And the concrete details. It was designed by Paloma Picasso, made of hammered white gold with one small diamond, and sold by Tiffany & Co. I didn’t mean to have a designer ring, we just ran into it. By the way, Wikipedia tells me we can refer to the venerable retailer as either Tiffany or Tiffany’s. I appreciate flexible colloquial language, don’t you?

As to the ephemeral details, ah, well, I have to tell you something. I find that with these wedding stuff I’ve bumped right into an inner cairn of privacy, stone markers on a field road. You all asked about my ring before I’d set up formal signposts, really before I knew the direction at all.

So I answer now, as you’re my friends, and who am I to close gates without an explanation? Going forward, I just want you to know, if details never show up, if some bits of this wedding, or other weddings I may have had, never show up here at all, I’m as surprised by my need for privacy as you might be.

With that, the Proposal Ring, in situ.

At many points in previous years I might have thought that I wanted, almost needed a great big diamond. Time came, not so. Significant Other was willing to go big but I had not a flicker of interest. And yet, I did very much want an actual proposal. He and I picked out rings together.

I said “Yes,” with endearments.

Once married, I’ll take this ring and wear it on the right hand occasionally, stacked with the band my mother and stepfather gave me years back, and maybe something from my dad’s family. I’ll wear my wedding band, all the time, on the left. All the time has so many meanings now.

Share on Facebook

1. Date – A Thursday in August ✓
2. Ceremony Venue – San Francisco City Hall ✓
3. Photographer – Emilia-Jane Schobeiri ✓
4. Invitations – Paperless Post for email, TBD for a few paper invitations
5. Officiant  ✓
6. Vows
7. Rings – Tiffany Platinum & Diamond 5-Stone Band for Lisa, Family Heirloom 24K Band for Significant Other ✓
8. Folding Chairs from City Hall
9. Dinner Location – Local restaurant, not sure yet exactly which one
10. Dress – Under consideration: Christopher Kane Tape Dress, Nina Ricci Floral Lace, Assorted short dresses to be tried on one afternoon at Bridal Galleria with sister, sister-in-law, and niece
11. Best Daughter’s Dress
12. Best Son’s Suit And Tie
13. Shoes
14. Hotel Reservations
15. Wedding Day Coordinator ✓
16. Some Flowers
17. A Cake
18. Restaurant Place Cards
19. Water Bottles For Ceremony
20. Table Cloth For Table For Water Bottles For Ceremony
21. Water Bottle Labels (stop me now)
22. Hair appointment

Lessons learned:

1. It’s hard to set a date for weekday weddings in the summer, even a simple one. People have a lot of plans already in place. But with the goodwill of your friends and family, it’s possible.
2. Make a to do list where that with which you cannot marry occupies spot #1. Keeps the priorities of the day straight. Just because I’d like pictures in a beautiful dress, doesn’t mean they matter most.
3. As a wedding service provider, put yourself out there. Emilia-Jane asked me, on Twitter, to consider her. So I did, to my great pleasure.

I will keep updating this list as we go. Right now I’m wearing what we will call a Proposal Ring. It’s quite a pleasant experience, says the High WASP in an understated way.

Share on Facebook

This is a story about color, and other stuff.

I’m wearing a UNIQLO jacket, Anniel oxfords, chandelier earrings from Beladora, lavender pencil skirt and French blue tee from J. Crew. (They can call it Heather Blueberry all they like but I refuse to participate). Also hair which is now 100% whatever color it so chooses, and a ponytail avec velvet scrunchie. Lavender is how purple evolves for summer. Nude oxfords are how you walk to work in San Francisco. Scrunchies are my Sturdy Gal must.

But I was also taking photos in a slightly odd context. This is one of San Francisco’s Urban Gardens. I wanted to mix things up with the blog photo locations, so at 8:15am last Friday morning I stood myself and my tripod on a path to side of a site filled with flower and vegetable beds. All of the 4 or 5 people weeding, harvesting, or planting were older Asians. The garden sits right behind a primarily Filipino retirement community.

I couldn’t help but feel a little self-conscious, in context. What did another generation, another culture think of me and my urban semi-Artsy getup? Hmm.

I myself felt quite the Young Thing. Quite the Do Not Go Gently Into The Dark Night. Have you noticed how many young women now wear dowdy old woman clothes? Curious but true. I almost managed I Might Have Been A Ballerina, another young woman fashion trope. Hence the high pony. By the way, I was a terrible dancer in my youth.

As far as color, I was particularly happy with the combination of lavender and French blue, set off by the Beladora earrings. And with finally having  managed a nude shoe moment.

