earthtonesandcaffeine

[earthtonesandcaffeine]

First Post

This first post has been stuck in my drafts since, at the earliest, July of 2019. At that time, I wanted to start this post with a quote straight from Blood Orange’s song Hope from the album Negro Swan, to serve as an example of one of the things I thought I wanted to write about. There’s no harm in still quoting that here:

You know, what is it going to take for me not to be afraid

To be loved the way, like, I really wanna be loved?

But that I know how I really wanna be loved

But I'm, but I'm, like, scared to really, really feel that

You know, it's like you want something

But you don't know if you can handle it?

At that time, I was still learning to live with accepting my newfound queerness as queerness, accepting that the way I view men extends beyond the vocabulary of “they’re fashionable” or “they have a nice jaw”; learning not to evade pangs of skipped heartbeats when the person I found incredibly attractive wasn’t a woman.

I do think, at the moment that I write this sentence (a year later), I still want to write about that experience of learning to live with, and to love, that type of experience.

I’ve also been trying to figure out what other things I would like to write about, and how I would go about communicating that to anyone reading this. I am obsessed with the idea of structure.

Or at least, from the date that I initially wrote the above sentence, somewhere between July 2019, and, well, before now, where ‘now’ encapsulates a world that has been through a supposedly once-in-a-lifetime event for a seemingly endless amount of my life, I thought that. I think it’s more accurate to say that I’m obsessed with the idea that I can only live with a set structure - a day fully time-blocked, each hour trying to be meticulously accounted for (which always leads to an inevitable failure when I don’t can’t hold myself to account) - but I’ve learned to live more comfortably with flexibility. The world might feel like it’s ending, and a previous version of me might have been accustomed to near-meltdown when the 30 minutes I set aside for reading a book I think I’m enjoying doesn’t pan out, but, now it’s just a matter of telling myself that “I can do this later tonight”, or, ”It’s alright, we can try again tomorrow”.

I feel like I should break the paragraph so I can get to my actual point - so much of the delay in writing this first post, in starting this blog (whatever it’s purpose is), and sharing with you, a random reader, something interesting, has been down to my obsession with trying to make this post perfect. I want to write something that makes me proud to say that it’s my first blog post, and that I feel like it’s good writing. But I don’t even know for myself how good writing can be achieved. So I kept delaying posting this piece to agonise over whether or not you’d like what I had to say, to spend time meticulously looking over my word-choice, and to try and come up with something creative, something useful, something that my brain can perceive as good, when I have no fucking clue what the hell that meant.

At least with all the essays I wrote for college, asking me to analyse a philosophical argument or an economic policy, had a rubric I could figure out, and from there, I could enjoy writing about something I gave a shit about around that rubric. Here, I am dealing with a criteria that I’ve constructed for myself, one which I’m seemingly never happy with, one that I try to keep myself to account to whenever possible. You can probably see where the obsession with structure comes from.

And that wasn’t really the point of me wanting to start writing in the first place anyway - I wanted to start writing so I could get better at writing about the things I care about. As I write this now, in November 2021, I’ve realised that’s all that matters to me.

So I know this first post is a rambling mess, and it’s not entirely clear why you should read this blog. However, if you’ve gotten this far, first of all - thank you for staying along! Secondly, if you’re still asking what I’m going to write about, I answered that already, but to be clear, it’s probably going to be about any of the following (a non-exhaustive list):

Fashion. Mainly my thoughts on fashion because it’s always something that I’ve felt can be expressed better through writing and visual imagery, rather than speaking about it in real life.

Something about being bisexual, and being perceived as anything other than straight since early youth, and living on the tightrope of not showing myself in some places (home) and showing enough of myself in others (outside home)

Vulnerability, and self-compassion

The life I live through the eyes I have, because I think that’s incredibly interesting, apparently.

Maybe there will be more. I don’t really know. But when you see more posts written - you will know.

[earthtonesandcaffeine]

I know I haven’t written my first blog post explaining why I’m here yet. That’s fine. I’ll figure out a first draft soon, and post some words here. For now, you can enjoy this.

No Man Walks Alone SS19 Lookbook

Run by Greg Lellouche who has since become a close friend, No Man Walks Alone is a menswear haven for all who value quality garments. Presenting one of the best selections I’ve seen, including Minotaur, ts(s), Norwegian Rain, Camoshita, Stephan Schneider and Monitaly, among others, each collection is carefully curated to a coherent, cohesive aesthetic. 

For their SS19 lookbook they took it to Coney Island to shoot some of the best pieces for the season.

[earthtonesandcaffeine]

love.

Things I’m Excited to Wear This Summer

It’s easy to get down on summer clothes. They don’t have the natural appeal of fall and winter wardrobes – there are no plush cashmere knits or prickly tweeds to draw you in, and there are few opportunities to layer. Over the years, however, I’ve come to appreciate how the changing of wardrobes helps mark the passing of time. Summer allows us to wear camp collar shirts, soft suede loafers, and airy materials, such as Tencel and linen. It’s also a good time to reintroduce ourselves to cheerier colors: warm peach, French blue, and sunflower yellow. If you’re looking for ideas on what to wear this season, here are ten things I’m particularly excited about. 

Bold Striped Shirts

White shirts are an all-time classic. During the Middle Ages, being able to wear a fresh linen shirt every day suggested you had wealth and status. White shirts were considered underwear, the first layer against the skin, and were easily soiled during a time of limited hygiene practices. Blue shirts, on the other hand, came much later as part of the uniform of laborers, sailors, and even prisoners.

Throughout the 20th century, the term “blue collar worker” has come to mean a certain kind of person: unaffected in manner, simple in ambition, and dependable in work. It has also become a useful rhetorical device to describe industrial capitalism while side-stepping more difficult ideas about class – the honest blue-collar worker stands opposed to the sniveling scriveners of white-collar middle-management. In his 1919 muckraking exposé The Brass Check, Upton Sinclair, a staunch socialist, neatly summed up his views on working-class struggles by talking about shirt colors. 

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