a dozen white-ish shirts

 

The white shirt is the crockpot of clothing. You stick your body in there, season it with whatever accessories feel right (a blazer! a scarf! a statement necklace!), and simmer for 8–9 hours until at last you emerge a tender, juicy pork shoulder ready to be shredded and stuffed into tortillas for the next 5 days.

Some (organized, responsible, prepared) people use their crockpots once a week, regularly churning out delicious, low-maintenance, dependable meals that never disappoint. They then empty them and wash them in preparation for the next fabulous meal.

Other people use their crockpots once a month, and, rather than transfer their curried lentils into another container, they keep them in there, stewing on the countertop until they develop an ecosystem complex enough to have its own form of government.

This is a metaphor for a phenomenon in which all of my white shirts are dirty because I, a loathsome human ruled by sloth, wear them for a week straight and then never fucking wash them.

For example, in the process of cleaning out my closet I exhumed a beautiful white oxford shirt, perfect in every way save for a coffee stain around the collar.

“That’s a weird place to spill coffee,” I thought to myself, naively, before coming to the horrifying realization that the real culprit was continued, unmediated exposure to MY NECK SWEAT.

No more, I say!

2017 is the year I wash My Damn Clothes when they need washing. As a start, I’ve bought fancy non-chlorine bleach because nothing motivates me quite like buying hyper-specialized products—A special shout-out goes to Capitalism, for always working tirelessly to lighten the burdensome load of MONEY IN MY WALLET.

What is the state of your white shirts? If you answered “white,” how the fuck do you keep them that way?

Also, does anyone have a trick for cleaning out crockpots? They’re heavy and awkward and I really don’t want mine to turn into a terrarium again.

an exceptionally dope turbo suit

Oh, I’m sorry—don’t you know what a turbo suit is?

Allow me to explain.

For the first few moments of this post’s life it was not titled “an exceptionally dope turbo suit.” It started off as something that will probably feel more familiar: “an exceptionally dope cosby sweater.”

For reasons I shouldn’t need to explain, I felt super gross about continuing to refer to my favorite sweater ever by that name. So the next iteration this post’s title was “an exceptionally dope sexual predator sweater.” Alas, when I ran that title by my partner, he said it felt a bit insensitive, like calling a white tank top a “wife beater.” I decided to check if anyone had come up with an alternative in the months since Cosby’s (alleged) skeletons tumbled violently out of his closet like a macabre avalanche.

It turns out that an indie band formerly known as “Cosby Sweater” changed its name to “Turbo Suit.” It also turns out that turbo suit is a fuckin’ cool name for a garish frumpy sweater, so I’ve permanently incorporated it into my vocabulary and you should too! Go forth and spread the word! But first…

Behold my exceptionally dope turbo suit:

You’ve got to admire the color scheme. There’s black, navy, oxblood, jade, and the one that really brings it all together, a mysterious light orangey-brown that I would call puce if I didn’t already know that puce was a purplish brown.

[Important linguistic note: “Puce” is the French word for “flea.” The color apparently resembles the bloody stain left on a sheet after squishing a flea. Charming!]

Anyway, that unidentifiable orangey-brown happens to perfectly match the unidentifiable orangey-brown thread that stitches the world’s jeans together. I have yet to meet a pair of jeans that don’t make this sweater look awesome.

Do you have a turbo suit? Let me know what makes yours so great in the comments.

talking to my clothes

I have too many clothes. My closet looks like the return rack in a Target fitting room on Black Friday and it takes the full weight of my body to close my overstuffed drawers. And yet, dear reader, I have Nothing to Fucking Wear.

Fed up with this wildly consumerist paradox, I turned to the internet for guidance in decluttering my closet. An initial search yielded a long list of articles titled « # Steps to Declutter Your Closet », but I didn’t want steps. I wanted a philosophy. I wanted to change the way I looked at the world. Then I found the Konmari method which sounded foreign and mysterious enough pique my Western Curiosity.

Like many Ignorant White People I imagine that Asian People—having spent their whole lives keeping perfectly still while meditating upon a smooth stone at the center of a zen garden, presumedly—are more naturally attuned to discipline and serenity. Thus, Japanese organization consultant Marie Kondo represented for me the highest authority in bringing discipline and serenity to my closet.

Here’s how it works: Lay all of your clothes on the floor. Pick up each item one at a time and ask it if it sparks joy. If it does not, toss it or donate it. If it does, google how to fold it so it stands up by itself. At the end of the process you will be left with only the clothes that truly bring you joy, all standing more or less upright like an army of wilted origami swans.

By interrogating and methodically folding my wardrobe I learned some hard truths about the Shit I Hold Onto. Over half of my clothes did not bring me joy. Most of them were falling apart, uncomfortably sized, or made me feel so self-conscious I couldn’t concentrate on anything else during the day. By holding onto these items I was consistently and masochistically sucking the joy out of getting dressed:

Testament to a Hatred of Joy :
A Sampling of Clothing Items Found Stuffed in my Drawers/Piled at the Bottom of my Closet

• An ancient pair of Hanes underwear with a quarter-sized hole in the front crotch.
  One evening, I was reading in bed while sporting these beauties. My beloved fiancé, ever watchful, informed me that I had a some fuzz stuck to my underpants, and, ever helpful, attempted to pull out my pubes.
• A small collection of very tight polka-dot dress socks.
  The first time I pulled a pair these on I broke into a sweat from the effort of wrestling them up my shins. At the end of the day, when with Herculean effort I managed at last to remove them, my legs were covered with purplish polka dots and a band of bruising at mid-calf.
• An awkwardly shaped pair of leather oxfords.
  With each subsequent wear my pinky toes come closer to staging their own Shawshank Redemption. Their impressive progress is showcased in the silhouette of the shoe.
• A grey* cardigan.
  *Original color: mustard yellow

I ended up throwing out a full garbage bag of elbowless blouses, pants ravaged by the ardent friction of my inner thighs, pit-stained tees, and a mountain of 6-pack tributes to my unpredictable period. An additional bag of neglected impulse purchases is in the back of my van, awaiting a new adventure on racks at Goodwill.

When I look in my closet now, I actually smile. I see only my favorite clothes—the clothes I would routinely dig out of the laundry hamper and spray with Febreeze rather than consider dozens of clean alternatives. Oh joy!