How to Survive a Clothes Swap

[Author's note: I was rushing to get all this entry's eggs in its metaphorical basket, but had to take care of a few matters. Because of that, the photographic material that I would like to have accompany this post is waiting to be linked...on my own computer. Please check back later to see some visual guides to the words! <3corazon]

Clothing swaps have gained in popularity in more recent years in the spirit to reduce consumption of new materials while still refreshing one’s wardrobe. This is "One person's trash is another person's treasure" personified: What may be a tired garment to one is a brand new piece to another.

Events like the Swap-O-Rama-Rama takes this concept a step further: along with the swap are DIY stations for swappers to modify their clothing on the spot, as well as DIY workshops including silkscreeners, pants/tshirts-to-tote makers, shirt pimpers show swappers how they can creatively reuse old clothes.

I've volunteered for Los Angeles' take of this event since its start, organized through the efforts of Lori Petitti and Hip Line Media. As the swapping process is much like thrifting on steroids, developing good strategy ensures a successful and productive time at a clothes swap.

DRESS STRATEGICALLY
Proper attire is pretty handy when rummaging through clothes. A skirt for ladies and secure men alike is ideal, allowing quick work at trying on other bottoms. Slippers (flip flops) as footwear are very handy. Tops should be worn as close to the skin as possible to try clothes on top of them and get the most accurate sense of fit without much bagginess.

Messenger-style bags that rests at your hip is very handy for quick rummaging, grabbing, and stashing. It's the closest thing humans have to having little pouches in the insides of their mouths, though not as handy but lots more stylish.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER
The human race wouldn't be where it is right now if not for its advanced social structure. It's rather prudent to use this skill when swapping. Being in cahoots with at least one other person is helpful in keeping an eye for things s/he may happen upon that's your style It's also handy to have another eye to let you know how a particular piece fits, looks, flatters, etc. you, which brings me to my next point:

EDIT YOUR STASH
Save the time and regret you may have from taking home impulse grabs by going through the small pile you amass through time. Try on the pieces you didn’t get a chance to before, show off your finds to your aforementioned accomplice. You can swap with others who may be editing at the same time. Return unwanteds to the pile for someone else to find. If you’re on the fence with something, you can keep it, after all…

THERE’S ALWAYS THE NEXT SWAP
Holding on to potential pieces isn’t bad - you may love something one day, then want to leave it the next. Come next swap, you can re-swap it to see if it can find a home with someone else. In my two years and three swaps, I’ve seen several pieces come and go and return again. There have been shirts I’ve taken from someone who wasn’t into that style, realize it’s not my style, and went to re-swap it. As it turns out, their original owner started wearing those shirts again and took them back…thus the beauty of the swap!

Coincidence. Appreciate it. (part I)

[Our first guest post! Welcome Rochelle! Her first post is about the intricacies of coincidence. The second part will be posted Thursday. Enjoy!

Love,
frank]

Coincidences happen everyday. It irks me when those crazy happenstances go by without much appreciation. I am kind of obsessed with these little surprises and I relish looking back trying to connect the dots to find hidden adventures. I am talking about the kind of unbelievable coincidences in life that, when seen in a movie or happen in a book, you say to yourself, "yeah, right! how convenient. . . there's an ornithologist in the restaurant where our heroes have just gone to escape from killer birds!?" It's sometimes overwhelming to think about the chain of events- each chance, every little decision that had to take place in order to get here. Where? Here in the Future! How do I know now is the future? Because in every futuristic alien movie a black man is president of the United States of America.

Adventures in Bad Writing

The night was drunk with the scent of fresh-baked bread and a monstrously odorous carne asada burrito. I lit a cigarette under the screaming light of a full moon, marrying the scents in a haze of twilight smoke outside a bar filled with vampires. I washed down the mouthful of burrito with a drink from my vodka which burned in conjunction with hot sauce. It was a strange burn, a burn like none other.

