Saturday Morning at 8:31am

So much has happened lately. I feel accelerated. Which is odd, since I'm not working. But life has its own adrenaline.

Not the least of which is this blog. I'm kind of embarrassed to talk about blogging. Very High WASP of me, I suppose. We want to do these things, and pretend we aren't. But here I am. More importantly, here you are. Welcome.


I was tagged, recently, by the adorable, determined, and effervescent Queen Bee Swain. That's Swain as in coxswain, not as in country suitor. To tell you ten things about myself. Before I start, I tag Mon Avis, Mes Amis. Found her via Maxminimus. She is British wit and verve, he's men's style in the traditional vernacular. Both quite fun. Also Pink Martinis. She introduced me to Sugar Daddy Ken. Need I say more? Now I'm going to conflate the tag (don't you just love the word conflate? So useful.) with my sense that it's time to take a minute and think, just what am I doing here, and to then tell you. So you know. Because things change, evolve, and maps, guides, directions can be good.

So.

10 Things You Might Not Have Known About LPC's Blogging. Because I Didn't Know Them Either. Or, I Knew But Hadn't Acknowledged. Because Being Human Is Complex.

Why am I doing this?

1. I have always wanted to write stuff that did not involve trying to sell anyone anything. And have people read it.
2. I lost my job and I have time to fill.
3. You all are funny, intelligent, quirky, enthusiastic, well-traveled, creative commenters who keep providing me with new thoughts and insights.
4. Taking pictures and making photo collages is fun. Like the part of kindergarten that I liked where they put scissors and construction paper and glue on the tables and let you have at it.
5. Life is short, and noticing acutely as you live is the only way I have found to make it go more slowly.

What am I going to be doing here? In order of focus.

1. Writing about style from the High WASP perspective, in clothing, in accessories, in travel, in houses, in careers.
2. Telling stories as honestly as I can, with disclosure of any personal complexities. Constructing and deconstructing.
3. Telling the particular story of my trip to India. Most likely every week. But I can't set a day, some Mondays are different than other Mondays, often Tuesdays vary quite a lot.
4. Blurting out how much I love my children.
5. Sustaining occasional moments of rapture about this, that, and the other thing. Whatever that other thing happens to be.

But, wait, there's more. (No Ginsu knives.) But, inviting you all to guest post, hosting giveaways (yes, really, just wait). Also showing pictures. And thanking you. Really, most importantly, thanking you. Where are my manners?

Thank you. Thank you very much.

High WASP, Meet Steampunk.

I've been noticing, over the past few months, several things both remarkable and related. Maybe even a trend. I've seen references to "steampunk", as a fashion, nay, a life style. Words like artisanal, handmade, workshop, applying not only to cheeses. Wedding invitations in the style of old saloon slash rock 'n' roll posters. Even the love shown my dear Mulholland Brothers bag and its turn of the previous century air. I kept thinking, hmm, hmm, hmm, this is something.

Well, today the New York Times concurs. The late 1800's are where it's at.

"As with home design, where curio cases, taxidermy and other stylish clutter of the Victorian era have been taken up by young hipsters, many of today’s popular men’s styles have their roots in the late 19th century."

And it's not just the men.

Bloggers say it best. Audi at Fashion for Nerds tells us what "steampunk" is, and goes it one better by wearing a corset to work. Hollister Hovey and her sister wear old-fashioned military-style coats in Prague. Purchased at Forever 21. James, at secret forts, shows image upon image of men making bags and shirts by hand. Turns out that "indie style," (here I point you to east side bride, and etsy of course) may not fall too far from the nostalgia-for-earlier-eras tree. The, we don't like machines, nor glitz, nor foreign manufacture, tree. That one.

Audi. In a corset. You go girl.

Ironically, just as we leave behind our own turn of the century excesses, we fall in love with workaday artifacts of an earlier Age of Innocence. And so, I suppose, my little hunt for a buffalo plaid shirt was perhaps just part of this larger wave. A wave heading towards mainstream America, by the way. Watch out for suspenders. Wait, I mean braces.

