and a word about the cut-off shirt mentioned in yesterday's post. when marty says i'm wearing a cut-off shirt, it's not like the eighties-style top you're probably imagining. eighties-style being defined by one's full gut and navel being exposed. my cut-off shirts are a product of how ill-fitting todays basic t-shirts are for me. they wear more like a tube-sock than a undershirt. they hang several inches below my groin. they don't quite pass my knees, but obviously i look quite ridiculous. and if i tuck them into a pair of pants, i end up with all this bunched up material just below my belt-line and the last thing i need is more padding sitting anywhere near my ass. so the last time i bought some shirts, i got totally disgusted with how low they were hanging. so i took them off, got a pair of scissors and cut six inches of material off the bottom so the damn thing would actually end somewhere near my waist instead of three inches below my crotch.

my idea was gold excepting two details;
1. i'm not garment savvy enough to project how much a shirt will shrink, so a few of the first shirts i did this to have shrunk so much i can no longer tuck them into my pants. if i keep them long enough i reckon they may soon qualify as an eighties-caliber cut-off, but this is not in any way intentional.
2. when you scissor-cut a cotton shirt and don't stitch the wound, it rolls up like a severed achilles tendon. no matter how much you flatten it with your hand, it rolls right back into its tight curl. at first i wore the shirts inside out so the roll was inside towards my body, but then the label faces out and everyone you pass asks if you know that your shirt is on inside out. so, i stopped doing that and in time have grown to like this added flourish. in fact, it strikes me as a smart addition to something that is otherwise, a dull, flat and boring shirt hem. you just wait, in ten years time, this is how all shirts will be manufactured. granted by that point mine will have shrunken so much they will stop a few inches above my nipples, and unfortunately that trend won't catch on for an additional ten years.