April 24, 2003 - Next aquisition: footrest.
I was talking to Marianne and she always gets so concerned - I'll say something and she's like, 'don't get frustrated! don't worry!' to which I'm like, 'umm, hon? I'm not worried or frustrated... I find this amusing..' I asked her when the last time she saw me get really mad about something was and she said that's true, I don't really get mad about stuff - well, THIS is the kind of stuff I get mad about. The stuff I can't do anything about. Aii.. life is full of little incidents that will piss you off and infuriate you because you let it. The second you step back and try to see the amusing side of something, it doesn't seem to matter that much anymore. If you're not going to be concerned about a certain issue in two weeks, then why bother getting worked up over it? That's what my mommy said to me all the time when I was little and I never listened until I realized that the little shits - they don't matter. Save your anger for something worthwhile.
Oh my gosh I'm soooo happy! I was looking through old econ notes last night and I finally got up the courage to look at my second term test which was HORRIBLE. And my first page, I was like, hold on. that's so stupid - I DESERVED this mark COMPLETELY! I had said that expansionary fiscal policy was when you increase either government spending or increase taxes! Stupido... And I went on to say this point over and over again in the next few questions. Ahhh... so silly. I knew that stuff but now it's like, good! I don't have to learn a whole test worth of material - I just have to learn how not to be stupid in tests! Macro is tomorrow.. aii. Actually I'm kinda looking forward to it, I actually quite like the subject. I know if my friend Steph were to read this she'd be like, "SharLENE! First exercise and then now you like school?? This is riDIculous! Have you been taking baths tooooooo???" And then she'd bite my head off...
Sent from my sis from NY Times... and I thought I was the only one crazy about bedding!!! I LOVE IT! Oh yeah, but this TOTALLY doesn't negate the fact that I'm still mad at her for going to Bed, Bath and Beyond without me! The excuse "but you're in Toronto and I'm in New York" does not work anymore!!! Grr. Oh well, that's okay, I can survive without her and her *sob* trips to my favorite bedding store. Once again, this is like Parsons going on a family holiday without me. *cough* My new sheets are from The Bay. haha. This lady in Yorkville was trying to sell me 220 egyptian cotton for $650!! I was like, yes, this is high quality? Honey, I just saw 600 count egyptian cotton for $200!! She's like, but this is special! It's red! I'm like, yes, and I have a green velvet duvet - Christianmas is NOT year-round, as much as I continue to say, "Wouldn't it be great if Christianmas was all year round?" at Christianmas time.. ANd then these fantastic 300 count sateen sheets at The Bay but they only had then for queen and king. So I thought, OKay fine, so I get a new bed - big deal. I could almost hear my mom shrieking, "You want to do WHAAAAAAAAT?" and then promptly fainting. so I settled for Royal Velvet, medium blue, 275 count prima cotton. I just shake my head in amusement every time I remember that lady in Yorkville saying, "We have very high counts of egyptian cotton - anywhere from 220 to 325!" Uh huh. Yeah. If you're getting me to iron my sheets, it'd better be for something over 400. I don't just iron anything - what would that make me? An ironing-whore, that's what. Humph.
Sheet Tech: On Your Mark, Set, Sleep
April 24, 2003
I HAD one of the weirdest dreams of my life the other night, and it may or may not have had anything to do with the fact that I was sleeping on silver sheets.
Martex's Precious Sleep, introduced in stores in February by WestPoint Stevens, a bedding and towel maker based in Georgia, have a 2.5 percent pure silver content. Is . . . anybody . . . out . . . there?
The cotton and silver fiber, called X-Static, when woven into sheets, keeps the sleeping body cool in summer and warm in winter, according to its inventor, Noble Fiber Technologies in Clarks Summit, Pa. On a spring night, with a light blanket, Precious Sleep kept me at the temperature of a picnic sandwich. Transmission to my subconscious, apparently, was excellent. (The happy childhood couldn't have been my idea.)
Sheets, historically as technological as a clothesline, now have a Version 2.0. Using fibers developed for the active-wear and sports apparel companies, manufacturers are seizing the edge of wakefulness with a kind of "extreme
sleep" challenge. X-Static, not surprisingly, was at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City last year, hitting the slopes, not the sack, with five ski teams, including the United States' uniforms.
Competitive bed-bouncers will be pleased to hear that Lycra, the DuPont elastic fiber that puts the snap in snappy dressing, is entering the arena in September with sheets that could represent a performance advantage on a
regulation king - box springs and mattress - if you're the type who plays to win. (Attention Boy Scouts and the United States armed services: no hotdogging on the coin test.) Bedding, a $2.4 billion industry, is basically a commodity
business - that is, sheets are big squares of cloth that people buy because the price is right or they like the color. The value of an average purchase is $31 (that's a set of flat, fitted and pillowcase; Precious Sleep, in a twin, is $59.95 at Bed Bath & Beyond in New York City). The best-selling color is white.
