Week 6, Theme 1

Prompt: Style involves a way of doing or saying things, which stands apart from the thing that is done or said, and which present the self---the stylist---in a particular light. There are all sorts of styles, and anything we do or say is likely to convey some specific sense of style. Write a theme about a specific style you admire or, at least, find interesting and worthy of definition and reflection. It could be a way of writing, of dressing, of singing, of cooking, of dancing, or skiing. You can focus on one person’s way of doing that thing (in which case it will be a development of last weeks “people” themes) or your focus can be general. Be aware of the style your theme itself conveys. It can be a version of the style you choose as your subject, or it may rub against your subject.

David does dirty. I have spent many a night lying in bed above him wondering how Davie dirtball manages to keep a steady boyfriend while being so…grimy. On days when I feel like not shaving, I still shave‑--propriety must be upkept. On months when David doesn’t feel like shaving, he allows his orange beard to curl and twist in any way it wants---David prefers unkempt. David groans that Americans shower too much, that we scrub and rub at our skin twice a day, morning and night, only to lead to dryness. David showers three, perhaps four, times per week; this notwithstanding his daily running and weight-lifting sessions.

David reeks. Sometimes, I will be in the middle of dousing his bed and closet and harmonica in Febreeze when he will walk in. So I cover him in Febreeze too. Our relationship benefits both: I get to feel clean, and he gets to feel that he is the antithesis of my neuroticism. His grungy ways have even come to amuse me, but only after Febreeze and I have rid my life of his most rank smells.

Last summer, I went to visit Smelly in his home in London. To my shock (and pleasure), his house was spotless, his mother and sisters charming ladies, and his father an upstanding gentleman—the gin and tonic-sipping kind. This vision was of course interrupted by the disaster that was David’s childhood bedroom. I thought: maybe instead of “doing dirty,” David just does the opposite of the people around him. Perhaps if David studied abroad for a semester in somewhere dirty, like Washington, D.C., he would come back to Yale cleaner than I.