The Feeling Begins

Well, it begins. The journey. The odyssey. The descent into madness.

For Vassilena, that is. Good luck to her.

Who’s Vassilena Johns? She’s many things – a Bulgarian, a philosophy graduate, someone whose handwriting slants right, and in my case, the person charged with my makeover.

Now you ask two questions. First, what? And second, what took you so long?

Well, it all started over a casual round of drinks with myself and two good friends, congratulating ourselves because one major task we’d taken upon ourselves had almost come to fruition. Over a bottle of J. Lohr Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 (a good standard red, it’s got a lighter taste than most cabs for one so young but is still hearty and yet not abrasive like malbec can be) and some salted nuts, wearied by our seeming Sisyphean labours, we slouched around the glow of a warm candle, but at least in a kind of sophisticated way. One has to do that with good wine, after all. I laid back, thrilled that it was all over.

Then it began.

“James,” one of them (we’ll title such person Remiss Rajah) began, “I’ve got something else for you.” Well, there ain’t no rest for the wicked. What else is new?

“Yeah, James,” the other (how about A Ton Saintlike – I’m sure said person is given their adherence to Lent) chimed in, eyes glowing, “it’s good news!”

Now, when someone exclaims that to me, that instantly makes me think one of two thinks. It’s actually really good and I’ll be excited, or it’s something to fear. And knowing A.T.S., I wasn’t sure what to expect.

They both looked at me, expecting me to take the bait. “Uhhhh…. really?” I asked, ever so much projecting that omnipresent lawyerly confidence and intellect into my words.

R.R. nodded, and for once I noted a little bit of uncertainty in the eyes. Said person rarely gives away looking uncertain, and is one of the steadiest people I know, except for the one instance of drinking quite a bit over the limit at and after one Christmas party and having a physical the next day. Cue the heart rate to increase just a bit more.

A.T.S. then leaned in, eyes dancing with an excitement that you typically only see in Bollywood movies when the 80’s music remix in Hindi pops up and the hero and heroine dance their way from the Taj Mahal to the Swiss Alps. Cue the heart rate to increase quite a bit more.

Dramatic silence. “We got you…” A.T.S. continued on with anticipation…

“A makeover!”

Well, that certainly wasn’t what I expected. They then took great detail to flesh it out. Vassilena met up with them one day and as a treat to me, they got me ten sessions with her as a style consultant. Ten – the number of commandments. I can see the rules come up one by one. Thou shalt be a winter (whatever that means). Thou shalt wear pink, for pink is the color of true men. And not rose, but neon. Thou shalt know what an Inverness cape is, and thou shalt own one. Vassilena, they said, seemed like a very nice person and indeed, she did sound like it over the phone. Our first meeting, at noon tomorrow, is across from Holt Renfrew.

R.R., the master of munificence, must have detected my uncertainty and said that I had many strengths as a person, but presentation just wasn’t one of them. As quoted, “sometimes, you look like you’d just rolled out of bed.” Darned Starcraft 2 that I watch late into the night sometimes, that I don’t even play! Excuses, excuses though.

So, not quite sure what to make of it, I went to consult three of my friends. My friend Gabriel told me to take it at face value, just have fun with it, because it’s not something to get worried over and “let’s face it, it’s probably even worse looking if you don’t take it positively.” Always logical, always methodical from him, though he’s also among the best-dressed people I know, so he’d never end up needing an intervention. Then again, maybe his thought process is why he doesn’t need it. So I thought whatever, drop whatever fool pride I had (though in terms of my clothing, there may not be any, and that may be the reason I received one). I’m going to own it and have fun.

Judy’s reaction: “What? What? What??? So you’re going to be like the people on What Not To Wear?” She found it quite amusing and told me to keep her appraised, but supported my attitude. So did Zahra.

Other friends of mine were also supportive if a bit amused. Rachel said that almost any woman would kill to be in my position, getting free fashion consultations. Her assistant Jen was laughing so hard, she stopped working for a full two minutes or so.

So there we are – in a little over thirteen hours, I will be meeting up with Ms. Johns to start making myself. To be the best I can be - a better man. But I hope Vassilena approves my request after this first session to let me have a guest come each of the next sessions, so they can witness the rebirth in all its glory, and me being prodded out of my comfort zone (which is a good thing) and as a result be entertained. Jenn has already signed up for one of the prospective seats. Other reservations are being taken now.

One thing that Vassilena told me to start looking at were styles I want to wear and take pictures, so we can go through them and she can get a sense of me and tell me reasonable limits to what I can expect. I know I can’t pull off certain things, but that doesn’t mean I should stay confined to jeans, hoodies, shirts, and the few suits I do have. In looking at items, I mostly want a clean line, without a lot of embellishment, and I have to be comfortable. I work hard, I like to relax as much as possible – and I don’t think presentation necessarily needs to be uncomfortable. For more casual clothes, I want something that has a personality to it, even if it means that I am wearing bright greens and oranges and standing out quite a bit at a Christmas choir concert (well, at least it was green so it was festive). I have a few pictures but I am not solid on ideas.

I also reflected a little on what’s happened to me in a fashion sense. I at one time overpurchased clothes – I had clogged closets, dressers and the like, and enough shoes to get the title of the male Imelda Marcos. Quite a bit of my collection was unique, and when I did go places I sometimes did get notice and a compliment about some of my items. But there was one intervening event: my CIDA internship.

Moving to Ghana helped me to cut my clothes down to the essentials and a few perks, and I got to move a lot of stuff to consignment, a lot of clothes to charity, as well as leave a bunch of clothes at my parents’ house that never came with me when I moved out again, so that if I had an extended stay it wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

When I moved in again, I first said I didn’t have enough savings to necessitate going out to buy a lot of clothes, but as time went on that excuse became more hollow. I thus came up with others – that I wanted to get in better shape first, that I wanted to wait until sales, that work had always been all-consuming, but in thinking about it, I think I just didn’t know what I wanted, to the exact point that I could pull the trigger and get it.

I was a vessel full of information and items at one point. Now, after one major event which could almost be described as a whole event in another world, I am one devoid of such and in a kind of stasis. I am Nakata from Kafka on the Shore, in a fashion sense, but I don’t have any special talents like being able to talk to dress shirts. But at least I have the chance to come back to the world, and this is hopefully going to be more pleasurable than moving a gateway stone.

I thus am truly looking forward to this.

A.T.S. later talked to me about it and was happy that I had come to this conclusion, as apparently that night, I grew pretty quiet and R.R. was worried that I’d taken it the wrong way. I want to say that it wasn’t, and it was mostly because the beef kebabs we had were really that good. I’m also just not that talkative sometimes, though dim sum with my coworkers today was a bit of the opposite. Then again, any time you have Winnie and Mike around, you get the most random conversations about Nate Dogg (apparently, he’s dead), so it was good. So was the food at Kirin, but as with most Chinese restaurants, they lost one of our orders, gave us too many of another, and ultimately forgot to call a taxi when I asked for one. However, that’s standard Cantonese service and I’ll take it if I get good ha gow and other foods.

Thus, til tomorrow! And on to session 1.