Independence Day Summary; Obsessive Branding Disorder

When I come back from a three-day holiday weekend, I find it best to ease back slowly into the daily grind by doing maybe one work-related project in the morning, interrupting myself repeatedly to check e-mail and news-like fluff, and then in the afternoon after lunch, post a blog entry about my activities over the extended weekend.

Many people make grand plans designed to make the most of their time off during a holiday weekend; for July 4, hordes of sun-worshipers descend upon the beaches and take up every square inch of sand. Others are more content to stay home and have people over for grilled animal parts. Still others attend parades or other public spectacles, and go out into the hot, sticky July evening to watch sparkly things go boom in the night sky.

I feel that my wife and I made a very wise choice this year to keep to our own damn selves the whole weekend. On Saturday we just sat around watching movies on the idiot box into the late afternoon. I got to see Terminal, which I'd never seen, as well as Rock Star with Mark Wahlberg, plus one I'd never heard of, Necessary Roughness, starring Scott Bakula. We ventured out into public and took in X-Men First Class at the cinema, using a discounted Fandango voucher to get seats for an evening show for less than the price of a matinee. After the show we went to our favorite watering hole, only to find it nearly deserted. The outdoor patio was slightly more lively, but had a fairly crappy "band" playing, which consisted of a guitarist and a keyboard player. We left after one drink, grabbing some burgers on the way home. On Sunday we went on a shopping spree of sorts, the boring kind where you buy shit you actually need. We used an online coupon to get some barbecue pork, ribs, and sides for half-price. On Monday we were invited to a get-together in our friend's parents' neighborhood, but it's a 30-minute drive and it was just too damned hot anyway, so we stayed home, watched even more TV, and ate leftover BBQ. So unlike last year, where we wore ourselves out hosting a cookout and everyone left much earlier than expected, this year we stayed in our comfortable, air-conditioned home with a fridge full of food and drinks and watched an unhealthy amount of TV. I can't imagine a more perfect Independence Day weekend.

Also over the weekend, I did a little online clothes shopping, bringing me to a discussion of a bizarre tendency I've had for a long time, which is to have everything of a particular category come from the same brand. For example, long ago, I had this obsession with the Pinaud brand of men's grooming products, and insisted on their brand of shaving cream, talc, and aftershave. Similarly, for a little while, I wanted products that bore the Royal Warrant, and purchased groceries such as Weetabix cereal and Twinings tea, and even went as far as to procure a Barbour waxed cotton jacket. Later on I turned to collecting Brooks Brothers garments, and built up a respectable array of jackets, dress shirts, sweaters, polo shirts, chinos, and corduroy trousers. Right now I have a habit of insisting on Target's private label for health, grooming, and household products whenever available, just so the labels will all look good together; I wish there were an Up And Up version of deodorant and hair gel. Most recently, out of necessity, I'm having to mess up my Brooks Brothers collection by adding L.L. Bean to the mix. As much as I've praised Brooks Brothers in the past, recently I've been disappointed by the way the fabric in their chino trousers tends to fray and tear over time. Some research online turned up that most retail stores refuse to refund or replace unsatisfactory purchases more than two years old, despite the brand's "unconditional" guarantee. So, I have returned to L.L. Bean, a supplier of quality trousers that I've known since childhood but haven't patronized in a long time. After many years of wearing other brands, I'm returning to an old trusted favorite with a no-questions-asked, lifetime guarantee on all of its merchandise. I started with ordering three pairs of chinos, which I love, and this weekend I went a little nuts and ordered a pair of jeans, a safari-style shirt for rustic travel destinations, a couple of striped rugby shirts, and a lightweight, extra-long rain coat (which Brooks Brothers doesn't make, anyway).

L.L. Bean is a perennial favorite among the "preppy" set, whose outward appearance I strive to emulate. It appeals to them because it's an established outfitter they've known all their lives and offers a great value through well-made items backed by a lifetime guarantee at lower prices than other brands such as Brooks Brothers and Orvis, and it's especially popular among preppy parents who want to instill their children with the preppy fashion sense, but don't want to spend a great deal on things they'll outgrow in a year. What preppy person didn't own at least one article of clothing or footwear from L.L. Bean as a child? Seems like at least a third of my classmates had a monogrammed L.L. Bean book bag. It's comfortable, familiar, timeless, and affordable but not dirt-cheap—the foundation of the preppy aesthetic.

As much as I've maligned some of Brooks Brothers' product line, I continue to stand behind their polo shirts. The ones I own are excellently tailored, constructed of lightweight, cool cotton piqué, perfect for hot summer days or layering under a sweater, and retain their color wash after wash, and I expect them to provide me at least a decade of reliable use. I also continue to be pleased with the sweaters and casual shirts I've bought from them, which look practically brand-new after 3-4 years of ownership. My blazer has held up very well, and there are no signs of wear and tear on the corduroys I wear so often in colder months. They do have rugby shirts, but I gave up on waiting for them to introduce basic red & navy and blue & navy stripes, and just got a couple from L.L. Bean instead.

Adding L.L. Bean to the mix presents me with some problems. While it would satisfy my obsessive compulsion to have everything in my wardrobe come from one brand by replacing all the sweaters, polos, corduroys, and sport shirts from Brooks Brothers with L.L. Bean, I cannot justify the financial cost of such an undertaking, nor can I justify the cost of buying new pants every two years just because they're from Brooks Brothers. Plus, were I to replace my Brooks Brothers polo shirts with L.L. Bean, I'd lose that smug sense of superiority I get from showing off that little Golden Fleece logo, giving others the impression that I can easily afford $60 polo shirts (never mind that they can be found gently used on eBay for a fraction of retail). And how can you beat that "oooh!" reaction people undoubtedly have in their heads when they spot the Golden Fleece buttons on my Brooks Brothers blazer? And truly well-heeled individuals will recognize and respect that icon of WASP-ness, the Barbour jacket. Hardly anyone can tell the difference between Brooks Brothers chinos and L.L. Bean chinos without yanking them down and looking at the inside label, anyway, so I'll just have to let people assume that if the shirt is Brooks Brothers, the pants must be, as well. I really do wish I could just be normal and have a dozen different brands all mingling together in my closet like I did in high school, when I had Abercrombie & Fitch, Nautica, Joseph A. Bank, Chaps by Ralph Lauren, Izod, Alexander Julian, L.L. Bean, and Old Navy all living together in harmony. Well, maybe that's the silver lining: by throwing L.L. Bean into the ring, perhaps I'll get a '90s nostalgia thrill out of it.