If you’re a member of a special society or group that loves men’s bare feet and toes, or if your partner or spouse has a foot fetish and loves admiring, touching or more with respect to your toes, congratulations. You’re in a special minority.
In a numbing sea of sameness and conformity, Tom Wolfe stood out. He found a look (a really good one), latched onto it and committed to it totally. Instead of looking like everyone else and boring the hell out of himself and anyone who looked his way, he decided to dazzle. And dazzle he did.
I’m not a vegan, but I’ve adopted a classification I call “vegan-adjacent.” After quitting meat in 2010, I’ve also made adjustments that bring me closer to a vegan without going full-tilt. Since then, I’ve drastically dialed down the dairy, only consuming it when I’m out at a restaurant or a party, and I still occasionally eat fish. Other than that, I’m much closer to vegan than carnivore.
When I moved back to Cleveland at the end of 2016, I was delighted to see far more vegetarian and vegan offerings than I’ve ever noticed before. But Cleveland is very much a meat eater’s town. Every other menu or advertisement for a restaurant is all about the beef, the bacon and the extra cheese.
If you add all that to the fact that I’ve detected little to no discernible gay presence in Downtown Cleveland (not even one gay bar), imagine my sheer delight when a friend forwarded me a brand new Cleveland-based vegan cooking video series by a guy named Dave Huffman, a.k.a. Bitchy Vegan Homo.
I get a lot of pressure from brands and readers alike that I have to try this suit maker, check out those shirts, review that company, take a look at this label, yada yada yada. But these days, almost every Tom, Dick and Watchmaker likes to play the ‘luxury’ card, framing their wares as premium goods for bros who want to look like they’re killing it.
My problem is that I’m neither a “luxury” person nor a person who needs or wants a lot of stuff. When it comes to solicitations that land in my inbox, I understand the confusion. Between the tailored suits, shirts, ties and shoes, I probably present like a luxury person, even though I’m not. But these are hyper-casual times where a shirt with a collar, pants that aren’t denim and shoes that aren’t sneakers are considered “dressing up.”
My taste in shoes is like my taste in humor: the darker the better.
I just got back from riding my bike to my nearest pet store to restock on Smokey and Lenore’s food (2.3 miles, 13 minute ride each way), and I thought I would update you guys on the #CarFreeInCLE situation.
Every year around this time, I feel like burning my winter coats. I’m sick of wearing them. As I write this in the beginning of April, high temperatures peak in the high 30s/low 40s and the low temperatures dip into the low 30s/high 20s. I’m so bored with it.
By the time I left New York, I had sold everything except my dogs, my computer, my clothes and my books. During my first year in the Cleveland area, I lived in a guest room at my mother’s fully furnished house. When I finally secured an apartment, all my possessions fit comfortably into the van I hired to move to my new home in Downtown Cleveland. I had no furniture.
I moved to Downtown Cleveland at the beginning of October 2017. At the completion of my first full month living downtown without owning a car, I wrote a piece about my actual transportation costs for that first month and compared them with how much I would have spent with a car. The difference was staggering.
My three black tie favorites from this year's Oscars.