#28daysoftshirts – My Truant Pen

#28daysoftshirts – Bonus Day!

In a normal course of events, I wear my tshirt collection on Fridays. (My Monday – Thursday wardrobe is usually a slightly more professional blouse-type-garment.) So it seemed like a pity to have unworn tshirts and a Friday and not just toss in a 29th day of tshirts into the equation.

I got this tshirt on Bike To Work day last year – not because it was official swag (we got socks) – but because the Cambridge cyclists are SO EXCITED about people joining their ranks. They’re currently on internal mailing groups trying to convince people that a 10 mile each way 4 season bike commute with child carriers is totally do-able (because they do it). Anyway, this crazy crew was incredibly warm and supportive of my attempt, and one of them gave me this cycling-related tshirt as a bit of a celebration. It has a bike wheel in the middle, spokes up the size and a sprocket on the outside.

It’s also bright, soft and long and so I often wear it when I’m just looking for the #1 most comfy thing in my wardrobe.

Color: Bright blue
Fabric: Super soft
Front text: ALL POWERFUL

#28daysoftshirts – Day 28 Sigh No More

I’m sad to see this challenge come to an end – not least because I have 4 more tshirts I was planning on wearing, and probably another 10 that I wasn’t. So last night, when I went to a Mumford and Son’s concert, it was clear that I definitely did NOT need to get a Mumford and Son’s tshirt, no matter how much I like their music.

Whoops.

Color: Gray
Fabric: Soft
Text: Mumford & Sons
Attributes: Throwback sleeve design and wings on the back

I needed to make today a two-fer to get in my favorite hoodie design. The hoodie itself has alas been washed too much to be that super soft I so prize in my hoodies (like stuffed animals). I also disagree slightly with the attributes. I’m not +9 speed. I think it should be +9 alertness, which is a more useful attribute anyway.

Backstory: In roleplaying/video games, you sometimes get magical potions that temporarily increase your capabilities. This hoodie is making the point that coffee is totally a magical potion that temporarily increases your capabilities. The font and pixelation make this seem more like an old school video game stat.

Color: Black
Fabric: Not as soft as it used to be
Text: (Picture of coffee)
+5 Wisdom
+9 Speed
+8 Energy

#28daysoftshirts – Day 24 the one that started it all

This is my hardest to wear tshirt. I got it myself at Gencon in 2005 – the year I was pregnant with Grey. I think it’s hilarious – especially because I usually play a cleric. But there are almost no circumstances in which I can wear this shirt, because it’s so much more likely to be offensive than understood. If you’re scratching your head about what the heck is going on here, let me explain. In Dungeons and Dragons, there’s a type of character called a Cleric, who is responsible for doing most of the healing and spells. They also often use a mace as a weapon (which does D8 damage). Also in Dungeons and Dragons, there’s something called a saving throw. Let’s imagine a dragon blasts the area you’re standing with fire-breath. You can roll your dice and if your roll plus your dexterity is high enough, you manage to leap out of the way just in time. This is called making a saving throw. Of course, you’re not entirely out of the blast, so while you don’t take full damage, you take half damage. So if you “save” you only take half damage.

Therefore, on the front when it says “Jesus Saves” you think it means one thing. And when you see the back, with this awesome Jesus-as-D&D-cleric holding a mace with the tagline “And only takes half damage” you realize it’s an entirely different thing.

You can see why I can’t wear this shirt anywhere.

I was wearing it at the Gencon where I bought it, but had a cardigan on because it was cold. I got into this in depth discussion of religion and my faith with a guy (completely forgetting I had on a shirt that read “Jesus Saves”). At one point he referred to my shirt in context of our conversation, and I was like “Oh” and showed him the back of the shirt. His gobsmacked reaction was amazing. “I did not,” he said, “See that one coming.”

I keep the shirt because it still cracks me up. But yeah. It doesn’t get worn outside the house.

Color: Black
Fabric: Stiff
Front text: Jesus Saves (ornate script)
Back text: …and only takes half damage.

#28daysoftshirts – Day 23 More daydreaming about mountains

This is my second Mt. Rainier “The Mountains are Calling and I must go” tshirt. Apologies for the awkward photography angle required to attempt to make all the words legible. I’m missing the mountains and wide open spaces today. At the end of February in New England everything feels closed down, bleak and gray. The mountain is expansive, with glimmers of green and blue even in deepest winter, and purer whites. It seems impossible to believe that we’ll ever move easily and happily in warm outside air, but I hold onto the promise.

