Style With a Smile

There exist bathrooms that have a urinal and a traditional toilet. They are men's restrooms and they lock and they are intended for use by only one person at a time. And yet, in spite of this, it isn't uncommon to see pee splashed across the seat of the toilet. I think this says a lot about human behavior. Maybe peeing in urinals just isn't some dudes' style.

Style is an unusual thing. As with many other things in life, there is blatant borrowing, if not complete emulation, but there is also much that is subconsciously adopted. One such element for me is wearing different colors of the same shoe. I've been doing this since about 2008 off and on, and while it primarily applied to my running shoes, it happens that I wear my running shoes sometimes when not running. But that wasn't the first time I'd seen this. Nike offered two-tone spikes in the late 90s, called the Jasari, a similar, but not identical concept.

Les Goblet went one further in the fall of 1998, wearing two different colors of Adidas trainers. Les Goblet is not his real name, but Les Goblet is a real person. Speaking to his shoes, I believe one was red, and one was blue. I can't recall the name of the shoe, rare for me, but I do remember that a teammate of mine had the same shoe in yellow. Why do I remember Les Goblet's name? Was it his unremarkable personal best in the 800m of something near two-minutes, his I'm-not-trying-but-I'm-totally-trying-at-trying-not-to-try archetype (is that even broad enough to be an archetype), or his shoes? I think it was none of them. I just happen to remember a lot of insignificant details. As for insignificant details I don't think Les Goblet would remember me. That's okay, I was shit at running then, and I was a sophomore while he was a senior at a nearby school.

But Les' shoes. Les is more sometimes. I thought that was a cool idea. I wanted to emulate it, and if I were ever asked, I like to think I would have given credit to Les, even though the name would mean nothing to most. But it took me a decade to do it, and when folks ask now, I never bring up Les, even though I'm known to be odd enough that inclusion of this largely superfluous detail might be expected.

In my years of doing this, I've received plenty of looks, commentary, and feedback, and strangely it has all been positive. Just as strangely I've not seen anyone else emulate it, but I've heard it's out there, as one my coworkers said recently he saw a kid wearing mismatched Jordan's in a neighborhood you would expect to see this kind of behavior. My neighborhood is also one where you would expect to see this kind of behavior. And it would be in the spirit of both hoods to want to stop doing something because someone else started.

That's dumb.  

It's too bad that the Emperor's new damn clothes has taught us nothing, and we can't live free of the perception of idiots. But then, it's my perception that they're idiots. And since this is growing tangential and at the risk of lines not directly touching, let's just agree not to pee on toilet seats and remember that if anyone says they're the authority on something, they aren't.

Anyway, I wonder what kind of shoes Les is wearing these days.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Seeing as how I have lived in the same neighborhood for nearing the start of my third year, one can forget about what might seem a touch ridiculous in other parts. Case in point: I left my apartment this evening carrying a handful of grapes — a bunch actually. This seemed perfectly normal as I wanted a snack for while I walked but then, as I sighted the man with a parrot on his shoulder around the corner, I realized that eating a bunch of grapes while you walk may, in fact, be vaguely outside the norm. Still, I would expect it lies closer to normal than having a parrot on your shoulder.

I've noted before that any sort of eating while one walks is considered rather strange behavior. Most people, it seems, sit down to eat. Me though, unless I have plans to dine with someone, I tend to feel that eating is more of an act to fill a void in energy before going to the next activity. I enjoy eating, I really do but, considering I'm often running late, if I can combine any activities, I'm doing myself a big favor.

Moving on in the extremely linear fashion that I tend to adopt in here, I want to take the time to post this video of Beth Stelling from last night's Conan O'Brien show. Beth is a person I got to know a little in my forays into comedy in Chicago and she's a real delight. Aside from actually being funny, she's also really nice and pleasant to spend time — even the limited time I've spent — with. Since I'm generally griping about nonsense on here, I want to be sure I'm balancing it with representing when good people do things well. So congrats to Beth Stelling, I'll always root more for the nice folks.

Speaking of nice folks, on the way to work this morning, a little girl in the backseat of a Volvo station wagon stared at me as I waited to cross the street so I gave her a big smile and a thumbs up. I realized this was not the most standard of responses, but it was enough for the kid. Thanks kid, for being one of those simple restorative dailies. I pulled the same on a little girl in a stroller walking home. For whatever reason, when kids smile at me, I get more excited than when adults to. I think their innocence translates to a genuine sense that I might not be an asshole. But also their innocence might make their judgment foolhardy!

Shit, other than that, I'm getting excited for the Olympics to kick off. I admit, I'd be happier if no one were on drugs, but there are so many weird chemicals in everything we eat and touch that many of us are turning out unwitting mutants...I just wish that for me it meant I was impervious to injury instead of being impervious to being impervious to injury!

Play on playas.