, he’s now got the closet for it.

Some stores have more relaxed policies than others. For example, according to urban myth, you can beturn anything at Wal-Mart.

Here are three real-life examples of the Worst Beturns In History, Ever:

3. The hoses. It was the Fourth of July, and we wanted to fill up water balloons in the park. But parks don’t have spigots. So my friend bought about 25 garden hoses, hooked them together and attached them to the spigot at her house. She then carried the hose chain through the neighborhood, across busy streets and to the park. As the tale goes, when she beturned them, they were dripping water and were covered in fresh tire tracks. Wal-Mart didn’t flinch.

2. The carpet cleaner. Judy (name changed to protect the guilty) had a carpet cleaner. Her carpet cleaner quit working, but she had thrown the box away. So she bought another carpet cleaner. She put the old carpet cleaner in the new box, and used the new receipt to beturn it. Wal-Mart didn’t flinch.

1. The snake. I can’t bring myself to tell this story in full sentences, so here goes my best staccato effort. Toilet. Clogged. Home Depot. Plumber’s snake, aka electric eel. Unclogged. Snake in a box. Snake back on the shelf. Poor Home Depot.

There is yet another kind of beturning: the beturn block.

Brittany was checking out at Forever 21 when she noticed the sales associate had accidentally scanned a nearby yellow striped shirt and placed it in Brittany’s bag.

“Oh, that shirt wasn’t mine,” Brittany explained.

She was shocked by the associate’s response: “Yes, it was. It was in your pile.”

Brittany explained that it must have already been on the counter or somehow got into the mix, but she really did not want it. The woman said, “It was in your pile.” The fight raged on.
“No. I don’t want it. It’s ugly and not even my size.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but we don’t take returns.”

“What? This is not a return. I never wanted it.”

“We don’t take returns, ma’am.”

“Let me see your manager.”

Manager: “What is the problem?”

“She accidentally charged me for this shirt that I don’t want.”

“Well, our computers cannot return anything. Sorry.”

I suggested Brittany just beturn the shirt to Wal-Mart. Even with Forever 21 tags and no receipt, I’m sure the Mart would take it. I mean, this one wasn’t even run over or dunked in a toilet. It was Wal-Mart’s turn to benefit.

Photo by Flickr user gandhiji40.

Sharing makes friends

I am wearing Lisa’s black rocker jeans.

I borrowed them this weekend, which means I claim stake on them for at least another two weeks. It’s OK. Lisa has my white fur jacket, so we’re even.

And anyway, Molly has my jeans.

It’s amusing to watch the circulation of clothing among siblings and close friends — as long as those friends are not only children. Only children, raised without the constant threat of others in their closet, don’t understand the fluidity of possessions.

My mom had an at-home daycare, so I never owned anything. Clothes were constantly ebbing and flowing out of and into my closet; a wardrobe wave. So it’s a bit ill-fitting that two of my best friends today are only children.

I liked Brittany’s necklace, so I put it on. I would have probably worn it five times and returned it, naturally shedding five or six other accessories all over her apartment in the meantime. But when she saw me wearing her necklace, she tilted her ear to one side, like a dog trying to decipher a conversation but only recognizing one word. She knew I was not being deceptive or mean, but why was I jacking her stuff?

Loss is freedom. That’s what I tried to explain to her. And friend-borrowing is implied consensus; no contract or prenup necessary. In other words, as her best friend, her stuff is my stuff is her stuff. By letting go of what we have, we both end up with double. This extends beyond necklaces and into life in general.

Regardless of whether it comes back in one piece, the eventual return is what distinguishes borrowing from stealing, and anyway, it is impossible for friends or sisters to steal from each other due to the Law of Circulatory Clothing, which states, “Let she whose closet is without borrowed objects cast the first stone.”

My entire trunk is packed with O.P.P. (other people’s possessions) — some they forgot, some I borrowed. The exact means of acquisition is irrelevant. Instead, we live by klothing karma: For every dress I lend or lose, I will eventually acquire another. I consider my trunk an extended, mobile closet. I occasionally use the stuff — jackets, skirts, aprons, wigs, a blender (yes, Vanessa, I still have your blender) — but keep it on hand in case I run into that friend and either of us remembers that I have the item.

But be careful with your boundaries. Friendship or blood borrowing is not the same as neighbor or coworker borrowing.

While growing up, I had a neighbor who was a habitual borrower, driven by envy but trapped by cheapness. Whenever my family got something new — a car, trash can, lawn mower, garden spade or fishing pole — the dude asked if he could borrow it.