A man approached me from within the bar. “Hey, can I bum a smoke?” he asked with an indelible persistence, like the migration of a species, or Jupiter’s Red Spot. I had to think faster than a cheetah runs as it would have been impossible for me to hand him a smoke with one hand full of burrito and the other full of vodka. I decided the burrito had been eaten enough to where I could hold it in my mouth and leave it hanging out like an enormous tongue, freeing one hand to pull out the pack of cigarettes in my back pocket and offer this man a smoke. “Thanks,” he said standing there watching me wrestle the burrito from my mouth.

The burrito was mashed and gnarled as though it had been mauled by a rabid dog who thought it was a cat covered in peanut butter. I was filled with a deep sorrow; the burrito reminded me of my mother. She had been sick with the flu for days now. “Got a light,” the man with the iron resolution asked me.

“Sorry, I don’t,” I said panicked, not wanting to suffer through anymore burrito-mouth madness. I walked away into the screaming moonlight through a drunken night dancing in the scent of fresh baked-bread and yellow puffs of cigarette smoke pushed from behind my lips with my under-worked diaphragm. I never found out if that smoking man found a light. I surmise he did. I hope he did.

Berry Bad Attempts on My Life

I'm allergic to berries. I have one particular friend who usually remembers of my allergy, but sometimes it seems she wants to find some kind of way to innocently kill me by getting me to eat them.

One night, she and I were eating at this great greasy spoon famous for their homemade pies. It was around closing time, so their selection was limited, but had their famous ollallaberry available. I told this dessert-loving friend she could have dessert on her own, and I didn't care either way, but she insisted that we share a slice o' pie, then we shared the most boring slice of pumpkin pie ever.

I think this is when her plan for vengeance started.

Not long after, I went to her place to hang out and eat random snacks. One of the snacks included a jar of ollallaberry (and some other berry) jam. That jam looked pretty amazing. It came in a dark glass jar, and inside the jam was a deep, royal purple color that would make it even more exciting to eat. Its decadence was proven with each mouthful of jam my friend had, she'd sing a mouthful chorus of pure bliss, followed by her exclaiming how good it was as she nudged the jar closer towards me. Each time this happened (and it happened a lot), I'd assured her that I'm sure it is tasty. It wasn't until the next day that she realized the error of her ways, probably because she was so obsessed with the stuff at the time.

It wasn't until this week that she made her decisive move. We were over at some friends' for dinner, and she brought dessert: petit fours. When it came time for dessert, I took my bite, I thought its almondy goodness was great, though it had a hint of something funny tasting. Then I looked at the innards of the petit four I just bit and saw this little maroon line along the bottom of the treat.

When I asked what it could be, my friend immediately replied, "Oh, that's probably raspberry, since they put that in a lot of petit fours."

"Then I shouldn't be eating this," I replied.

"Oh, that's right. You're going to die if you eat this." My friend casually retorted.

Later that night, my entire right upper arm was itchy, and large portions of my scalp was all a-tingle.

I escaped this incident okay, but I don't know if I'd be so lucky next time. It's kind of like eating secret poison blowfish. There are few people in this world who are trained to cut the edible parts from the poisoned part of the fish. How would one react to someone else who just ate something that was poisonous?

"This fish tastes funny."

"Oh. That was probably the poisoned part. Oops."

Maybe that would be my friend (who is not licensed to cut blowfish, BTW) if I ate poisoned blowfish.

Adventures in the Art of Cookery

I asked my girlfriend what, if anything, I hated. After hardly thinking for five minutes, she said, “dancing! You hate dancing and singing!” Excellent, I told her, and that I’d use that in my blog. Then I remembered how much I hate cooking and tomatoes.

Do you know why audiences sometimes bombard performers with tomatoes? Because fuck tomatoes, that’s why. Nobody likes tomatoes, at least not those generic red monstrosities. You have to be pretty handy in the kitchen in order to transform these red, mangineered atrocities into something edible. Sure, you could buy proper and ripe tomatoes, but who has the time to cherry pick anything these days? I sure do, but fuck tomatoes!