Color: Sage green
Fabric: Medium
Text: “The Mountains are Calling and I must go. – Mt. Rainier National Park – Elev. 14,411 ft”

#28daysoftshirts Day 22 – We could live here quite happily for years

I often wear this shirt for the flight when I’m headed out on vacation. I know, that’s weirdly specific. But you have to wear some shirt, and this one feels very vacationy! In case you for some reason haven’t memorized the entire Princess Bridge, this tshirt celebrates the Fire Swamp, which is known for three things: Lightening Sand, Flame Spurts and Rodents of Unusual Size (but I don’t believe they exist).

Color: Brown
Fabric: Medium
Text: “Come See the Terrors of the Fire Swamp – Lightening Sand, ROUS, Flame Spurts”

Day 21 – My cup runneth over

I’m feeling rather tired and drained today. There’s one sovereign remedy for weariness in my world: massive amounts of coffee. Mmmmmm coffee. I love this slightly blasphemous scene. I definitely feel kinship with the woman standing under the spout rapturously wearing a suit and holding coffee cups in either hand. I do prefer regular old American brewed coffee 99% of the time, although I like a thermal carafe better than one of the old heated ones.

Three people have already told me they need my shirt today.

Color: Brown
Fabric: Medium
Design: Huge coffee pot surrounded by adulating coffee worshippers

#28daysoftshirts – Day 20 Black History Month

Today’s a big deal in the Black History month scheme of things! We’ve got a big celebration planned, and I wanted to be ready. Looking at my remaining tshirt wardrobe, it was sadly lacking in African history celebrations. I found a shirt that had a picture of the continent of Africa, but… lamesauce. (For the record, I got this shirt for pulling invasive water chestnuts on the Charles River which is a very fun volunteer activity.)

Color: Black
Fabric: Soft
Front Text: GoogleServe
Back Text: Google.org

So instead I chose to wear a shirt I got at MJ Clothes in Lowell. I worship in a congregation that has a LOT of members from across Africa – including Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya and Liberia. We have increasingly had services where formal African dress was appropriate. And it turns out my friend Jackulin has opened up store in Lowell to sell formal African apparel. So I went a while back to check out the fabric options and get fitted. My formal dress is still in progress (they’re hand sewn) but I picked up this Ghanian top while I was there. In honor of her and my African friends, I decided to skip wearing the tshirt today!

My mom got a formal dress made too! Here she is with Jackulin.

#28daysoftshirts – Day 19 Old Timey arguments

So there was a moment maybe 10+ years ago where programmers were arguing a lot about implicit vs. explicit variable definition. While I programmed in a language that had implicit definition, I definitely had a bunch of moments where I suffered because what I thought was a string was actually a one value array, etc. So I was a fan of, you know, saying what you expected your variable to hold and have it hold only that thing you said it would.

I often question my programmer cred (see also: coding a language that tolerated not knowing whether a variable was a string or an array). But I still have opinions.

Color: Black
Fabric: Stiff
Text: Declare Variables, Not War.

#28daysoftshirts – Day 18 Nothing says “cool” like Nordic mythology in-jokes

So today’s another two-fer, with a tshirt and the soft, cozy, t-shirt like hoodie under it.

This is another great shirt! I love the color and fonts of the text. And I love how it messes with the standard saying. I mean, there is a guy who has a hammer and his problem is usually either Loki, solved by Loki or both. Usually both. I recommend either the Thor movies or Neil Gaiman’s excellent retelling of Norse mythology if this is confusing. Or better yet, both.

Color: Black
Fabric: Medium
Text: When your only solution is a hammer, every problem looks like Loki.

But it’s cold today and snowing and I wanted to be cozy. So I promptly covered said tshirt with a hoodie I got last summer on Mt. Rainier. Very often tourist stuff picks stock art of “mountains”. That drives me crazy when you’re talking about a mountain as iconic as Rainier is. I loved this sweater extra because it’s not just actually Mt. Rainier being shown, but it’s clearly Mt. Rainier as seen from Longmire.

Color: Grey
Fabric: Still soft, not yet pilled
Text: Mount Rainier – Washington

Mt. Rainier from Longmire for reference (smoky version)

#28daysoftshirts – Day 17 Gamer Pride

I’ve always loved rainbows. I loved them as a promise and a sign of hope. I love them for their color and variety of hue. I’ve loved them even more since they’ve come to represent acceptance, love and the brilliant variety of humankind. The rainbow of colors reminds me of all the people I love for whom that flag means welcome. I think of this as my gamer pride tshirt, and like to wear it in dice-related circumstances.

Color: Black
Fabric: Soft
Design: All standard gaming dice in a rainbow of colors