Olds Dress Young in Chuck's Chucks

(Wrote this between nine and 21 years ago. Most if not all of it still applies.)

Adults wearing Chuck Taylors and/or shorts (which hey includes me at least 90% of the year — I’m in Austin for crissakes, and if you’re not dressing for comfort at this stage in the game you’re doing something wrong) > adults who consider comic books literature (some of my best friends aren’t middlebrow!) > adults eating cereal for dinner (I had oatmeal for a late night snack a couple times) > adults dressing up for Halloween. Last two are very close, I guess. Though actually to be honest I’d consider any of these transgressions a well-earned middle-age reward for getting that far in life without any tattoos.

Anyway, forget any clueless children in their teens or 20s or 30s who might potentially stop by here and say ageist bullshit because they’re too stupid to know better. I’m probably older than you, and I still wear Converse All-Stars, and did in New York too, on days it wasn’t freezing out and wasn’t gonna rain. (They’ve always tended to leak after being owned a few months, for some reason, or maybe I’m convinced that they’re less likely to split on their canvas and on the undersoles if they’re only worn when it’s dry out.) (Is “undersoles” even a word?)

Some people claim Chuck Taylors are painful to wear, but honestly it’s boots that hurt my feet. Maybe I’m just not wearing the right boots? The ones I’ve got are really sturdy for winter wear, but heavy, and my feet burn if I walk in them too long. As for leather shoes, sorry man, I may like some industrial bands but I am no masochist. Converse, on the other hand, have always seemed really comfortable, almost like slippers (which everybody knows are for inside wear, duh.) And in New York, I actually did lots of walking. In Chucks. Maybe I just have lucky feet or something. I’ve worn them for literally decades, pretty much the only gym/tennis/whatever shoes I’ve ever worn, give or take some cool brown Converse knockoffs I bought in Ohio once

As of this writing, I have three pairs (brown low-tops, black low-tops, and black high-tops, the latter of which I never wear.) Even had a pair of yellow Wiley Coyote/Roadrunner ones for several years, purchased new for $3 at a garage sale in Michigan — same garage sale where I found a New Kids on the Block sleeping bag. My exact 6 1/2 men’s size too, but I only wore them a couple times and sold them at my own garage sale last year. (For one thing, they were high-tops. Also, shoes are not supposed to be exciting! They are just…shoes. But it’s not like I could pass those things up for that price. They were pretty funny. But they looked better on a shelf than on my feet.)

So yeah, I’m obviously a creature of habit. Which is to say my “brand loyalty” is probably laziness or inability to experiment more than anything else; they work, they’ve always worked, why change? Well, guess they weren’t always super easy to find in the ’80s and ’90s, but I managed somehow. I’ve always managed to find them fairly cheap, too, and I totally hate shoe shopping so it’s not like I hunt all over the place. They just turn up. And they’re easier to find now (in stores) than they were a few years ago. Other kinds of sneakers would just look weird on my feet to me, and I totally don’t get the “not enough support” or “they hurt” claims. But then, I’ve got small feet, and I’m short. (Have had some knee pain in the past couple years, though, which might be attributable to Converse, but I doubt it.)

(By the way, I’m confused about something: I could’ve sworn that, at one point, Chuck Taylors and All-Stars were two different shoes. Not all my Converse All-Stars say “Chuck Taylor” on them, and weren’t there other shoes that actually said “Chuck Taylor” instead? There used to be, I’m pretty sure! Maybe they merged somewhere along the line, when I wasn’t paying attention? But I’m no shoe expert.)

Band T-shirts, I’m more ambivalent about. In New York I almost never wore T-shirts alone, even in the summer, when I usually wore short sleeves with buttons out of the house for some reason, but I wore my Van Zant and Cordelia’s Dad and Lesion shirts under long sleeve button up shirts in the winter if that counts. I probably had some other ones deep in my drawer, but didn’t wear them much. Also wore non-band T-shirts as undershirts. Usually black ones. Size L. I’m pretty picky about which T-shirts I’ll wear beneath clothes, since most of them aren’t very comfortable. I haven’t worn T-shirts simply to “advertise” a band for many many years.

But wait, what about Selena T-shirts that look like Slayer T-shirts until you look closer? Do they count? (Though actually, more of my T-shirts have weird animals like narwhals and platypi on them.) And can I at least wear socks with sandals if I’m just walking to the end of the driveway to take out garbage or retrieve the paper or mail?? (Sorry, sandals are just easy to quickly slip on!) Not dark ones of course, but light grey socks are okay for that purpose, right? Also, someday maybe I will buy a hat. (For summer, I mean — I grew up in Michigan. So I know what hats are really for.)

Some women I know tell me they prefer sun dresses to shorts, which definitely makes sense but unfortunately I haven’t found any that fit. Also, saying women over 30 shouldn’t color their hair is moronic.I’ve never died my own hair in my life, for what it’s worth, more out of gutlessness than anything else. But I have close friends over 30 who have and do, and I would be very sad if they stopped.

So okay, cereal. Truth is I never liked sugar cereal much. Not even as a kid. Once upon a time I was a real big Grape Nuts fan, but now I get enough fiber during the day. When I was really little, my favorite cereal (“baby book” documentation shows) was Kellog OK’s, which — as far as I can tell — were basically the same as Cheerios except there were K’s as well as O’s! I also apparently loved Bran Buds (which I’m pretty sure are the same as All-Bran but shorter), except I called them “Bran Bugs”. Even as a toddler, I had old-man taste in cereal.

As for comic books, and Wonder Woman in particular, I’m really hoping it’s not considered sexist now to just plain not care about superheroes, in general. Because if so, I’m in trouble.

ILX ll October 2005/17 March 2006/I April 2010//facebook 5 June 2017