An evening with the Vivienne Tam digital "clutch"

I'm sitting in the lounge at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco with a cocktail glass, a tea candle, and my HP Vivienne Tam netbook perched daintily on the tiny bronze table next to my velour sofa seat. Ice tinkles behind me as the pretty blond waitress pours water into the glasses of the three doctors behind me &mdash they're talking about med school, vacations to the Great Lakes, and an exotic-sounding island with a Spanish name. The music is mellow, the lighting dim, the furniture jungle-chic (I am loving the rawhide loveseat with antlers for armrests). I am in a little black dress with five-inch heels and a lot of makeup, wondering: with the right accessories, can blogging in a hotel lobby actually look chic instead of geeky? Or at least, geeky chic?

The Vivienne Tam is supposed to be like a clutch &mdash you know, those fancy rectangular mini-bags that were all the rage not too long ago on runways in New York and Paris. Walking into the hotel with this idea in mind, I actually felt like I was carrying two bags &mdash my real purse and the netbook purse &mdash which is just silly. If this netbook really wants to call itself a clutch, it needs to have an exterior pocket for a wallet, keys, and a cell phone. D'oh.

A bit about the Vivienne Tam netbook: it's really just a souped up HP Mini that costs double the standard MSRP. It has little details like the fancy floral desktop pattern and the red keyboard that make it feel a tiny bit special, but mostly, it's just a cheaply made Windows machine. In a world where looks matter and people pay premiums for brand names, though, it's not such a horrible idea, and I, personally, love dressing up and walking around with it as much as I enjoy my fake Gucci handbag. (Just kidding, I don't really have a fake Gucci handbag.) I love that its power lights glow like white and blue diamonds when I turn it on, yet I am appalled at the ugly blue Windows welcome screen that shocks me back into the realization that this is just an ordinary little PC. I wish the keyboard made slightly more elegant noises than click-click-click. It's 6PM on a Monday, and as businessmen just getting off work wander the tables trying to find that other businessman that they're meeting for drinks, I sit there trying to find the perfect placement for my Vivienne Tam. Do I look more like a geek if it's on my lap or on the table? I come to the conclusion that the velour sofa's armrest is my best bet.

This isn't exactly a sleazy bar, but I wonder if the VT will score me any cheesy pick-up lines. (Hey baby, I bet my XX is bigger than your XX??) Lucky for me, the only person who talks to me the whole time is the pretty blond waitress. The verdict: having your head buried in a laptop while typing furiously is pretty unapproachable, no matter how dressed up you are &mdash unless you're at a geek convention, in which case Vivienne Tam might as well be an alien from outer space. Either that, or I'm past my prime.

This post is part of a theme day: BBG on Fashion