I’ll tell you what else I hate: dull knives. I must be the most incompetent fool in America because I have a sharpening stone and am unable to sharpen my knives. My knives seem to get duller after every “sharpening.” You know those dolts on the Ronco infomercials who smash tomatoes with a dull knife like a mental invalid attacking a pile of clay with his hands? I’m one of them. It’s not because I’m incredibly inept, it’s because my hands go rogue due to my uncontrollable rage.

Cooking is a downward spiral of pain and suffering for me, especially when I have to dice tomatoes for an omelet. Not only do I have to deal with dull knives, bitter tomatoes, and rogue hands, I have to deal with eggs sticking to fifteen dollar “nonstick” pans.

Oh, and sometimes I add onions to the omelet. Do you know how ridiculous onions are? Only two things make me cry: broken bones and onions. That makes no sense. On the contrary, it makes nonsense, my friends.

Adventures in Politics, Voting

Voting apathy, I’ve noticed, is among the more unpopular apathies. I think I’d be better off not caring about recycling.

While walking to my polling place, I asked passersby for whom they voted. After they responded I said I was voting for the opposing candidate and gauged their reaction. Some smiled politely and walked away, others stormed off with their hands flailing in the air. I approached groups of people, families, couples and such, and asked them all the same question.

“Hi, who’d you vote for?”

“McCain,” the father said.

“Oh, I voted for Obama. How about the props?”

“Yes on all but two and eight,” the father said.

“I voted no on all but two and eight. And the missus? How’d she vote?”

“I voted for Obama and yes on one, two, and seven,” she said with a proud smile.

“I voted for McCain and no on one, two, and seven. You, sir, are you an uncle? I negated your votes, too,” I said.

“Surely that’s not possible.”

“I work here, sir! It is very possible and I did it! Let this be a lesson to you, children: do not vote!” I said with the fervor of a peeled-eyed crack addict. I jumped over the table and held their arms. “It’s a waste of time! A waste of time!” I continued through their sobs. By this time the voters had stopped voting and were staring at me. They seemed scared and a few were inching for the door. “You! Voter! Your ballot, sir!”

“I, uh—“

“Worthless!” I said taking a bite from his ballot and punching him. “You with the tan jacket!”

“Me?”

“Yes! Your ballot!”

“I didn’t vote! I swear!”

“Good man, because I surely would have negated your votes, too!” I said and punched him while running out of the room. Outside I gave a group of twenty non-English-speaking immigrants contradicting sample ballots I’d filled out.

I ran down the street and jumped into a family’s living room through their window and punched out their TV. They were watching the voting results, wide eyed with glee that Obama was in the lead. I jumped out another window and punched a man on a soap box who as preaching about the evils of drugs.

“Don’t listen to this man!” I yelled through his megaphone. “Voting is a waste of time!” I plowed my way through the crowd and punched an anarchist and took his wallet. By now I had a group of voters unable to appreciate my views chasing me. “Close-minded fools!” I yelled while running. I ran into a police officer and explained my situation.

“Follow me,” he said and I punched him in the face. I was tasered by his partner, handcuffed and arrested.

Indeed, voting apathy is an unpopular apathy.

Misadventures of Driving in LA

I'm just as proud to be an Angelino as any, but even the most devout LA resident is often driven mad trying to get from one place to another without dying on the road. It's almost like each car trip we take is made to make us thank our lucky stars that we managed to survive the dangerous dance humans play as we speedily control these multi-ton vehicles around.

I had once dreamt to grow up to be a civil engineer, and I think that was once realized after all the times I've had to travel on a few of the most dangerous and annoying driving areas in LA.

Although this can be an ongoing series in itself, I'd like to share my top 5 least enjoyable driving areas in Los Angeles (in no particular order).

