HOWTO: Packing

Whoa. Hi there! Nice to see you again. Sorry I missed a couple days ... I've been traveling a LOT, like, three-cities-in-three-days-lot, which accounts for my recent absence. (And for this post, a packing how-to.)

First off, a disclaimer. There is, of course, more than one way to pack for a trip, and more than one kind of trip. These instructions will be of no use to you if you are planning a six-month scientific expedition to the Arctic or the Amazon, have to attend four black-tie balls in five days, or have a lady's maid or valet. (if you have a lady's maid and are packing your own suitcase/valise/trunk ... why do you have a lady's maid?). These instructions are really only good for fairly boring businessy-type trips, or short vacationy-type trips. But, that said:

1. The first rule of packing is to know your own strength. If you are planning to carry on a bag and cannot lift it above your head, you should not be carrying on that particular bag. (Obviously, if you are disabled and know you will have help in any case, this doesn't apply to you.) But packing more than you can lift is a recipe for disaster and will cause irritation to all your fellow travelers. In a similar vein, if you cannot drag your suitcase without it toppling over, you might want to rethink that eighth pair of shoes. Not only will your transit to the check-in line be wobbly and fairly ridiculous, the airline WILL charge you for the overweight.

2. The second rule of packing is to know your own style. This, of course, is something you should know for your whole life, not just for traveling, but you should especially know it for traveling. I hate and despise those traveling clothes that strip every last ounce of your personality from you in the service of being "easy to pack". (That dress in the link doesn't even have pockets! How is that travel-friendly?) When you travel, you should look like a concentrated version of yourself, in that your clothes are the ones in which you feel most like you. You'll be out of your natural element, so you can't rely on environmental clues to give folks an idea of what you're like.

For me, this means I usually pack a lot of dresses (duh), bright cardigans to wear over them, and, for the airport, A-line skirts with pockets.

Wearing the same thing every day (and/or washing things in hotel bathrooms) is not worth it. If you wash something, it never dries (and who wants to spend their time doing laundry on a trip?), and if you plan to wear something every day someone spills something sticky or stinky on you. Better to just pack an extra dress.

3. In my opinion, jeans are overrated. Unless this conflicts with Rule 2 for you (in that jeans are the clothing in which you feel most like yourself), ditch the jeans. First off, jeans are boring. I don't care how designery they are, or what unique combo of leg width-wash-waist level you've chosen, they are, in the end (and on your end), just a pair of jeans. My other beef with jeans is that they often act as an (overused) safety net. How often do people pack a week's worth of clothes but then end up wearing jeans every day? Travel should be broadening! (And, I hate to say this, but if you're going to a major metropolitan area, wearing something OTHER than jeans and sneakers will help you not look like a tourist, if that is a goal for you.)

4. Check the weather. Seriously. You'd be surprised how many people just assume the weather where they are going is just like the weather where they are. (You can't assume, for instance, that San Francisco in June is going to be warm.) There's this thing called the Internet, and a large part of it is just weather forecasts. I also understand there is an entire cable television channel devoted to the weather. Don't just check the forecast -- check the average highs and average lows, too. And, on top of that, bring a sweater. Just in case.

5. Make a list. In fact, make several lists. I like to print out a calendar page (you can do this from Google Calendar pretty easily) and write down, for each day, what I'm planning to do, which then guides what I'm going to wear. A day spent in meetings will have a different wardrobe than a day spent traveling, sightseeing, or working in a hotel room. Pack the list! If you're traveling for more than a few days it's easy to forget what you were planning to wear when. Make the list very detailed, right down to your underwear. If the dress needs a slip, write "slip" on the list.

Make another list of things that you need that aren't clothes. I like to bring my vitamins (in an old-lady case), Emergen-C, a stretchy exercise band (to help me counteract bad office chairs), a little sewing kit, etc. If you travel a lot save your "extras" list and print out a new copy for every trip. Why remember more than you have to?

Do the same thing for toiletries -- there's no percentage in taking up mental space remembering whether you packed a toothbrush or not. Make a list and check "toothbrush" off it. If you travel more than once a month, keep a toiletry set all packed and ready to go. (When you come home from a trip, replenish it right away.) I like to keep two sets packed: one in a quart ziplock bag for carry-ons, and a larger one for when I check baggage.

If it's a work trip, you should also have a work checklist: laptop power supply, charger for phone, ethernet cable, etc., etc.

