|
|
||
|
the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
|
No more malls. I shall not mourn. What is wrong with me? Ordinarily I am not so girly. But I covet a pair. In black, please. This is a model of a cow udder. I would not mind a repeat of this week's rhythms. Monday and Tuesday were kind of stressy at work and busy in the evening, and then starting Wednesday all project goals had been met and a whole bunch of people left on vacation, so my office became blissfully quiet. The evening schedule also thinned out, allowing me to do nice things like cook for LT and watch Simpsons reruns. Yesterday was the slackest of all, because my office was infected with the WORM, not the intestinal or gummi kind but the computer kind, and if you ask me this is rather inexcusable because hello this is a big place with an entire department devoted to network security and support. But I will not complain too much, because since everything was totally FUBAR'd we all got to go home at 1:30, and that was extraordinarily pleasant. Today things are back to normal, but it is still calm, in that space between publication deadlines. So I took a long lunch. And on the way back from that long lunch, I ran into a large group of college cheerleaders, male and female, disgustingly hale and hearty and Aryan-youth with their tans and their blonde sinew and their SPIRIT! They are performing a cheer, for an audience of only themselves (the Future of America, folks: solipsistic cheerleaders) on the corner of Ohio and Michigan, and they have brought foot traffic to a FUCKING STANDSTILL. After politely pausing for a few moments, during which I realize that half of these Schwarzenegger-supporters (I have no idea where they were from, but I bet you anything that they would if they could) are engrossed in their own chanting and clapping and high-kicking and the other half are engrossed in watching their brethren do all of the above, and they are not moving no matter what. Then I start literally shouldering and pushing my way past all the ponytails, and as I do this I say, "Excuse me, this is a sidewalk." (Such a nice, descriptive word, sidewalk. It is not called a sidecheer, or a sidejumparoundlikeacompleteassmonkey.) The particular cheerleader I was trying to pass, the one who heard me say this, snapped back, "I don't care!" Although I would rather not, although I would really rather march forward and get as far away from this spectacle as possible, traffic is still not moving so I can't just let that slide. "Way to live in a civil society," I say. "With the not caring, I mean. People need to walk down this street." "We have a right to cheer here," she says, tossing her ponytail.* That is news to me. Does the right of assembly include cheerleading? Finally I manage to squeeze past, and I entertain myself for the next several blocks by imagining the authors of the Bill of Rights in a pyramid formation. Powdered-wig ponytails and knee breeches, buckle shoes flashing under the stadium lights during the chorus lines. *(Oh honey. Do you have to stereotype yourself? Do you have to collaborate so fully with the clich�s of media? Can't you refuse and resist even a tiny bit?) I am trying to plan my Monday's entertainment. I don't know why, exactly, except that I have discovered that going somewhere on a Monday seems to lessen my anguish. There is a free show at Empty Bottle (English Softhearts plus various other Kill Rock Stars-ish bands)---on the other hand, there is $1 beer and the Functional Blackouts at Delilah's. Freeze the action in the manner of a morality-play filmstrip or afterschool special: What Would You Do? I think it is time for me to go drink some beer. Bears preseason game tonight, which TiVo will deal with, so I will have to be in a sports-news blackout for a while, until I can watch it, because I would hate for the suspense to be ruined. However, "suspense" is a relative term, because if we cannot beat Arizona something is very, very wrong. ---mimi smartypants: no prostitute she, but the mayor of your brain. back/forward |
