Some time ago and to much favorable response, Kelly announced her equivalent of a moon shot: the sewing and deployment of a practical, everyday uniform. With pockets, of course. Like most NASA scale projects, there have been cost overruns, delays and setbacks. Hopefully she’ll be getting back to it soon.

One person that did figure out a personal uniform was the late New York Times fashion and society photographer Bill Cunningham, the subject of an entertaining documentary you can watch in Netflix, “Bill Cunningham New York.” Cunningham had an eye for creative people, not necessarily rich or connected, with a sense of fashion. He cared little for the niceties of life, preferring to dine on $3 sandwiches, get around on a bicycle and sleep in his studio surrounded by filing cabinets full of 35mm negatives.

He also managed to engineer a uniform for himself in keeping with his frugal lifestyle, but at the same time, oddly stylish. Wherever Cunningham went you’d see him in a French worker’s jacket or bleu de travail. Reading between the lines in the documentary, it seems like he’d stock up on them when the Times would send him to Paris.

Blue worker’s shirts and jackets have a long history in all Western countries including the U.S. It’s the origin, of course, of “blue collar.” American uniform shops carry something similar but I like the cut and pockets of the French and German versions better (hint to American uniform manufacturers: you should bring back your vintage patterns and slimmer sizes!). Some enterprising Etsy folks have shops devoted to vintage European uniforms. Here’s a French uniform shop selling them for around 18€ (a steal at $20 USD–no wonder Cunningham liked them!).

So enterprising homesteaders, I’m handing you an entrepreneurial opportunity. Buy a pallet of European worker’s uniforms and open yourself a boutique or sell them on Amazon. I’m very surprised no one has tried the latter.

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Ever since meeting Michael Garcia and Stephanie Wing-Garcia, inventors of the sand mattress that we profiled in a blog post and podcast, I’ve been thinking about the terrible mattress that Kelly and I sleep on and the possibility that the way we sleep contributes to aches and pains later in life. It’s possible that the softness of our mattresses are making our muscles and bones weak, just like the terrible running shoes and orthotics that ruin our feet and collapse our arches.

It turns out that the last pagan Roman emperor has ideas about how we should sleep. Ammianus Marcellinus’ Roman History Book I, contains a description of emperor Julian the Apostate’s austere sleeping habits:

And when the night was half over, he always got up, not from a downy couch or silken coverlets glittering with varied hues, but from a rough blanket and rug, which the simple common folk call susurna.

The Loeb edition of Marcellinus’ Roman History defines susurna as, “A coarse blanket made from the fur or hide of an animal.” 

Julian slept this way so as to stay in a state of readiness during his Gaul campaign and as way to prevent falling into the trap of luxury and flattery that consumed so many of his predecessors. His habits remind me of a couple I met who, despite being well into their 70s and living in a fashionable downtown apartment, slept on the floor so as to be always prepared for their beloved hobby: hiking the Pacific Coast Trail.

Bonus idea: clothes as mattress

In researching the susurna, I discovered another ancient Roman sleeping hack. A cloak made from a square piece of cloth that succeeded the toga in the late Roman period, called the pallium (Ancient Greek ἱμάτιον) could also double as a blanket or bedding. Isn’t it time to revive this idea?

Our neighborhood is fashion forward enough to allow folks to strut around in a pallium without much blowback particularly if you’re a young hipster. I predict that soon after I spot the first pallium wearer at our local Trader Joes, REI will come out with “tech” palliums suitable for hiking, urban philosophizing and sleeping.

Addendum: Kelly pointed out to me that fantasy literature is full of examples of cloaks doubling as bedding. 

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Kelly requested a small shed to keep our garden tools, pots and fertilizer. I was not satisfied with either the small and ugly plastic storage structures nor the large, fake barn-like sheds available at the big box stores so I vowed to build my own. In a September blog post I wrote about my eccentric design process. Today, I’m declaring the world’s most pretentious garden shed, a.k.a. “Shedcropolis,” finished.

For materials, I sourced salvaged 2x4s and a window from the ReUse People of America. I finished the interior wall with pegboard from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Two doors found on the street got incorporated into the project. I even managed to turn a fencing grip into a door handle. The only things I needed to purchase at the big orange store were a few 2x6s, some plywood, metal roofing material and siding. If I had been a little more patient I could have sourced the Hardie board siding when it showed up at the ReStore a week later.

How I got the columns is a funny story. We live on a hill and I enjoy watching house remodeling projects going on in the neighborhood through a pair of binoculars that I keep next to the door. One day I was watching the transformation of a run-down bungalow into a posh pad for Emmanuel ‘Chivo’ Lubezki, the cinematographer of The Revenant, Y Tu Mamá También and Children of Men among other superb films. I just happened to witness the workers ripping the old columns off the porch. I immediately jumped in the car and drove over. The workers were more than happy to give me the columns as it saved them space in their dumpster. If I were one of those east coast reporters who drop into LA to write up a stereotype-heavy article I’d have to note my shed’s “celebrity columns.”

Or maybe I should call the shed “Chivocropolis.” But then we’d have to get goats.