6. Use packing cubes. I know they seem gimmicky, but they are so useful. First of all, they make life easier for the TSA, and you really don't want to piss them off. Which would you rather have a stranger do: pick up your nicely-packed cube and peer under it, or rummage through a suitcase full of loose clothes, possibly dumping them on the floor? I've seen that happen, and it's ugly.

7. Shoes. Here's my rule for shoes: For any trip longer than three days, you need two pairs of shoes, but no more than three. (Four, maybe, if you have to bring a pair of fancy shoes for a party.) Two pairs is so that if your shoes get wet, or cause a blister (which they shouldn't because you have also packed an anti-blister stick to use on your feet), you have a pair to switch off to.

Also, if you bring the bare minimum of shoes and develop a sudden need for another pair, you now have an excuse to go shoe-shopping.

I don't have to say again that you shouldn't be wearing flip-flops in the airport, right?

You should not be bringing more handbags than you bring pairs of shoes, unless you are Judith Leiber.

8. Miscellaneous suggestions:

-- if you haven't worn the thing you are going to pack in more than a month, try it on before it goes in the suitcase.

-- always bring one more pair of underwear and socks than you think you will need.

-- don't stress about wrinkles. Most hotels have fairly decent irons and ironing boards, and it takes less time to press something than it does to worry about what's going to wrinkle and what's not. I can usually iron everything I've packed in less than half an hour, while watching the hotel television (and there's always an episode of Law and Order playing in every hotel room, everywhere, at every hour of the day or night).

-- shoe bags are nice. I'm just saying.

-- special travel pillows, special travel alarm clocks, special travel hair dryers -- all overrated. Unless you have a serious princess-and-the-pea sensitivity, you'll get along just fine with whatever's at your destination. (I don't get travel candles at all. Raise your hand if you think it's a good idea to light small smelly fires in a hotel room.)

-- think: what would be the most inconvenient and irritating thing to have find in the city where you're going, on the trip you're planning? ("sanitary" supplies? A spare power supply for your laptop? Your special moisturizer? ) Bring extra of that.

-- if there's any chance that you will be getting in late, make sure your toothbrush, face wash, and pajamas are the easiest things to find in your suitcase.


My suitcase from trip before last:



I know I haven't said anything about rolling vs. folding, or how to cram your socks into your shoes to save space, compression bags, etc. I find I rarely need to do any of that stuff. I put the clothes in the cubes, put the cubes in the bag, take one last look at my lists, and go to sleep early enough that I can wake up in time to make my flight in the morning.

Have a good trip! Send me a postcard.

Vegas, Baby!

I'm going to be in Las Vegas for about 36 hours early next week ... and since I don't drink, don't gamble, and can only eat two or three pounds of shrimp cocktail before feeling like a beached gray whale, I was wondering if anyone had any leads on fabric stores convenient to the Strip?

I dimly remember being pointed to a fabric store in Vegas before, but of course neither my actual brain or the distributed brain I've cobbled together through OS X and Google have turned up anything ...

Reader of the blog Kris would like to know, too, so if have suggestions, would you leave them in the comments?

Thanks!

Rant-tastic subject #143: "What to Wear on Airplanes"

[Hint: it's not the above.]

For years, and I mean YEARS, of pretty much monthly travel, I've been boggled at what people decide is appropriate to wear on airplanes. Just absolutely boggled. The sweatpants and the stiletto mules (often on the same person), the jeans that are more holes than jeans (with matching holey t-shirts), the ratty flip-flops, the micro-minis. I could never figure it out, until last night, while waiting for the red-eye home to Chicago from SFO, I had a little epiphany, or perhaps a little interlude of sleep-deprivation. (So hard to tell the difference, really.)

My take is that people who wear clothes on airplanes that are better suited to washing a series of strangers' cars at $5/pop have essentially given up all hope that they will ever be the recipient of happy chance. They've decided serendipity is not for them, so they've forsaken the notion that perhaps one day they may need to make a good first impression on a stranger. (They've also decided that they don't ever need to be upgraded to business class, never mind first.)

Me, I won't get on a plane in anything less than I would wear to a business-casual meeting. Usually a skirt + cardigan, mostly a skirt + comfy jacket. At least two pockets are essential, so I don't have to keep digging in my bag for ID & boarding pass. Flat shoes that slip on and off easily are a must, so that I can play my walk-through role in the TSA's security theater with aplomb. (The next time I'm behind someone in strappy, multi-buckle gladiator sandals, though, I'm tossing THEM to the lions.) If I'm flying on Saturday, *maybe* I will wear sneakers, but they're nice one, not the ones I use for mowing the lawn.