(I was also pleased with having recovered my Rolex Cellini from the watchmaker for the umpteenth time. Note to community: buy a Timex if you want a man-styled watch. These fancy pants timepieces break all the darn time.)

The chandeliers felt just right. Living large, danglers in the office. Then I hung one earring on a potato vine for its self portrait.

Again I wondered, what must the urban farmers think?

Style is 50% aesthetics and 50% social context. But the social context is mutable. Some of us live with a compelling internal lodestone, and don’t care what others think. Some of us watch the fashion horizon for trends and statements. And others, me among them. look to functional and relational context, to the Appropriate, for guidance.

When I got to the office, people told me they liked the colors of my clothes. That they’d never seen me in a ponytail before. They smiled. Better out of the vegetable patch than in.

I was still thinking about context when I went out to lunch. I snapped my reflection in a glass door, figuring this was a better representative of real life style than early morning fourth position in a garden. Hence the Bottega Veneta cross-body bag, over-sized Ray-Ban aviators, an wrinkled tee and open jacket. Oh, and lunch was a patty melt, and fries. Both A-1 sauce and ketchup might have come into play.

Note: Beladora’s $150 discount for Privilege readers using the code SKYE is operational until this Sunday. I receive a 5% on any such purchases. No other compensation received or predicted for this post.

Share on Facebook

There’s a question on the airwaves these days, i.e. “How can you speak to an issue if personal privilege might color your opinion?” This article in the Guardian offers more detail.

Clearly, given the title of this blog, I believe that privilege exists. I also believe it should be discussed openly. So discussed by whom? And how?

Let’s first define our terms. Privilege means you get stuff you don’t have to work for. The concept of privilege in society implies that those without suffer injustice. Everyone on board with that? Despite the inelegant grammar?

If you rely on language alone, categories of privilege get pretty silly pretty fast. We move from white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, to thin privilege, and then on to hirsute privilege, good work ethic privilege, and so on. But we all know that easy riffing often ignores truths.

Add a little thought.

I always start with my own reactions, if only to clear thought space. For example. I have a strong bias toward simply getting on with things. I might be tempted to label discussing Privilege (other than for entertainment) complaining. I might blurt out,  “Could we all please Just Buck Up?” However, what about feminism? I’ve run into my fair share of harassment. To say nothing of myriad male attempts to seize power via gender attacks. It was worse in the 80s.

So I can’t deny the emotional reality of privilege as experienced from the other side.

Now what? Does logic support emotion? And how far? Let’s analyze the construct, the model itself of privilege and power. Back to the definition. Privilege, briefly stated, is stuff you get without having to work for it. But oh so many layers.

There’s genetic privilege, if you will. Born white, born male, born intelligent, born tall, born handsome. Yet the men I know who check all these boxes are markedly non-dominating. Nor can all genetic talents be defined as privilege. Resilience is genetic, and a priceless advantage,  but we attribute the virtues of those born resilient to, well, virtue.

Then there’s non-genetic privilege. Wealth, a functional family, fresh air, good food, education. As we know, these don’t follow automatically from genetic privilege. Rich kids grow up on junk food, tall people have cruel parents, little boys are badly schooled. To further complicate our analysis, someone had to work for that non-genetic privilege; at the very least parents had to say no to Cheetos.

So logic will take us only so far toward absolute rules for who has privilege, who doesn’t, and therefore who is allowed to speak.

Let’s approach this from another angle. Let’s assume that such rules are possible, that silencing those with privilege, feasible. In that case only voices of the dominated will be allowed. Taken further, (and assuming that lack of privilege confers as much virtue and self-awareness as privilege – which is to say Not Too Much) will we cast all experience in light of victimhood?

A poor outcome, in my opinion.

I’m going to come out in favor of freedom to speak, as long as we remember who might be listening, and what life they may have led. Checking not so much my own privilege as the hearts and minds of others as I go. Because I believe people are at heart good, I hope we the privileged get to talk as long as we try not to be jerks. As long as we ridicule no one.

I hope we don’t have to apologize, at least not more than once. Or twice. Or at the very most 10 times. I used to apologize all the time. Constant self-questioning turns into anxiety, and there’s enough of that in the world.

I also hope the idea of Just Buck Up keeps its value.

Power is one source of sorrow in the world, but there are others.

Let’s return to the realm of the ridiculous. Laughter is one of the great human identifiers, and we can get to funny pretty quickly. Take a quiz, referred to me by Ellemarcheseule. Or go reread Stuff White People Like. Only thing is, remember to laugh loudly at ourselves and gently at others.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Share on Facebook

As I’ve said, I walk to work. As I’ve said, I have a very casual office. So my choice of summer work shoe may look oddly similar to your run-about-towners. We will take that as a fortunate accident.