Bedding manufacturers don't take the reports lying down. "Fashion," or designer, sheets make great decorating copy, but they are less than 5 percent of sales. Thread count and Egyptian cotton, two qualities that the industry succeeded in getting consumers to trust without understanding, are losing their status as premiums - Wal-Mart is stocking a 220-count Egyptian cotton, a recent trade-up from 180, the commodity standard.
Technologies, not technicalities, are the next industry hope (though how high those hopes will go, in sales, neither WestPoint Stevens nor DuPont would comment upon). Lycra content in the new stretch sheets will be 5 to 6
percent, said a DuPont spokeswoman, and available, through a collaboration with Pillowtex, a bedding manufacturer, in Ralph Lauren and Fieldcrest sheets and other brands. The suggested price for a twin-size set will be $45. There will
be furniture upholstery fabrics with Lycra introduced in stores, too.
Why would you want stretch sheets, or Lycra in particular?
a.) You can Rollerblade in them.
They produced a comfortable night's sleep, a little slicker to the cheek than plain cotton. The deep-space reception was not as clear as with the silver sheets. They had a certain glide to them, as I swept my hand across them to
smooth the bed in making it the next morning, that nontechnological sheets might not have. Better fit? It didn't have a Park Avenue surgeon's nip and tuck, but it was getting there.
DuPont is backing up the sheets with a $40 million
advertising campaign, "Lycra Has It," to promote Lycra as a
branded style of life, not a rubber substitute. It will
start appearing in September with a
bare-shouldered-model-in-bed theme in Real Simple, O, the
Oprah Magazine and other publications when the sheets hit
stores.
Hotel Lycra, a prototype restaurant, art gallery and
boutique mini-mall in São Paulo, Brazil, welcomed the first
stretch-noscenti last week. Other Hotel Lycras will open in
fashion capitals like New York and Tokyo, said a second
DuPont spokeswoman, if São Paulo's is successful.
Sounding a little too eager for label-lust counterfeits
(unlike Prada or Gucci), Lycra has also unveiled Brandscan,
a scanning technology using hand-held devices that will
allow customers to scan items to detect true Lycra, or
unmask fakes. DuPont started putting a trace element in
Lycra six months ago.
X-Static, a silver-plated fiber with a silver content purer
than sterling, is also antibacterial and odor-inhibiting,
said Bill McNally, Noble Fiber's founder and chief
operating officer.
Why would you want antibacterial, odor-inhibiting sheets?
a.) To smuggle raw milk cheeses into the country.
Mr. McNally, in a telephone conversation on Monday, was
incredibly enthusiastic about his product, as was proper,
but also confessed to a core frustration discovered about
the bedding business.
"If you have good sleeping habits, you're asleep most of
the time," he said of his new audience. "You don't really
appreciate everything that's going on."
X-Static's initial applications, before sports and sheets,
were in the defense industry, some of it classified. Silver
is an excellent electromagnetic shielding agent, Mr.
McNally said with an air of casual secrecy, putting the
kibosh on my theory about the origin of my dreams. Back to
the analyst. Wearing silver fiber clothing, you don't
"light up in a sniper scope," he added. Mr. McNally is a
former marine.
Thermally, silver is the most conductive element on earth,
drawing body heat away in warm weather, Mr. McNally said.
It toasts you by reflecting infrared radiation, which the
body releases in cold weather.
"Silver also has the ability to de-nature proteins," he
said - big science for taking the stink out. "Those sheets
are antiodor." Mr. McNally has signed a deal with the Army
to outfit its troops with X-Static socks, which are
boot-side in Iraq.
Will technology remake the bed?
Leticia Leizens, the group editor for textiles at HFN, a
home furnishings trade weekly, was skeptical.
"Sheets are sheets," she said. "The last innovation in the
sheet business was the fitted sheet, and that was in the
late 1940's."
Ms. Leizens acknowledged that the bedding industry was
having a rough night. WestPoint Stevens restructured last
year because of deteriorating sales. Pillowtex, the company
working with DuPont, filed for bankruptcy protection in
2000, and presented its reorganization plan in January.
"They want to differentiate their sheets, because mass
merchants are catching up," she said. "They say they're
adding value, but they're adding a premium too. You put
Lycra in a sheet, or whatever, so you have something to
sell." Sales were up 2.2 percent last year, which is
typical, Ms. Leizens explained, but prices were also
dropping. Polyester blends dominate.
I'm holding onto my stock in heated
milk.
By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON
b.) Nobody else has them.
c.) They could be used as prison
escape materials that lower you gently and safely out the
window, and get you 6 percent closer to the ground.
d.) You can shrink-wrap large holiday foods.
e.) "To fit
the bed better, and for a new level of luxurious feel,"
said the DuPont spokeswoman. I didn't try my ideas out on
her. I tried the sheets instead.
b.) To use as a shower curtain.
c.) As insurance back at
the house, on blind dates.