I need new clothes

I noticed two weeks ago that the last of my comfortable dress shirts has a hole at the corner of a pocket. *sigh* Finding acceptable new clothes is not an easy task for me.

I was maybe around 14 years old during a trip to a clothing store where my mother could buy items for an infant in the extended family. She surprised me by handing the item over to me and asking if I would wear it. I felt it in my hands, and no I wouldn't have worn it and told her so. She put it back on the shelf and continued shopping. That was the exact moment when I realized that I was extraordinarily picky about what clothes I would wear, when I saw that my mother used my standards in determining what was non-scratchy material suitable for a newborn.

My last round of shirt-buying was about 8 years ago. I was very lucky in finding a style of shirt that met two important criteria for me. 1) non-scratchy material and seams. 2) Monochrome with no obvious signs of designer labels. At the time, this brand of shirt was carried only by Mervyn's.  Imagine my distress a few years ago when they closed all of their stores in Minnesota.  Ack!  I emailed them about the possibility of ordering clothes online.  They said they were considering it but it was not currently available.  I just checked their website, and it's still not available.

At my last interview (and for upcoming interviews, I guess) I wore an UNcomfortable shirt.  As soon as I have income again, I intend to buy another batch of clothes.  Does anyone know of a store (either with physical stores in Minnesota or online stores anywhere) with very soft, monochrome, long-sleeve, buttoned shirts?  If I knew details on the brand of shirts that I have now, I'd tell you, but I ripped the tags out many years back.  The only thing still marked inside some of them now is "High Sierra".

Any ideas?

singing

unzeugmatic (as he mentions in his most recent account) often attends Sacred Harp singings. I've attended one of his local singings and enjoyed the sound of it. I'm glad that somebody is preserving this old musical tradition. It deserves to be practiced. It's based on a style of musical notation that isn't in much use today. It shares some similarities to the kind of music that I grew up with in the Primitive Baptist church. I'll explain why the two systems don't "play well together" in real life human society though, as it reveals a peculiarity or two of Primitive Baptist belief that is as uncommon today as the music itself.

First, here's proof that I know at least a little about the topic. A scan of one of my singing school certificates (click to see full size) and a google map of the location of the school.


Look at the lower right corner of the intersection. That's the school. The satellite image even caught the school in use, so those'd be the girls camped on the north side and the boys camped on the south side. (Click the image for the Google interactive map. Zoom out to see how isolated the school was.)

( Break to the long post... )