In this case, he should have just bought his own tent poles. His addiction to borrowing drove a wedge (or spade) through what sliver of fellowship he ever had with my dad. Taken to the extreme, you could probably borrow everything for life, never making purchases if you did it right.

Hmm, isn’t that the same concept of our credit-hungry society?

Photo by Flickr user Ed Yourdon.

Lisa: Step up

Napoleon once said there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

It must have been an Irish step.

My friend Lisa was an Irish step dancer for nine years. So obviously, with it being St. Patrick’s Day Week Month — yes, that’s how we Irish celebrate it (I am 0.004 percent Irish so I have deep pride) — I needed Lisa to teach me a jig.

Turns out, there’s a lot more to Riverdancing than just stomping, kicking with a pointed toe and bouncing your overcurled hair.

There’s also velvet. Oh, the velvet.

Yes, Irish dresses were obviously designed on a dare: (said with accent of Brad Pitt in “Snatch”)
“I double dag dare you to move your bottom half as fast as possible while not moving your top half whatsoever — in a 40-pound sweaty velvet dress.”

With a cape. And rhinestones, satin embroidery and copper lame — as in “fabric woven with metallic threads,” and also as in “pathetically lacking” and, heck, probably also as in “drunk and unfit for service” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/). Then, in the middle of the dress: an embroidered design featuring an Irish dude smoking a doobie. With a fish.

I couldn’t even make this up if I were the dude smoking a doobie with a fish; this is Lisa’s competition dress.

Bridging the seemingly ridiculous back to the sublime was a little research. I learned the costumes evolved from women wearing their “Sunday best.” And the fish smoker represents an ancient legend of “The Salmon of Knowledge.” Although I couldn’t find any explanation for the joint; must have been embroidered in Boulder.

Still, a fly-by understanding of the Irish heritage did not help my feet during my fly-by step lesson. So, unwilling to wear velvet, ever, tradition notwithstanding, I needed another costume to compensate for my slow and mostly French feet.

That’s when I found Derailed Ink, http://www.derailedink.com/. This T-shirt line, designed by two Fairview High School grads, began after the economy “derailed” their lives, per the name. But instead of getting run over, Rob Bell and John McCaskill used the momentum to carve a new path.

If you went to a home Broncos game last season, you know them. They’re those loud, hyper and hilarious characters hawking T-shirts outside the stadium. They probably taunted you. You probably bought a shirt.

Because the shirts are legitimately cool. Much better than wearing the same generic jersey as every other 12-year-old and gangsta in the state. Bell, a contemporary artist, calls Derailed’s designs “instant vintage” or “retro nouveau,” the kind of shirts you could only find at Saver’s, except these are new and don’t smell like moth balls. The “Eddie Royal with Cheese” and “What would JC do?” (as in Jay Cutler, to which the proper response is “Throw an interception”) shirts even boast the original Bronco orange that I totally think the team should revert back to.

But before my boyfriend gets too excited that I am using the “f” word (football), here’s really why I dig Derailed Ink: Their fashion line — including an Irish “Lucky Charms Make You Fly” design.

The tees ($20 each) are all locally made and printed. Plus, they’re made from that soft, ultra thin cotton — much more ideal than velvet for Irish stepping. Or stomping and clomping, as it were.

Derailed Ink, available online and at Boulder’s Buffalo Exchange, also sells a shirt proclaiming, “It’s not the (the other “f” word in gerund form) ’80s.”

Which is true.

It’s the (f-word) ’90s. Fashion leaders across the world are resuscitating fluorescents, grunge, flannel, Docs and sleeveless sweatshirts.

My friend Brittany hates St. Patrick’s Day because of “all of that loud clapping and shouting.” But she does love her fluorescents.

In fact, her first fashion memory was of her fluorescent pink, orange and green swimming suit. She wore it everywhere: to church, school and, oh yeah, swimming, and one day, to the lake with her mom and her Snoopy fishing pole. That’s when Brittany’s mom read something horrifying in the Detroit paper.

“Fluorescents are out, dear.”

Initially, Brittany wanted to cry. But instead, she retorted, “So? I’m wearing them anyway,” and she did, until they resurfaced 15 years later. Granted, at the time, she had worn her fluorescent suit so much that it was actually pastel and fuzzy.

But still. That was the day Brittany learned the most important fashion lesson of all, incidentally another quote about the “ridiculous,” by Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. And my justification for shunning stinky velvet dress in lieu of a breathable tee.

The quote: “People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.”

Instead of step shoes this weekend, I’ll be stomping in my Docs. Celebrating the circle of fashion, and the Salmon of the Sublime and Ridiculous.