The 101 South/110 South Freeway Interchange along the Downtown Exits
Whoever figured that a major freeway's transition into another freeway right where there are a slew of very confusing offramps in the city's center must have been on drugs. I do not understand why the 101 drivers freak out and drive like they never were behind a wheel as they frantically try to merge onto the 110 when they never realize they don't even need to change lanes as they have a dedicated lane that will happily lead them into the freeway! I always loathe having to exit Downtown because of this, because those 1,200 feet of interchange is just a constant death trap - if it doesn't kill you, it just makes you more bitter with life.

10 Freeway Offramps
As semi-irritating it is to have particular offramps for streets on one direction of the freeway to another, I sometimes think I'd rather have exits at every other major street when it comes to a lot of the offramps for the 10 freeway through the San Gabriel Valley. Both the east and westbound exits have separate exits for the north and south bound sides of the street. Yay Convenience! The only thing is, usually the first offramp comes way too soon when you're not properly slowed down, causing you to practically screech to a halt in order to make your turn and prevent you from running into dangerously opposing traffic who are trying to get ON the freeway. If you're trying to get to the second offramp, you have to make sure you avoid these cars trying to jump on, who usually aren't ramped up to speed just yet. I'm usually holding my breath and pray I survive each time I take one of these exits.

The 605 South/10 East - 10 West/605 South Interchange
I just don't understand this. Both freeways are pretty big, yet someone thought that instead of putting a perfectly efficient cloverleaf for this half of this interchange (as they have half of one on the other side), they decided to create a 436ft. two-lane driving space where 605 southbound drivers have to try to get on the 10 east at the exact time 10 westbound drivers want to get on the 605 south. Let's not mention how fast drivers from both freeways go in/out of this area...it's just not cool.

The 5/101/10 East & West/60 Freeways Interchange
Just look at it. In order to get from one part of the 10 to another, you have to be on the 5 for a while. Then, the 101 starts off here, but it's a really small offramp. Oh, there's also a way to get to the 60 from all of this, but it's almost put there as an afterthought. Don't ask me how many times I was tired/in a rush/stupid/etc. while trying to get somewhere and I invariably wind up taking the wrong offramp and wind up on the other side of the city before realizing that's not the direction I wanted to go. Sure, I'm responsible for my stupidity, but really, this area doesn't make it that hard to make anyone drive like an idiot.

The I-10 Freeway
I just hate this freeway. It's unattractive, more often than not always full of traffic, and is a necessary evil to go around LA. I can't even begin to explain my hatred for this freeway. Have you ever had to pee so bad, perhaps you had to pee while suffering from a uniary tract infection, but you were comfortable sitting/lying down while being extremely mentally/physically/emotionally exausted at the moment, that the however long trip it would take to get you to the toilet makes you wish you just had a bedpan? That's how I feel about the 10 freeway.

PMS and Politics

I'm not too proud of it, but I am an extremely competitive person. Anyone who has ever played games with me can attest to that, and I'm very glad those who I've played Mario Kart Wii online have not heard the sort of expletives that's escaped my lips in the heat of racing. It's very smart on Nintendo's part that players cannot input their own online messages to others - the game's most aggressive messages being "Grr...Darn it!" and "Funky Stadium!" which is passable. No message can't convey my sentiment when I really want to say, "Your perfectly-placed banana peel on that turn put me into such a rage that I want to see your smug Mii's face as a pixelated pulp!!!"

Though I don’t consider myself a political junkie, I think electing the next US President is a big deal, and I, like many people in the US and the world, had a great deal of particular interest in this year's presidential election. People are entitled to their views and opinions, but I was rooting for one candidate over the other, and though I tried to remain practical and aware that the election could have easily gone to either candidate, as soon as the guy I was rooting for was gaining a formidable lead, I started to become pretty darn excited that in my mind, thinking "My Team" was winning.

