Day 61 of self-isolation.

One of the positives I can say about these stay-at-home orders is that it allows me to work on stuff I’ve put off and been too lazy to accomplish. For instance, there’s a lot of stuff that I need to sew, alter, and repair.

As a resourceful individual who’s clearly more domesticated than your average man, I decided to use the past few days honing my sewing skills. It was very hot in New York the last couple of days, and I decided to wear some shorts — most of which have been old jeans that I cut. I wore a classic pair of black jean shorts when I went outside yesterday, and when I reached into the pocket, I felt a piece of cloth. At first, I thought it was just a piece of Kleenex I forgot to discard (I know, I’m disgusting), but when I pulled it out it was a swatch of black denim. I realized then that I had intended to use this as a patch, my intent to sew it last summer — and lo and behold, as I glanced down to my crotch, there was a gaping hole in the jean shorts.

Last night, I decided to hand sew the patch to cover the hole. Sure, I could have easily sewn the shorts without using the patch (just closing the hole), but I’ve always found that sewn-up tears in pants and denim always reopen. I’m also very uninterested in buying new jean shorts (read: I’m poor). Though there’s a rustic look of frayed denim where the patch is, at least now you can’t see my underwear (or if I’m feeling particularly adventurous, nothing at all).

Another sewing project that I put off were these overalls I used in a Halloween costume in 2018. They were originally bought as a matching piece with Nico’s award-winning costume at the Fort Green Halloween Pup Parade. However, I knew I wanted to somehow use this more than that one time. The problem was that the pants were baggy as fuck, as if I was wearing JNCO’s made for the working class. I wanted to style it up a little bit and slim them down, possibly wearing them while working in my garden or even in public.

Now that we’ve all quarantined ourselves, I’ve found the time to adjust the bagginess. Using a pair of my slim-fit Levi’s, I outlined and cut off the inner-sides of the overalls, up to the crotch. I stitched them back up using my trusty sewing machine from 2006, and after wearing the finished alteration, I proceeded to parade around my apartment and backyard. With these new, semi-skinny overalls, I looked like a hipster hillbilly, but I’m okay with that.

Day 60 of self-isolation.

Over the years, I’ve spent so much money and time buying soil at the hardware store. I’m also constantly removing Japanese Knot-Weed and other various evasive weeds from my backyard that I’d just leave in a fire pit. The pile is so high right now, I decided I should start composting.

Since I’ve been cooking and making coffee a lot at home, I figured I should use the leftovers (egg shells, veggie cuttings, and coffee grounds) as fuel for the compost — in addition to the weed and grass cuttings. The other day, I went to the hardware store to get a large storage bin, in which I drilled way too many holes into, and today my friend gave me a bunch of worms.

I tossed them all together, plus some of the soil and roots from dead plants and wood shavings you’d use for small pet cages, so here’s hoping I have some great fertilizer in the next month or so. My next manly-man project will be creating a wood casing for the compost bin, and integrate it so the container matches with my backyard garden.