Today, as Duchesse was so kind to point out in a comment here, Robert Redford's Sundance Catalogue is offering us this rendition of a vintage Woolrich jacket.


Now that the jacket is real, and not a fantasy of an earlier, simpler, woolier day, do I have the same urge to acquire? Or was I, are we all, hipsters and traditionalists alike, channeling a zeitgeist that cannot, in fact, provide the imagined comfort?

I read the Times article this morning and started this post. When I came to finish writing later, I saw that both the steampunk site, and Hollister, had already taken note. OK. Compelling sub-groups are excited. Are we?

Getting Away For The Weekend, Nonchalantly

When I have to get on an airplane, like all of us, I hunker down. I get out my battered Hartmann rollaway, from the days when wheels on suitcases were still new. If it's a short enough trip to take just one bag and a purse, I put the laptop into a protective sleeve and slip it into the zippered compartment on the outside of my suitcase. Everything I need to access without fuss goes into my purse. My big purse. I buy water, magazines, gum, in the airport, and carry them on in the plastic bag from purchase. No one enforces the two bag rule on a flimsy white plastic sack.

If I am going for a long time, and need to pack so many shoes that my suitcase can't fit the laptop, or traveling internationally, where by the time I clear immigration my bag will be on the carousel, I check the Hartmann, and carry a laptop bag and purse on board. Not to mention the white plastic bag. It's quite handy.

That kind of travel is all about managing inconvenience. Sometimes, of course, I fall prey to the desire to look like someone with resources. Which can lead to designer goods battling each other on my person. But for the most part, I'm practical. Get to the destination without wanting to strangle myself, my fellow travelers, or whoever compelled me to make the trip in the first place.

Weekend travel is a completely different beast. Delicious. Constraints of convenience do not apply. And, when freed from convenience, style runs wild.


My weekend suitcase is from Mulholland Brothers. I like to throw it in the back of my car. The sound it makes hitting the trunk floor is so satisfying. I like the leather, brass hardware and latch, old fashioned shape. And, I confess, I like to look like I can afford my hotel. We have already established my flaws. Why on earth do I care what the bellhop thinks of my suitcase? Who knows. The thing is, this was a present from someone who has made their peace with my weaknesses. Suitcases, luckily, last a long time.

In the Bay Area, we have great weekend destinations. Right nearby in Napa, the Carneros Inn. A summer afternoon, pool, Sauvignon Blanc, a hamburger, sunscreen, vineyard views. If you're willing to go further down the coast to stay at the most amazing place in the world, the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur. Of course, it's crazy expensive, but you can watch monarch butterflies flying 200 feet above the Pacific from your deck, and the vista extends over 180 degrees. Sierra Mar, the restaurant, is open to everyone. These days I just like to look at the pictures.

Don't want to commit several mortgage payments to a weekend away? Me neither, these days. Just over the Santa Cruz mountains, in Half Moon Bay, is the Inn at Mavericks. Mavericks point is where crazy surfers ride really big winter waves. The hotel is just a little place with some bedrooms on the edge of the water. No restaurant, although there are several within small town walking distance. Also seagulls. Fog horns. You can pack your stuff in a brown paper bag and still, come night, sit outside on the deck, small bay waves below.

Finding Oneself In India, 1982

I turned 25 in September of 1981. In February of 1982, I took a 3 month trip to India. My ostensible motive for the trip? Adventure. 25 year olds need no more than that. I hoped to start a joint degree at Columbia University's Graduate Schools of Business and Journalism in the summer of 1982. As it turned out, I was accepted to the business school and not the journalism school. Setting the course for a career I could never have predicted.

In 1982, I had no idea that I would eventually work in the software industry, writing data sheets on Java, Microsoft and embedded programming. Running PR. Engaging with clients who wanted to build web applications. In 1982 I thought I was soon to settle down to a solid and respectable life. So, off to India. The closest I'd ever been to the developing world at that point was Christmas at a villa in Cancun.

