Bug-eyed

For those of you out there that don't know, I recently got a new job. I'm a copywriter a small marketing/advertising agency focused solely on travel clients. Needless to say, I'm very excited. Writing about travel beats just about anything for me. Makes the morning commute more purposeful and more exciting… and I can’t remember ever having that feeling on the way to work before.

So, I’m learning all of the new idiosyncrasies and tasks that a new job entails. Among all of the job-related things I learned last week, though, I also started to get to know my new work-neighborhood: Soho.

The first thing I learned in Soho is that the amount it costs for a turkey sandwich in this neighborhood could pass as a dowry in some cultures.

The second thing I learned is that Soho is essentially a collection of small streets populated by some of the most attractive people the planet Earth has yet produced. It’s all high cheek bones and impeccably coiffed hair. I feel attacked by attractiveness just walking down the street. When I worked in midtown I used to feel like I could blend in, and I generally felt good about myself. In Soho, I'm barely recognizable as a hominid among the adonises, and the feelings I have could best be described as a unique cocktail of wonderment and self-pity. As problems go, however, this is one I'm prepared to deal with.

The second thing I learned is that I have a long way to go clothes-wise in this ‘hood. Being a fashion hub, Soho is crawling with people wearing the latest and greatest in clothing and accessories—and being sartorially stunted as I am, I tend to stick out like a sore mannequin. The most notable example of this: sunglasses. Gold-rimmed seems to be a trend right now. Some aviators seem to be making a run at style, and a modified version of Elvis' signature Vegas shades. Traditional dark sunglasses, thank God, are still around (I bought mine at EMS about two years ago). But it's not the styles that stand out to me--it's their acreage.

Sunglasses are huge right now. I mean that literally. They take up 50% of the average otherwise-gorgeous woman's face on Broadway and Prince Streets. Dudes wear giant shades too, though not quite as large as their female counterparts. Essentially, the streets are crawling with ludicrously attractive people who've purposely made themselves resemble a housefly.

The funny thing about this is: I used to always have a hard time finding sunglasses that didn't make me look like a big-eyed bug. I sometimes would try the children's section of a department store (or one of those spinning cases in gas stations) to find a pair that fit my apparently diminutive face. I've spent the better part of my life trying not to look like a bug, and now it appears that fashion wisdom is instructing me to do just that.

I won't give in, though. I'm going to move on, commit to making my own trends downtown. Because apparently, that's what I am: a trendsetter. I looked like a bug before looking like a bug was cool.