This way, if I end up sitting next to someone interesting, I don't have to shout over what my clothes are saying. Last night I saw clothes that said "I model for Frederick's of Hollywood, Lamé Division"; clothes that said "my favorite Saturday morning cartoon and a bowl of chocolate-frosted sugar bombs are what I REALLY need right now"; and clothes that said "I can change the oil in my car -- and recently have." None of those clothes said "Take me seriously, please."

I'm not against comfort -- notice I said "flat shoes, comfy jacket" and I wear t-shirts, for sure, not fussy silk blouses -- but there's a line between 'comfortable' and 'raggedy-ass lazy' and the airport is not the place to cross that line. An airplane is a confined space, and, like any confined space, demands MORE civility and regard for others, not less.

So, please: no more flip-flops (and if you do wear flip-flops, please try to keep track of them, so that we aren't all held up on deplaning by you searching under three rows of seats for your left one). Try for clothes that have structural integrity; turbulence can be rough, you know? And I know they sell perfume (cheap, too!) in the airport, but that doesn't mean you get to try on five different ones before you board.

Before you leave for the airport, look at yourself in the mirror, and think: Could I meet and IMPRESS someone who would change my life while wearing this? And if the answer is "No," change. And add a sweater: those planes can get cold.

The Polka-Dot Motherland

... is, as Mary Fran tells me, in Seville (that's Spain, not Ohio.) Turns out flamenco dancers need/wear/love polka dots. Another reason, as if you needed a reason to 1) go to Spain 2) take up the heartbreak and passion that is ... FLAMENCO! 3) wear polka dots.

I am in high-covetousness-gear right now. I want, in no particular order, the coffee-colored dots the third shelf down on the left; the multi-sized green on the bottom right (and oddly, that horrible dotless pea green right next to it——I always latch on to the runt of any litter); and the orange and chartreuse on the third shelf down in the middle.

So, if anyone's going to Spain ... in my head, of course, these are all lovely fine cottons, but I'm betting they're actually poly, so as to wear longer.

Also, I just found out I will have less than 24 hours in Tokyo in late July, probably Monday the 30th. Does anyone have fabric-store recs for Tokyo? Preferably near Narita airport?

Sorry I missed yesterday -- I don't know where the day went. Although I assume that the occasional postless day just adds to my general air of intrigue and mystery.

A good workwoman praises her tools

I travel with an old French sewing kit my friend Thora gave me.

Which, on the face of it, is ridiculous. I love this kit (antique! French! useful!) and would be heartbroken if it were lost. Even though I don't pack it in my carry on, all it would take would be one overzealous or light-fingered TSA agent to decide it was dangerous contraband (small red box full of sharp things?) and it would be Gone Forever.

Here's the inside:



See the cunning little scissors and the darling awl? And the thimble, which I never use? Why on earth would I risk losing this to satisfy the government's desire for Security Theater?

I bring this kit with me for two reasons: first, because I do more sewing in hotel rooms than I have previously cared to admit. (The way it goes is, Erin decides to make new skirt at last minute. Erin does not have time to do hand-hemming of said skirt before packing it. Erin throws appropriate bobbin into sewing kit, stays up way too late in destination city hemming said skirt and watching what is always available on every hotel TV in the land: reruns of Law and Order. Limit one per trip.)

Also, if I left this kit in a drawer at home, I'd probably never use it. I have multiple pairs of new, sharp, ultimately disposable scissors scattered around the house. Ditto seam rippers. (And we all know I don't use thimbles.) The box would sit in a drawer, being kept "safe" (next to all the jewelry I never wear) and that would be tragic. Tools are meant to be used, and every time I use these I am another woman in a line that probably goes back more than a hundred years. Every time I use these little scissors I think fondly of my friend Thora, who is a remarkable person.

Most importantly, every time I use these I enjoy using them. Their beauty somehow improves the mundane work of hemming -- it seems to go faster with this little box open beside me. So much of sewing is about enjoying the process (if you don't enjoy the process, it's not worth doing), and this box makes what could be incredibly annoying (hemming a skirt in a hotel room in poor light with the TV blaring -- most hotel rooms have two volume settings: mime and football stadium) a small and quiet pleasure.

Here are the scissors and awl out of the box:



If you have a chance, do something with your favorite tools today -- write something with your favorite pen. Cook something in your favorite pan. Take a minute to acknowledge the pleasure of good tools ...