Mr. Fashion Statement

eat your heart out!

I got this free tee shirt many months ago when the weather was cold. Because of the then inclement climate I threw the red shirt into my dresser to hibernate ‘til spring. About a month ago I grabbed it because it was hot (the weather) and it was clean (the shirt.) I didn’t think that much about the looks of the thing, but I did like the fact that the round bubbles drew people’s attention away from my ever expanding beer belly (developed even without the help of any beer.)

But I noticed the looks. Some people stared. Some people gawked. And it wasn’t because they thought they were seeing Dick Cheney. They were lusting after my body—well at least the shirt. Last week I was walking around in a Target store looking for something that they don’t carry because it’s not “in season” when one of the store-wanderers noticed me and asked where I got my shirt. She started to inform me about the rarity of the cloth covering my broad shoulders. Even as a Target employee she was not able to get her hands on one of these treasures. And because my wife was standing not too far away she couldn’t get her hands on mine either.

Then today as we dined in the outdoor splendor of a Minnesota summer evening, a gentleman seated at the table next to ours enquired about my shirt. I was a little embarrassed at first seeing that this was a somewhat fancier establishment and I show up in denim shorts and a tee shirt. But he started telling me about a television segment he saw that talked about my shirt. He claimed that my shirt was valued at $ 150. Wow.

And I got it for free. And I had access to boxes of these shirts. (In fact, my mother just gave a bag of them to Goodwill, because they were laying around the house.) It never ceases to amaze me what items are given value by our society. Oh well.

So for now I will venture out into the night, glowing in the dark (almost) with my bright red tee shirt, enjoying the envious looks of those whose paths I cross.

And to think that my daughter thinks SHE’S the fashion statement in the household.

My Companion

I am blogging. (I think I can, I think I can.) Yes, I’m really blogging. Words are actually outside of my head and visible to the naked eye. (I’m still writing, still writing.) Making an entry in my blog after such a long absence is a little like the first time—that very first entry. (Am I really doing this, exposing my thoughts to strangers, or worse yet my wife?)

What will she think? What will she say? What will she do?

She mentioned this morning that she again made her faithful entry into that huge stockpile of Swansmith words. She wrote about last night. At least that’s what she tells me. I take it on faith, since I figured it best not to be distracted by reading anything.

For today, I myself blog. (So far, so good.) The fingers are not yet cramping up. The heart is not racing. The eyes are properly focused. My butt is at rest.

But last night is the blobject to be explored. We actually arrived early to an event. An old movie theater built in 1926 just blocks north of Minneapolis proper was the venue. It was the perfect spot for the movie which we saw. We were just barely into Anoka County, whose county seat, Anoka, houses the high school which graduated the movie’s writer some forty years prior.

The movie “A Prairie Home Companion” was written by Garrison Keillor, directed by Robert Altman, and viewed by Tim and Suzi. The Warden, a.k.a. Suzi, has probably gone into detail describing the elegance of this completely refurbished show house with the chandeliers and pipe organ played by a real person, so I need not go there.

But the thing that struck me was the feel of that place and how it was in sync with the feel of that movie. The film was not merely a videotaping of a weekly radio program, even though that would be of great interest to me and many others. It was a clever story written about the oddities of quirky people relating to each other as they went about performing their jobs. We were easily captivated by the hopes and dreams and disappointments of this strange group. Life is comic, mundane, and tragic all at once. And desire is often left unsatisfied as this motley crew bumps into each other.

As I walked out of the darkened theater, I was glad to not be walking into a multiplex of endless hallways and blinking digital neon signs and cold concrete walls with 20 other movies vying for our attention. Instead I stood among many dozens of other patrons who had experienced the same event as I waited for my wife to attend to after film duties. We huddled in the lobby as the skies outside had let loose, and the busy four-lane city street directly in front of the building was flooded with water. The rain had filled the road from the sidewalk directly in front to about the first dashed lines. And as each car traveling north raced by, it sprayed those who had ventured out the front door. Fortunately I was inside waiting for the Warden and figuring out that it would not be wise to leave that way. Instead, once she was ready, we left by the side door—the one that brought us directly into the arms of the next door Dairy Queen.

What can I say? Was it God’s provision to move us in the direction of an after movie treat? Can you say “French Silk Pie Blizzard?”