Pushing Forward
May 16, 2011 in Blogs
My little brother is remarrying this week, and preparations for us to make even an overnight trip and attend a wedding are consuming resources at an alarming rate. I have been in stores buying clothes for hours, and for myself have a pair of shoes, a shirt, and a tie, which still need a suit to coordinate them, so I have another trip ahead probably tomorrow.
I did manage to upload to to the Examiner the latest temporal anomalies article, Timeline part 15: the Baretto anomaly, outlining the impact removing him from history will have by first considering the impact not removing him from history would have. Interest in the series seems to have waned some in the past couple weeks, but then it’s difficult to know what is driving traffic when, and it might be that traffic was “artificially” inflated in recent weeks by old fans of the original site discovering the new articles.
I read what was there of Eric Ashley’s Practise Bits: Nervy, which seems to end in the middle of a sentence, but my brain wasn’t fully functional yesterday when I read it (Sundays are not working for me at present) so maybe I missed something. I have not yet read Practise Bits: Sheep, and the way this week is going I’m not sure it won’t be August before I get the chance, but I’m looking forward to it.
I’d better run; there’s too much to do.
–M. J. Young
Tadeusz said on May 17, 2011
You’re right about Nervy. The eldest wanted the computer so I stopped where I was.
JohnA1nut said on May 17, 2011
I’m surprised you don’t already have a suit for going to church.
Tadeusz said on May 17, 2011
I don’t wear a suit to church. Sometimes I wear blue jeans.
M. J. Young said on May 17, 2011
Ah, indeed. I had a suit a decade or so ago, but I outgrew it. I have a sport coat almost as old as that which I acquired used which has lost some buttons but is otherwise sufficiently serviceable for court appearances when I feel like putting on a show.
And that really is the point.
I had a conversation with a friend in college about why people dress for church. I don’t know that I had been told but I had certainly come to surmise from what I had been told that it was done out of respect for God, and I personally thought that a foolish notion–I am not more in God’s presence in church than I am in the bathroom, and it is better to be mindful of that than to pretend otherwise. He, though, said that he thought people dressed for church simply because they could. That is, six days a week they were in the fields or the factories or the ditches or the mines digging and working and sweating in whatever hardy rags would withstand the wear and survive the dirt and sweat, and that people actually like to make themselves look nice once in a while, and their one day off was the chance to do so, so they did.
That got me thinking, over the decades, that there really were many reasons for getting “dressed up”, and it was best to know your own motives.
I get dressed up to manipulate the opinions of others. It is in that sense a form of lying. My wife argues that it isn’t, really–it’s taking away the obstacles that prevent people from discovering what a wonderful person I really am. Humbug. I dress for court to make the other party fear me and the judge respect me. That’s why they call it a “power suit”, you know: it projects an image of authority and power.
So I specifically do not dress for church, in that sense. To my own church, I make sure the pocket T I am wearing does not have any holes or stains, that the jeans are not beyond acceptable levels of dirt, and that I have combed my hair. I wear my denim-style work shirts over the T-shirt–that’s plural, because I always wear one as a shirt and one as a jacket, in winter two with long sleeves and the outer one quilted or lined, in spring and fall two with long sleeves but no lining, and in the summer an unlined long sleeved one over a short sleeved one. I will sometimes remove both and sometimes remove only the outer one. Sometimes I button the under one; sometimes I button both.
When I visit another church, I have a stack of half a dozen semi-formal long-sleeved collared dress shirts which I wear buttoned over the T, which I usually try to match to the shirt. I take the work shirts in the car, because my license, bank card, cell phone, medical insurance, check book, pens, digital audio recorder, and other ID, are in the pockets, and I might need any of those things before I get home.
My feeling in general is that if anyone is so shallow that they dismiss me based on my appearance I don’t need to waste my time on them anyway.
So I’m dressed in the jacket maybe once a year or so. It’s looking as if I may be wearing it this weekend, too, because somehow the funds depleted faster than I thought (I suspect that there were purchases made outside my knowledge) and we can’t afford both to get me a suit and to go to the wedding on the amount that remains.
–M. J. Young
JohnA1nut said on May 17, 2011
My feeling in general is that if anyone is so shallow that they dismiss me based on my appearance I don’t need to waste my time on them anyway.
EXACTLY MY THOUGHTS!!!!!!!
Jesus was a peasant, was He not? Why do you need a thousand-dollar suit and a million-dollar church?
JohnA1nut said on May 17, 2011
we can’t afford both to get me a suit and to go to the wedding on the amount that remains.
Three words. Volunteers of America.
M. J. Young said on May 18, 2011
“Volunteers of America”?
Isn’t that a song by Jefferson Airplane?
–M. J. Young
JohnA1nut said on May 18, 2011
That’s before my time Old Man. I was referring to the Salvation Army run thrift store where you can get all kinds of things very cheaply. Do they not have those in New Jersey?
M. J. Young said on May 19, 2011
I haven’t seen a Salvation Army store for a few decades now; they still have Good Will here and there.
I seem to be hard to fit, though.
–M. J. Young
JohnA1nut said on May 19, 2011
The Volunteers of America around here sells all kinds of clothes and furniture. I figured they were a national organization. It’s run by the Salvation Army. Last time I was there, they even had several (supposedly) functional 8 track players and boxes and boxes of tapes.
Tadeusz said on May 20, 2011
We have the Food Bank which is basically a thrift store for most of it. Its a great way to unburden an overstuffed house. You don’t feel so bad about throwing something away if you know someone else might use it.
Course, when I gave away my much liked recliner…they…sob….offered it for free.
We do have a two Goodwills in the nearest larger town. Now that I think about it, I’m a bit surprised not see more VoA stores round here.
JohnA1nut said on May 20, 2011
Eric, giving away a recliner just violates the fundamental laws of manhood. Don’t you know anything?
M. J. Young said on May 21, 2011
I might give away my recliner. It’s taking up space in my office, in a position in which it couldn’t be used anyway and filled with boxes and such. It was moved from the living room for Christmas quite a few years ago, to make room for the tree, and then no one would allow me to move it back. So it’s no use to me.
JohnA1nut said on May 21, 2011
I’m surprised you don’t have it as your computer chair. Put the keyboard in your lap, put the mouse on the arm of the chair. That’s how I used my recliner. I also slept in it.
JohnA1nut said on May 22, 2011
Two
I admit, I did throw the recliner away, but it was (quite literally) broken in half from overuse. Then it’s OK to get rid of a recliner. When it’s served you unto death.
Men’s laws. Don’t you guys know anything?
JohnA1nut said on May 22, 2011
Three
And I really hope you find that funny, like it’s supposed to be.
(Doing Therapy)
Tadeusz said on May 29, 2011
Itwasfunny