Wrinkles and a guest appearance

I'm loving the criss-cross mesh of wrinklage that is Charlie today. The wrinkles running at 135º are the temporary result of severely pushed up sleeves (all the way over the elbows). The real wrinkles are the ones running at about 30º, a classic "how'd you do THAT?" exhibition. Sorry the angle/lighting isn't the greatest... Trust me that they were impressive.

Also featured today is a page from Richard's book. He's on PTO, and oh-so-trustingly left his notebook open on his desk... so I snapped this:


Workin' hard and paying close attention to Boss Fail. No doubt he'll complain, but I've heard one too many mean things from him to be concerned.

Context Thursday

Unfortunately for Charlie, he works with a group who are uncommonly good at color. Sydney has already appeared here a few times demonstrating how to do it right. Today she's rocking a soft blue button down with crisp white collar and cuffs and the teeniest white pinstripes. Boss Fail is also in blue–he always has great colors and today he is sporting a simple t-shirt the exact shade of his sailor blue eyes. Of the men in our group, I think Boss Fail is the polar opposite of our Charlie: perfectly-hued oxfords always pressed within an inch of their lives. Ironic that they work closely together, it's "Exhibit A: Yin+Yang" on a daily basis.

Charlie had a truly stupendous plinkle down his right pant leg today, but I regretfully report that I did not snag a shot.

Well pressed Wednesday

Props to Charlie for a well pressed shirt, it's a great color on him too! Dark dusty espresso, leaning toward deep olive depending on the lighting. A clean white t-shirt underneath = bonus. Enjoy! These moments are too few and very far between.

Pretty in Pleats

Here we go. It's a classic sampling of Charlie Pleats! This is a unique manifestation of his wrinkle skills, these deep long parallel valleys running top to bottom. He insists that he doesn't do anything special to his laundry, but I'm just not buying it. These plinkles do not exist in nature, there MUST be a special process... and it's not just me, the whole office is fascinated.

Exactly Wrong Thursday

This morning Charlie chose to wear Exactly Wrong gray. Don't get me wrong, I love gray, it's a beautiful foil to many many hues... just not the special hue of Charlie. Here are a few quick examples of gray done right:


And a swatch interpretation of Charlie doing it all wrong:


Granted it's not heinous–I'm not going to discuss the wrinkles–but it could be so much better. Just imagine the second button open, with a crisp white t-shirt underneath. Or navy. Or a nice hit of red. Wouldn't take much at all to make it All Right...

By a funny coincidence Syd is again wearing the same color, gray trousers, but doing it Exactly Right:

Plum interlude and Charlie too

It's another plummy day. Barbara brought in some of her special home-made plum jam, which Rich promptly slathered onto crackers to make man-d'oeuvres and handed around the bullpen like the gentleman he is. There were about 7 on the plate to begin with, but this photo was taken ~40 seconds later. Delicious AND beautiful to look at–a perfect ruby red. The leafy green plums below were from Ana's garden last week.


On to Charlie. I really like today's shirt–it's a deep olive which looks almost dusty brown under office light. It's a shade that makes C look a healthy tan rather than orange, yay! The thing that's really cracking me up, though, is the angle of this photo. I took it from ~6" above his left shoulder (right where the devil hovers) and the distortion is just awesome: a freakishly small arm coming straight out from his neck, and the homunculus belly pushing up against the keyboard tray. It cracks me up that C uses a fancy ergo keyboard but his posture is terrrrrible–completely slumped down in his chair all day long as he furiously does his blipty blu.

Purple is a tricky color, for some.

Today's shirt, by itself, is awesome. Good cut, pretty color, and very well pressed. Unfortunately, it is EXACTLY the wrong shade for Charlie. My lame phone + office lighting makes it impossible to capture the color accurately, so Pantone chips are included to illustrate the absolute wrongness of that color for C's complexion. The shirt is paired with medium blue stonewashed jeans. Look at those swatches. They make me sad.

Just by coincidence, Syd is wearing purple today as well and of course she is doing it All Right. Now that's a nice palette.

I've developed a Compost Theory regarding Charlie's laundry. When creating compost you add the yard waste to the top of the bin, the magic happens in the middle, and you draw the "ripe" compost from the bottom. In the world of C's laundry I imagine a pile of clothing--clean clothes are added to the top and left to marinate, the magic happens in the middle, and bonus-wrinkle clothing is pulled out from the bottom. Voila!