I was too much of a High WASP to travel with a backpack. To join the swarms of bearded, beaded young Caucasians seeking enlightenment in the Far East. I didn't think I was after enlightenment. I was, if I look back, searching for some way to prove my bravery to myself.

It was a crusade. And crusades need banners. So I decided to travel through India by train, doing research for and writing an article, or articles, on India's as-yet-unknown-to-the-West film industry. How did I know to do that? I didn't. But I worked at the time for one of the smartest people I have ever encountered, and he said, when informed of my travel plans, "Why don't you write about the film industry? They make more movies than anyone in the world." He was right. So I did.

As I said, I didn't want to travel with a backpack. The Grande Dame shows up when she is least useful. I went down to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and bought a duffle bag. Nylon. Blue. "Durable," said the Hasidic proprietor, standing on the steps that led down to his suitcase store. "It will last you." He was right. It did.

I came back from India in May of 1982. With my duffle bag. You see it above on the floor of my son's room at Princeton. And no, those gym socks didn't make the same trip. I also came back with boxes of slides. Remember slides? However, I now own a scanner. Which, as you can imagine, means that I would like to tell you, here and there, the story of that trip. And some of the clothes I wore. There will be elephants, eventually. And Buddhas. And trains, many people, monkeys. Movie stars. It was a long trip. And I was very young and silly. Which has been known to give rise to stories.

The story will end with me smashing bangles from my wrist. They jangled too much for me to take notes in Columbia's lecture halls. But it begins with this.

The Arrival.

I flew into what was then Bombay on Air India. The moment we landed I could smell the country. It was midnight. We disembarked onto the tarmac, and took a faded bus to the terminal. From there, although I was staying at the Taj Mahal Hotel, flagship luxury hotel of urban India, I thought it best to take another bus into the center of the city. After all, the Taj sits next to the Gateway to India. There was a bus stop.

We drove on a long, narrow road. Complete darkness. To get to Bombay proper we had to pass through slums. Houses built out of movie billboards, upside down letters glittering in the bus headlights. People awake. I saw them wandering, hand in hand. Overwhelmed by so much I had never seen before, I could only focus on the small. "Why are they awake at 2am? Why are they walking?" That's how the brain works, I think, when presented with too much new. Try to solve for something.

By the time I arrived in Bombay, the morning was lighting up. The Gateway to India, a monumental arch, seemed to serve a market function. Anyone speaking English was negotiating prices. I walked into the hotel, carrying my duffle bag. I had packed clothes for 3 months. 3 months about which I as yet knew nothing. For the interviews I hoped to set up with India's film industry contacts, (contacts I had not actually yet made, mind you) I packed a blue and white skirted seersucker suit. Yes I did. A linen shirt. Blue and white Charles Jourdan spectator slingbacks. Yes I did. I saw no pathos in my attempt.

The hotel staff checked me in. But they had put me in the tower, rather than in the old palace I had been expecting. In those days the tower was painted hospital green and smelled of insecticide. I didn't think I could drink the water. I lay down on the bed. I waited, and worried that I could hear cows outside.

I am sure that eventually I fell asleep.

Arrival by High WASP featuring Chanel shoes

Images
Duffle bag, my son, 2009
Polyvore, imagined memories of 1982

(I hope to tell this story here, in bits and pieces, over time. Not every day. But stories are for the listeners as much as the tellers, so let me know if you prefer I stick to little black dresses and their ilk.)

Saturday Morning at 7:17am

It's November. Temperatures that count for cold here. Heat is on. I have a very loud forced air system, and the sound makes me think of winter storms and winds lashing and windows rattling in their frames. Even though the sky outside is blue and all the plants in my backyard still green.

Who says we don't have seasons in California?

Should The Perfect Wallet Be Stylish?

I can make a fairly serious argument as to why you don't need a stylish wallet. Consider.

• Your wallet is usually only out of your bag - we're talking women here - for a few minutes at a time. Why pay for 6.5 minutes/per day worth of visuals?
• When you are using your wallet, you are usually paying someone. If that someone doesn't have much money, the fact that you do might be sufficient affront. If that someone does have money, they probably want more of yours. No point in signaling there's anything for the taking.
• If stuff falls out of your wallet, due to its stylish design, troubles ensue. Ugly troubles, which require communicating with robots over the telephone.
  

