Fade to... white ?
Sat Feb 15 12:07:05 EST 2003
Like many of the people I have known, I have owned
many things in black. On many occasions I have been
seen soaked in it. It is easy
to match. A black t-shirt, black jeans, and black boots looks much nicer
anywhere than a white t-shirt, bluejeans, and sneakers. These days I
often wear all black except my shirt, which is still effortless to match.
Although if I then try to add colored (generally blue) nail polish it
starts getting complicated, so I often stick to silver.
When I recently attended the alt.polyamory convention in Boston, the
weekend I coincidentally moved to the area, I was inspired by the linens
in our hotel room. All white. I liked it. I recognized the advantage
of being able to bleach all of these things back to their intended color.
Plans began to form.
After I moved, when I bought my (king size) bed, I made sure it
was white. I bought all white sheets for it. I continued to use my
old black (not exactly fitting) comforter while I decided what exactly
I wanted to do about blankets. I bought bleach, and learned how to use
it with laundry.
I decided to start wearing undershirts, because the combination of
new piercings and
the inside texture of the microfiber polyester shirts I've been wearing
to work did not go well together. I got them in white. I still didn't
have much of a bleach load to do even if I washed all of the white things
I owned at once.
When I moved, I brought 3 towels that were appropriate for use after
bathing. My mom bought them for me years ago. Two black, one was once
light blue, all.. thoroughly broken in. The previously light blue one
got added to the bleach load.
Due to an increasing frequency of guests at my apartment, I decided
that I needed (and had an excuse for) more towels and sheets.
I had looked in the department stores in the CambridgeSide Galleria,
and been very disappointed. Very few white towels, and I didn't notice
any ridiculously huge towels.
I went to Bed Bath and Beyond. I had heard warnings about
its cursed ability to send you home with way more than you
had intended to buy. There were at least 5 different kinds of
acceptably huge white towels for me to choose from. This size
is apparently called a "bath sheet", and is otherwise the same
as regular towels. I decided to go with 100% cotton (of course)
Luxor
Towels by Martex, five (35"x70" (5.8 feet)) bath sheets and a tub mat.
I also got cotton jersey sheets, and some nice pretty white on white
printed sheets, and a set of plain sheets for the sofabed (which has
yet to be used as such). All white.
I was very proud of my success in avoiding the curse of BBB, I
left with only things I'd needed (including a new folding umbrella).
But truthfully, this was probably largely due to the fact that I had to
carry it all all the way home to Arlington on public transportation.
Work yesterday was very stressful for me. I had enjoyed my visit
to BBB. And I still needed to resolve my blanket issue, since I was still
using my old (queen sized) black comforter on my bed. I have always found
the big fluffy airy expensive duvet thing silly. At first I was tempted
to go for it, just to be as stereotypically luxurious as possible. Then I
decided that was dumb. Does anybody actually not enjoy having some weight
to their blankets ? Or is this whole phenomenon purely the result of
commercialism ? I wanted several heavy not excessively fluffy blankets,
still in white. The BBB website convinced me they had what I wanted.
I was supposed to go to a small gathering of friends after work, and
then to (club) Manray. I was so stressed I was seriously thinking about
just getting new blankets, skipping the people, and going home to hide.
I ended up deciding to get the blankets, join my friends for a bit,
and
then go home to hide, skipping clubbing.
My experience with BBB was frustrating. I was having difficulty
figuring out where I needed to look, not finding the items I'd seen on
the website. I found a set of acceptable flannel sheets, which I had
not seen last time - this was very frustrating as I would have strongly
preferred to get them instead of the cotton jersey sheets. I found one
blanket, and had pretty much given up on the rest, grabbed the flannel
sheets, and on my way out, asked for help, since it would have been
dumb not to. They were there. Somewhere else. The trip would have
gone so much faster if I had accepted help one of the first few times
it was offered. I put the sheets back.
I bought (top to bottom, in their current position), the following
machine washable and dryable white blankets:
- cotton coverlet/blanket
- thermal cotton (seems oddly named - not electric)
- acrylic
- Egyptian cotton
They are good. My day was much improved once I was hidden under them.
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