2001-2023 - How We've Aged

Yesterday at Lowe's home improvement center (of course) I realized that I was wearing boots, and this caused me to remember that on the Achewood About page I am also wearing boots. This gave me the idea to do a little "then and now" bit. 

Philippe has some kind of blemish on his lip these days, which is giving him a "tough" expression (he thinks this) that matches the neckerchief he's wearing as he plays Great Outdoor Fight around the yard. His big moment will be later, when I let him shake up a warm plastic bottle of Coke and then throw it at the edge of a cinderblock, as the "grand finale." 

The boots in the 2001 photo are some black Calvin Kleins I got at a big place called Century 21 in Manhattan, back when I worked for DaimlerBenz, with the Germans, in Palo Alto. (That era will be its own post someday. Our softball team was HORRIBLE.) My current boots are some Caterpillars I've had since I moved up from California fourteen years ago. They are indestructible. Notice my stagged Carhartts. They aren't stagged because I'm trying to be some Portland Olde-Tymey wanker, they were actually just too short so I let the cuff out with a box cutter. I've heard it said that, "Everybody wants to wear Carhartts until it's time to do Carhartt shit." I have been doing Carhartt shit a lot lately, including sliding my ass across roofing shingles for hours at a time (basically, a 60-grit pass), so I excuse myself from that accusation.  

Lastly we have the lager-swollen young Silicon Valley specimen, with his rich, floppy mane and "Speak the Federalist Papers softly to me" glasses/hair motif. Fast forward to a grizzled older veteran, casting his thousand-yard stare across the sea of projects which await him. (Today, sheetrock and some pleasant fir floor sanding.)

Be well, and keep aging. I have a friend who doesn't do that any more, and it reminds me to eat my thirty vegetables a week.