Buying a wallet is the moment for function over form. Case in point. My mother gave me The Cutest Wallet Ever. A birthday present. Chanel. With an adorable little embossed camellia as the decoration? Discrete logo? Oh yeah. Got my girl electrons flying. Set my teeth on edge with desire. But, too small to hold my hordes of cards. You know, the ones that a) entitle you to spend more than you have b) get prizes for when you have spent more than you have c) remind everyone that you are lucky enough to have medical AND dental insurance.

Like this, but black...

So I returned The Cutest Wallet Ever. And bought this one. Mr. Tod. Brown, pebbled, stitched.


Huge. If it had wheels I could drive it home. Card slots on the scale of Las Vegas. Profound happiness washed over me when I put it into my purse. The anxiety of stuffing cards into too few slots, the annoyance of hunting for said cards, the memory of the damage I did to poor Miss Ferragamo, these defeated the adorable camellia.

Poor Miss Ferragamo

Mr. Tod is cute enough. Soft leather, should last a long time. Travel with me. I'll get over the camellia. Some day.

The 21st Century Grand Tour, In Which Freud And Jung Come Along.

King's College Rare Book Collection

High WASPs like to travel. My mother, one afternoon, put down the New York Times' travel section, sighed, shook her head, and said, "I don't need to read this. I'll never see Finland again." My father is prone to private safari-type expeditions, to Africa, to Vietnam, and the British Virgin Islands. Well, maybe not safaris in the Caribbean, but cruises involving boats, crews, and few other people.

In our generation, given the state of the once-great family fortune, travel is a little less glamorous. No less compelling. Between us the siblings have worked in London, France, and Shanghai. Studied in St. Petersburg. We've been to most continents, on holiday, on pilgrimage of one sort or another. I'd list the countries but your imagination can probably do a better job.

Why? I don't think it's just the fact that we can afford to. After all, many people with financial resources are happy to stay put. I believe the construct of the Grand Tour is still with us. That, and the desire to poke holes in the comfort of wealth.

The Grand Tour was a custom, originating in the 17th century, primarily English, in which young men graduating from Oxbridge would travel through Europe for several years. Upon their return, expanded cultural knowledge allowed them, we assume, to take their place in society. Needless to say, these Tours involved the usual activities of youth, trysts, gambling, intoxication. The reality diverges from voiced lofty goals. But the Grand Tour became a cultural keystone, embodying the idea that to lead one must know more than one's backyard. Which, despite the colonial overtones, isn't such a bad thought. Even though we, the High WASPs, are no longer the leaders of the Western world.

The 21st century, of course, has added the personal to the social imperative. The thing about growing up with money is that you don't quite know what to trust. You are never sure what life would taste like if you really bit down hard. Blood on your teeth.

So we travel.

I admit, the travel isn't without accoutrements. It's not pure voyaging into a dark night. We think about the right wallet, the right suitcase, what to wear on an airplane. I have come to believe in Purell. My mother has a special travel bathrobe. I like black Pumas with Velcro fasteners.

It would be possible to imagine that portable comforts of home defeat the powers of new places. Having grown up in privilege, it's very easy, as I said, not to know what to trust. To mock oneself for not having really had to fight. To decide that only the most difficult is worthwhile. But that's not a way to make much progress. There are times when you have to relent. To say to yourself, "Fine. If I like belting leather on my rollaway suitcase, fine." As I remember, a durable duffle doesn't get in the way of India. You still have to brush the dust out of your hair at night alone in a hotel room.

Brought up in privilege, and full of nerve-endings, you are apt to feel guilt. You will feel the desire to know what you do not know. You will wish for courage. You will have some. Probably never quite enough. So you get on the train.

This is more difficult than I make it sound. But not unique. I believe everyone in privilege must face the same problem, how to test, and still forgive oneself.