Witness the Camper “Right Nina” sandal. Why “Left Nina” fails to get a nod I do not know.

Comfortable sporty rubber soles, (digression, is anything really rubber any more?) very soft leather uppers, and an elastic strap that I promise you manages to avoid looking cheap while doing a bang up job of holding the sandal right to your foot. Summer shoe slippage is the mother of blisters, and blisters, my friends, are sad, sad, summer accoutrements.

I wore an orange and white pair for my recent New Jersey trip. Camper + Louis Vuitton tote = Sturdy Grande Dame. Blurry photo + airport carpet = Travel Haze.

The “Right Ninas” can also be had in black, gray, bone, and red. Left Nina perhaps is purple? I digress. Orange is hot now, and that seems right for a summer shoe. Like daylilies in Pennsylvania. Bloom like crazy, and when you’re done you’re done. Camper offers a 2-year guarantee, so should you outlast the lilies you need not go unshod.

I wear a 6.5 in sport shoes, a 7 in closed toe, a 37 in European. Camper offers only whole sizes, I advise you to round down not up. Zappos offers the “Right Nina” for $115.

Camper, a European brand, flies just under the radar for mainstream US fashion. The company history and approach warrants a read. If you have a chance to go into one of their stores, take it. Clean, friendly, busy, and cute. Quite comfortable for trying on all the colors.

No compensation received. Just happy feet.

Share on Facebook

If however you’ve a mind for a little tarting, here’s what I did to my Princeton Reunions jacket. What started out all Tommy Bahamas Tuxedo, for our 25th,

Wound up like this, for the 35th. I could deconstruct, but I suspect you will do a better job of analysis than I, today.

I’m not sure if it gets better or worse,

close up. Or from the back, for that matter. The ribbon sash set tigers crawling ever so fetchingly around the waistline.

Whatever the angle, it’s all Audi’s doing. She escorted me through Britex, the venerable San Francisco fabric house. I took the resultant bales of lace and tulle to Jacquie’s Sew and Sew in Palo Alto, who did a great job of well, tarting. The rest is infamy.

The charming, smiling, dear woman on the left is my college roommate, Catherine. We lived together 3 of 4 years, having been thrown together as freshmen, and discovered an affinity. She from Houston, me from the Bay Area, both of us now returned home, still friends. I just have to remark on what good shape she’s in. I’ll tell you that she runs, long distances, in Houston, as a small indicator of her mettle.

Catherine had the good manners to don the 35th Reunion costume as we were given it, albeit with an especially crisp and polished approach. The theme was “Hollywood,” and our 35th shirt was printed with film strip cartoons of Reunion logos past. Somehow I took a detour to Vegas, all Georgette Heyer Goes Behind The Candelabra. Involved a lace J. Crew tank, Forever21 polyester crepe and lace skirt, and gold Havaianas. If you’re going to tart it up, do so on the cheap.

My toenails however, were high end. Deborah Lippman glitter. If you’re going to tart it up, go head to toe.

For our 50th, I’m going to request a costume of black and white seersucker blazers, with gold and orange crest. Or perhaps a black and white tweed mock Chanel, or Thom Browne shrunken schoolboy. Time for boys to dress in girls’ clothing, I say. Orange piping please. Do you think the Alumni Committee will entertain my ideas?

If not, I suppose I can add more tulle every year, the layers like tree rings, palimpsests, or notes in the margins of a first edition.

All images by me, except the last one. Credit to Lore, and thank you!

Share on Facebook

As backdrop for the festivities, here’s a small set of posts I’ve written over the past few years about my alma mater.

1. As a young freshman in 1974.

Where Did You Go To School?

2. Attending my 25th Reunion (on Reggie Darling’s blog.)

Guest Post (Thoughts on the changes to Princeton over the past few decades, and the P-rade)

3. My daughter’s graduation.

The Story Of My Daughter’s Graduation

4. My son’s graduation.

The Graduation Speech I Will Never Give

The Princeton Classes of ’78, ’09, and ’12 Salute You!

In closing, let me say only that I’m NEVER wearing that jacket again without tarting it up a tad.

Have a wonderful weekend. We’re all always graduating from something.

Share on Facebook

When my sister gave me the Jigsaw Henley in navy, I discovered the joys of waistline forgiveness. A hint of elastic and some extra fabric. At 56, even a plain white tee sometimes asks more of me than I’ve got.  So I went ahead and bought it in olive.

This is a wearable shade for those of us natively blue in hue, albeit not quite as safe as navy. But no brown with your olive. We will leave that to our yellow-toned sisterhood. Unsurprisingly, I’ve got some J. Crew bootleg cords in black. Semper Paratus, the Sturdy motto.

