Fashion Shows, London, Milan, Interviews, Excitement… But What Matters Most…

Black Water­proof Armored, Abra­sion Resis­tant Short Mil­i­tary Jacket

Wow! What a cou­ple of weeks it has been! Or per­haps I should say MONTHS! Noth­ing could have pre­pared me for all the things that have hap­pened in the past cou­ple of months and just since our big win at LA Fash­ion Week, my head con­tin­ues to spin… I’m just return­ing from a whirl­wind trip through San Fran­cisco and Seat­tle and am now fin­ish­ing the last prepa­ra­tions for Lon­don and Milan next week. Two major inter­views today (fash­ion and pow­er­sports indus­tries pub­li­ca­tions) and I con­tinue to be stunned at the tra­jec­tory of this whole thing…

It’s at times like this (which I don’t think I’ve ever actu­ally expe­ri­enced “times like this”), where I have to take a really deep breath and just reflect on the things that mat­ter most…

I wrote in a pre­vi­ous blog about some peo­ple that I’ve met along the way on this jour­ney and now, I want to share a few more…

All of the peo­ple on twit­ter who have been fol­low­ing this lit­tle adven­ture have been like this army of believ­ers and cheer­lead­ers, all behind the scenes, press­ing on while the rest of the world is going about its busi­ness hav­ing NO idea what’s com­ing. This gang of many have been RIGHT THERE, ready at a moments notice, avail­able for what­ever has been needed and the amaz­ing thing is, I don’t know any of these peo­ple… well, I used to not know any of these people…

This whole twit­ter thing is quite incred­i­ble because I can tell you that, in all the com­mo­tion of the fash­ion show, my main objec­tive was to keep tweet­ing. I don’t know if it was my way of stay­ing focused and calm but to be tweet­ing the whole time really helped keep me grounded and kept my nerves in check! It was beyond excit­ing to be report­ing every­thing as it was hap­pen­ing because I knew there were a lot of peo­ple see­ing the tweets come up on their com­put­ers or their phones. It was so incred­i­ble to know that all these peo­ple were right there with me, even though it was just through my phone!

Arlene being inter­viewed after big LA Fash­ion Week win

When I got back­stage and was tweet­ing, I dis­cov­ered that my iPhone bat­tery was run­ning low and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to con­tinue tweet­ing up to the minute reports of the show. Out of nowhere, I get a tweet from @Chicago_SC (Eric, a guy in Chicago who is the epit­ome of the 60s stylin’ Lon­don scooter guy, GREAT dresser!) who tweets me to turn off the wi-fi on my phone (like I even know how to do that!). Well, like a charm, the phone worked well into the night! I can’t begin to tell you what that event was like because it was like every­one from twit­ter who have been fol­low­ing all of this were there with me and all I can say is, I NEEDED YOU in those moments and YOU WERE THERE! There was @urbanscootrgirl Clau­dia, owner of Urban Scooter Com­pany in Atlanta, tweet­ing about how excited she was and that the adren­a­lin was flow­ing.  I had to stop tweet­ing to go walk the run­way like a Clydes­dale horse cuz I’m kind of unco­or­di­nated and then, the big win announce­ment comes and I have to excuse myself again and a tweet comes in from @ageekgirl, Elaine, that says “we’ll be here when you get back.” Well, if that didn’t bring the tears to my eyes! Elaine, @ageekgirl, kind of has that effect on me… she makes me cry a lot! So let me tell you a bit about Elaine…

Arlene and Elaine in Atlanta

Rewind to Sep­tem­ber, Atlanta, Resur­gence Scooter Rally… Elaine and her hus­band Mike live in Birm­ing­ham, Alabama which is a 3–4 hr drive from Atlanta. Now, who on earth is going to drive 3–4 hours to go see a bunch of coats? Right?! Well, Elaine was and Elaine DID! It was rain­ing the whole day of the scooter rally and there was a ques­tion of whether or not it would still be pos­si­ble to show the coats at the rally. A deci­sion was made, with Clau­dia from Urban Scooter Com­pany, that come rain or shine, we were doing this thing. I had been really con­cerned through­out that rainy day that this woman I’d never met before had told me she was com­ing to see the coats and I felt like it was essen­tial to find a way for her to see the coats and so, off we all went to the rally!

Like all scooter ral­lies, come rain or shine, let the party begin! And begin, it did! The rain let up and the party con­tin­ued hours into the evening with a tweet in between that Elaine was com­ing! It was already late and I had no idea where she was or how long she would take to get there but I was deter­mined that even if the rally ended and there were no lights left on in Atlanta, I would still be in that rally loca­tion wait­ing for her because you can’t have some­one dri­ving for 3–4 hours and not be there when they get there! It’s kind of like leav­ing the lights on when some­one is com­ing home just so they know you’re there wait­ing for them!

I stepped away for my 30th bath­room break of the evening and when I returned to the booth, there was Elaine! I just couldn’t help myself and I threw my arms around her, like hug­ging an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time! I was so over­come that she had made that jour­ney, in the rain, just to see the coats that I was glad it was dark so no one could see the tears in my eyes! Elaine and Mike stayed for what was prob­a­bly only 30 min­utes, dur­ing which time she had a chance to look at all the coats and then it was time for them to head back to Birm­ing­ham. As we talked for a bit before they left, I was just too over­come and then the tears really started to flow because who does some­thing like that?! I mean really… in the world we live in today, with cyn­ics in abun­dance, rarely do you find really gen­uine peo­ple who have an inter­est in some­thing and then they do some­thing about it. Elaine has been one of those peo­ple on twit­ter who have been fol­low­ing this whole thing almost from the begin­ning and she has been a believer in the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what this whole thing rep­re­sents and she has been enthu­si­as­tic and unwa­ver­ing in her sup­port even before she had ever seen one of the coats. THAT to me is extra­or­di­nary and prob­a­bly why she is so sig­nif­i­cant to me!

Elaine and Mike from Birm­ing­ham Alabama

I would be remiss if I did not also men­tion Elaine’s hus­band Mike, who made that jour­ney with her. As I walked them to their car in a dark park­ing lot, Mike offered to walk me back to the area where the booth was. I told him it wasn’t nec­es­sary because I was from Detroit so there wasn’t much that I hadn’t already seen or expe­ri­enced and I’d be okay.  He needed a lot of reas­sur­ance from me that it was okay that he not walk me back and I really GOT what kind of guy he is and why he and Elaine are together. This is a guy who LOVES his woman and cher­ishes her! Not because he wanted to walk me back to a booth but because he made that jour­ney with his woman, the woman he loves and adores and was doing some­thing in sup­port of her because it was impor­tant to her. THAT was REALLY cool! And I don’t know, maybe I’m just a hope­less roman­tic but, I LOVE see­ing peo­ple who REALLY, REALLY love each other!!!

There is much that will come of all of this com­mo­tion sur­round­ing GoGo Gear and while I’m off to Lon­don and Milan next week and all the excite­ment that sur­rounds things like that, for me, there is NOTHING that com­pares to the human con­nec­tion that is made between peo­ple who just find some­thing in com­mon and share their excite­ment. To you Elaine, you will for­ever be a defin­ing moment for me in this whole thing, you will be like the light­house in the dis­tance that tells me you’ll be there when I get back and for that, I am eter­nally grate­ful, you have NO idea how much it means to me.

Arlene