Are Tiny Rodents Eating Out Of My Belly-Button?

I really like a plain, white t-shirt.  Frankly, I don't feel a wardrobe is complete without one.  You can wear them casually with a jammie bottom to lounge around the house on a lazy Sunday, or you can dress them up with a faux leather pant or an amazing skirt and feel confident attending a fancy-schmancy event.  Their versatility and general usefulness makes them quite valuable in the closet.  My question is this.  Do you spend a lot on such a piece because it is so important and a fashion building block, or do you spend less on it knowing the vast amount of usage it gets will cause it to need frequent replacing?

While I loves me a good investment piece, I could not ever in a million years spend a great deal of money on a white t-shirt.  The ranges I consider start with the Hanes 4-pack for $8.00 from the Boys Department at Target, to a designer version purchased at the Saks outlet during an additional 30% off promotion.  I'm not out buying Helmut Lang numbers for $385.  I kid you not.  For a t-shirt.  And here's the thing.  While I have never personally inspected a $400 t-shirt, I feel fairly confident it looks very much like a $30 t-shirt.  And eventually, even with the huge price tag, it would somehow develop bizarre, unexplained holes in it at about the level of my belly-button.

I know others of you out there have experienced this.  For years though I lived with a silent shame about my tiny, mid-section t-shirt holes.  I couldn't imagine what was causing them - was it my seatbelt, were my jeans unusually pointy there, did I rub up against the counter too much during dinner prep or, was there a laser beam that secretly shot from my navel?  Whatever the cause, at about month four or five, the holes start to appear.  Unexplained - like fashionable crop circles.  If a t-shirt company could produce something that prevented these holes (like the Toughskins jeans of our childhood that had the reinforced knee?) I'd be tempted to pay a higher price.  Investing in a t-shirt that had a special layer of magical fabric over the belly-button that was impervious to laser beams, jean buttons and seat belts wouldn't be out of the question.  Until then, I will continue to sample the lower priced versions of this classic piece and just expect to replace them when the unicorns start poking me in my stomach (another possible explanation).

I'm wearing this today.  It is a Vince t-shirt and I love it.  It was more expensive than my Hanes t-shirts and kinda feels like it should be.  I'm also digging the khaki skimmers from the Gap.  Yes, I do have wet hair in this picture.  Sometimes, my photographer (Geoff) has a conference call and we have to take the picture before my hair is dry.

And, believe it or not, Meatless Monday has arrived yet again!  Tonight I will be cleverly turning some side dish leftovers from last night into a luxurious (yet meatless) pasta dish.  Our Sunday dinner consisted of peppered tenderloin steaks, roasted potatoes, roasted cherry tomatoes and a lovely gorgonzola cream sauce (this is a riff on a menu in Ina Garten's Parties cookbook).  I'll saute some zucchini, summer squash and fresh tomatoes then add the remaining roasted tomatoes and the gorgonzola sauce to the pan, creating a creamy, cheesy veggie-filled liquid.  I'll pour it over some penne.  I know the family likes this and it's easy, so I don't feel the onset of crabbiness associated with making a huge meal effort only to be met with lukewarm diners.

gratitude:  old friends, a clean garage, Geoff and JD for cleaning the garage, tunics

thanks and love.