Add jade and opal jewelry, to further obviate any muddy effect. When you’re aiming for comfort, little details can keep you from sliding into the moral equivalent of sweat pants. And cheer you on throughout the day.

And, for this is summer in San Francisco and we believe that June is for Fog with a Capital F, you might remove any last hint of drab with a fuchsia muffler. Which I often wear in the office, like a corporate security blanket. Comfort has many guises, and if one is a 10-year old length of pink Italian cashmere, well why not?

Scarf by Loro Piana, shoes by Beautifeel. I wasn’t kidding about  comfort.

Share on Facebook

Q: “I work for a pretty cranky guy. His method of managing often involves chastising people. I just walked into his office to ask about something and he started complaining about me and my assistant not completing a certain task soon enough. I had a valid response, but found my voice wavering and almost started to cry! I’m obviously a sensitive gal. How do I toughen up at work?”

A: Toughening up will happen in its own time. In my experience you get tough at work as you start to believe that probably it isn’t all your fault. You may not be sensitive, per se, you may simply have high expectations of yourself. Every time you are scolded, you may suspect the chastiser is be right. Approach this two ways. First, nail down all details so you are rarely surprised with a failure. Second, give yourself regular reviews and full acknowledgement of what you do well. Oh, and when push comes to shove, if you feel that too much emotion will show in your voice, say as little as possible. Rarely do you actually have to say much of anything. A simple, “Understood,” will make you sound like a Green Beret, the toughest of the tough.

Q:  “My question for you might be a little nosy- so if you decide not to answer I understand. Or you might be able to answer without mentioning your own experience. Anyway, I’m 56 and single- divorced- and am starting to wonder if it might be time to just stop trying to date. I woke up one morning so relieved I didn’t have anyone to bother me or compromise with- which worries me a bit, since it seems like the first stages of “set in her ways.” I read your post on attractive (net plus) and it could be that my off and on unemployment for the past couple of years is creating a sense of ‘net minus’, so I’m not feeling all that attractive, even though I’ve been able to keep the ol’ body in good shape. So, reading your last post, the one about being so happy you found a partner, has me wondering how you met referenced partner. Do you care to share? Does he have any comments about women this age dating? Advice? I think for me, I should be more settled financially before I date, but then what? I want to stay hopeful and positive, but (and maybe it’s the dreary Seattle weather) it’s feeling a bit… not hopeful. Any thoughts, advice, or stern admonishments appreciated.”

A: Let me first hasten to tell you all that this reader signed her question. Happiest of New Years! I am very sorry to be answering so late.

Moving on. Dating. As I am to be married, I clearly believe in late life romance. I don’t think it depends on financial stability, per se, but I do think you’re going to have to get very clear about your own value. Because while I believe in romance, I also believe in the underlying contract of marriage. You make a deal, and you should understand what you have to offer. Then you find someone who values most what you do best. Nobody gets shortchanged.

I recommend working. A lot of people do it, which means it is a good place to meet a partner. Most of the work of dating is handled by the day-to-day to-ings and fro-ings. As far as my own experience, let’s just say it’s implied in these words.

I think you should remain hopeful. People like to love. They will do it despite themselves. Most of all, spend your time with those who love you, they will grow your capacity to be loved even more widely. If you decide you don’t need a man by your side, from what I’ve seen of family widows, you’re going to want a best friend, a happy hobby or two, and maybe a dog or a cat.

Q: “What is your opinion about genealogical lineage societies? My ancestors also date to early America – early 1600s Massachusetts to be precise. My family has maintained a detailed genealogy and has passed the history down through the generations, but we have not joined any of the genealogical societies in existence which commemorate and record early lineage. I have considered submitting my family’s genealogy to pertinent organizations (i.e. Hereditary Order of the First Families of Massachusetts), primarily to formally preserve this history and to aid its dissemination to my future offspring. Are you or any of your family members involved in such societies? If so, would you mind sharing your experience?”

A: I’m conflicted about them. I have had little desire to join, but like you, I have been happy for the documentation passed on by previous generations. The DAR, and other societies too, I imagine, requires all kinds of paperwork. My great-grandmother on my mother’s side seems to have filled it out, because I have a copy. I rather liked reading the old names, Samuel, Abigail, Isabel. My father knows his family history in detail. In fact, thank you for bringing this up. I am going to ask Dad where he keeps the records. And maybe look into joining this society. Then finally, perhaps I will have some experience worth sharing.

More questions remain. One way or another I will respond. I’m honored to have you all listening.

Share on Facebook

Probably soon, probably near, certainly small. More details, in moderation, to follow.

I’m very, very happy.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Share on Facebook