It should also be mentioned this competitive nature of mine becomes even more pronounced when a healthy dose of Premenstrual Syndrome and hormones is thrown in the mix. That mentioned, I'm in the full throes of "That Time of the Month."

Let's add to the fact that I was stuck in LA traffic as most of the polls started closing and reporting yesterday, and as each projection was announced, it took a lot of constraint to not honk my horn and start screaming, perhaps finding another nearby sharing similar sentiment. It was better I was alone in the car during this time, for I probably would have exerted some sort of physical reaction onto them, like several punches to the arm or a sloppy kiss to the face, whichever struck me at the moment (yes, while driving).

Once our next president was announced, I was in the company of others who shared similar excitement and sentiment as I, but perhaps not as much as I managed to restrain. I think I was so happy, I could have collapsed someone’s ribcage in a bonecrushing hug, patted someone’s back so hard to induce coughing up a lung, and as I sat there listening to our President-elect, I had to curb my desire to take the wine glass in my hand outside, smash it against the concrete and dance upon its shards in some twisted form of cathartic joy.

It goes without saying I’m VERY happy of this election’s outcome, and am particularly happy that things didn’t turn out in the other guy’s favor; for I am honestly afraid to think how I would have reacted to that.

Adventure Theory

I would like to introduce a new segment to this blog (I suppose since there isn't much here, everything is new, so please humor me) called Adventure Theory.

As much as Frank and I eat, drink, walk, sweat adventure with every breath we take, there are just some situations and opportunities that prevent us from actually tackling certain adventures, such as the lack of funding, time, courage, attention, physical capibility, what-have-you. Instead of letting these ideas of adventure fall by the wayside, we now have the opportunity to outline these adventures outside our jumbled heads and onto the space of this blog.

This may be an opportunity for us to visually assess these ideas and realize how crazy they really are, or it may help us see how much more possible it is to go through with them. It also may be an opportunity for us to document our ideas and look back at it when such theories are exercised and things go horribly awry.

Either way, this should make for good times.

Adventures in Politics

I’ve had many epiphanies over the years, the most memorable being when I realized the proof really was in the pudding, or that it’s actually possible to eat scrambled eggs without tortillas, or the following which I epiphanized over the course of a year.

My good friends know that I have a voting problem. I tell them my problem and they scoff. I explain my situation, but they tell me to stop lying, to stop making up diseases. One day, you untrusting hobgoblins, one day Ted Striker’s disease will be acknowledged by the AMA.

“Seriously, frank, it’s getting old. Haha, yeah, Ted Striker syndrome—“

“Ted Striker’s disease,” I tell them.

“Yeah, whatever. It was funny on Airplane! and that’s it. Stop creating excuses and get your ass to the polls.”

“The moles?” I say.

“You know what? Fuck you, frank. I’m tired of your incorrigible apathy.”

My friends, it is because of the frequency of these verbal assaults that I must admit something: I do not have Ted Striker’s disease. I made it up one day and the AMA isn’t really considering its validity. I don’t vote because, my good friends, I have Parkinson’s disease. Would you like to know why Bush won in ’04? My hand shook the puncher into Bush’s circle instead of Kerry’s.

“It’s just one vote, that’s preposterous,” you say? How dare you! Voting is not preposterous! No wait, it is.

I’ve shared my thoughts on voting to those I believe are highly intelligent and insightful. Unfortunately, their reasons to vote weren’t able to stifle the nihilist in me. “An exercise in futility,” I’ve been known to yell, spastically attacking strangers with spittle. Yes, I know my not voting is irresponsible because it discourages others to do the same.

This is where the epiphany kicks in: the reason I’m so turned off by the voting process is because nobody should be discouraged by one idiot’s indifference with voting, and yet it’s the primary reason I vote.

It’s not something I’ve fully thought out. I need help figuring this one out. What does it mean that people are discouraged by others not voting? Am I not a team player? Someone help me. Also make me a sandwich, please.