Loner Chronicles

As I get older I'm more intrigued by the direction of clothing. As a teenager in 2004 I lived in SoCal where style was distinct, I was in a town where hoodies, sweats and solid colors had higher value in terms of social currency. Being slightly weird it was never my look, this athletic, 90s leftover aesthetic. Alternately I was not into the all black metal studded look that the "rocker" kids had either. I was a loner and couldn't subscribe to any one typecast, so ultimately I dressed strange. I wore a mishmash of hand drawn graphic t-shirts, half sewn dresses; I turned old boring clothes into oddities of cut up strips, knotted pieces that I could only figure out how to put on once or twice. I drew from a lot of places and people, striving to recreate things that I couldn't buy in stores but one thing always sticks out in my mind as an item of clothing I wore well before it became the staple we now know: skinny jeans. In highschool yo could buy tight jeans, but by tight I mean something different. These were the kind of pants that were tight around the hips and ass, lowriders and straight legs that were quite literally a straight leg. They fit and they were fine, but I was always looking for that painted on feeling that you could only get from leather pants. Around this time there was this group of skaters at my school whom were easily recognized by their clothes. I had heard from someone that their jeans were becoming a safety hazard, getting caught in the wheels, or if the hem had ripped it would snag on the board and the solution to this was cutting there pants and sewing the leg tighter to eliminate any loose material. They got made fun of a lot for two reasons, the first being that these scraggly guys were wearing pants so tight that it left nothing to the imagination and the second being that these pants were an open admission that they were sewing; two unmasculine things but they did not give a fuck what people thought. I still have this image in my mind of their boney legs with the sloppiest row of stitches running up the back like bad nylon seams, complete with clunky sneakers. I asked one of them one day how they got these impossibly tight pants on everyday and he admitted to me that he sewed himself in, not the full leg but just the calf. It explained why some of them had seams that twist around at the ankle. At that point it hit me that the only way I could move way from that awful loose fit on the legs of my jeans was to do as the skaters, sew myself in. I was initially afraid to do it, for fear that my mother would ream me for cutting up a pair of pants; the experiments I did with my shirts and dresses were easier to hide. I also didn't want my pants to look as hackneyed as the guys so I went small at first, pinching the denim and sewing it to create something like a dart, it created the painted on look without cutting anything off. The drawback was that the material bunched and I couldn't wear boots with them. Overtime I mustered the courage to cut up my pants and make a new seam and rocked the skater boy slim look. Obviously the style caught up a few years later and now finding pants other then skinny is near impossible sometimes. The skaters could buy there tight pants ready to use and we all put our needles and thread away. I liken it to how girls used pliers to get into dittos or rolling your skirt to shorten the hem, its my generational work around. I look back at those days amusingly recalling the awful days where a stitch broke or stabbing myself in the leg trying to get them a little an snugger. Someday I'll get to tell some young person this tale of how back in my day we sewed ourselves into pants and you kids don't know how good you have it.

A bike ride that's long over do then cooling off on your patio with your cat and plants

Day 10: my airpopper and the bitchin popcorn it makes. You always get a giant bowl and you can put whatever you want on it. If you've never tried it prepare to have your mind blown.

Day 9: this ball of fur. We call her Little One mostly because she wont respond to anything else. I adore her

Day 8: Joulies. This is a picture of the mug I got with my joulies but inside are these silver bean shaped things that keep my drink warm for hours, theyre like tiny heaters for tea and coffee and nothing says happy like a hot drink especially in Seattle. Hands down the coolest invention I've seen in the last two years.

Day 7: my gallery wall (in progress). Another thing Zach and I are building. Can't wait to have it up

Day 6: My library. It's a small collection of comic books, classics, legal texts, bios and more. Zach and I are building it and some day it will need it's own roo.

Day 5: Cherry Blossom season. It's such a short bloom but it's the most beautiful.

Day 4: my Space Invaders wall decals just arrived yesterday. This isn't really that specific but it still makes me.happy.

Day 3: making friends with neighborhood cats. This fucker was the biggest cat I've ever seen.

Day 2: Spring bloom. It's been a long cold winter and soon Seattle will be flush with green again