All posts by Iris

Blech

Me and My Life

Today started poorly and hasn’t much improved. My first sensation as I woke up was pain, and it took me a while to wake up enough to figure out that my head was the source of the problem. Well, I figured, I have nothing that needs doing this morning, so I’ll just curl up on the couch and wait it out.

Then, while I was waiting it out, the cat started crying and moaning and pacing, deposited his rather large breakfast on the kitchen floor, and then continued to cry and moan and pace for the next hour before sinking into pitiful sleep on the couch next to me.

So now, here we both sit, looking scruffy and feeling mildly miserable.

Semi-Squalor Institutionalized

Portraits of People and Places

The linoleum floor around the counter is scuffed and dingy, the carpet is stained and worn, the couches are at least 15 years old, and the walls sport a mish-mash of cluttered artwork, chipped paint, and half filled nail holes. And yet, this coffee shop is one of the primary hang-out spots in town. And I imagine that if someone came through and replaced the linoleum, deep-cleaned the carpet, and re-upholster the couches, the town would be disappointed.

Czarist Hilarity

Randomness

Maybe it’s just me, but every time we create a new czar, I giggle. The first czar I remember giggling about was the Drug Czar. Then it seemed like every time there was a big, messy, un-accomplish-able job, we named new czars. Terrorism Czar, War Czar, Cybersecurity Czar… And now there’s a Car Czar being born who will be tasked with the impossible mission of fixing the auto industry? Really? I laugh.

Not only is it funny that we name positions for imperial rulers even though they have no actual empire to rule and even though we are, as a general rule, anti-empire (in theory, at least), but even next to all the other czars we’ve named, Car Czar sounds pretty ridiculous. And not only that, but at this point if somebody offered me a job with the word “czar” in the title, I’d run screaming because while it seems to mean “person with a lot of clout,” it actually means “person charged with accomplishing the impossible.” In fact, simply the fact that they’ve called for a Car Czar seems to imply that there’s no help for the auto industry after all.

But please, by all means, name a Car Czar. Pay this person handsomely to rule this metaphorical empire with an iron fist. (But whatever you do, don’t reveal that the job is hopeless and that it brings with it risk of being drawn and quartered by the media, society, and the world at large.) While we’re at it, let’s name an Environment Czar, and Anti-Poverty Czar, a World Peace Czar, a Time And Space Manipulation Czar, and a New CD Plastic Wrap Removal Czar. Oh, and I could use one to manage my life, too, if it’s not too much trouble.

In Which My Sister and I Have Adventures

Me and My Life

It started out innocently enough. My sister found a pretty dress online that she thought would make a great bridesmaid dress. The catch was, the designer doesn’t sell online, so we had to find a local distributor, which wouldn’t have been so bad, except that the only local distributor happened to be the scariest boutique in town, Gigi’s. Gigi’s has one display window up in a tower that looms over the store and in which they dress one mannequin in the one most outrageously over-the-top evening gown that they have in stock. This, they back-light as soon as twilight sets in so that the town can gaze up at the glowing outline of a gown that should really only be worn on runways and only by trained professionals.

Before we left, I changed into a cute top and brushed my hair. I considered putting on a skirt but realized I’d hate myself more for being that intimidated by the place than I would for walking into the boutique in jeans. So I went for jeans. Really cute jeans, though. Cute enough jeans that I could look any saleswoman in the eye and dare her, dare her to think less of me for owning jeans.

Pulling into the parking lot, my sister and I looked at each other, took a deep breath, and promised each other that this wouldn’t be so bad, and started slowly toward the crystalline doors of Gigi’s. Barely 5 feet from the car, my sister dashed back to retrieve the slip of paper on which she’d written the designer’s name and dress number of the dress she was looking for. Muttering “I hate myself,” she tore off the bottom of the paper on which she had written directions to J. C. Penny (where we were headed next) just in case she had to show that paper to a Gigi employee.

As it turned out, they didn’t have the dress she wanted. (We did, however, get within arm’s length of the hideous gown that was currently on display in the tower, and we even managed to sneak a picture of it while the saleswoman wasn’t looking… or near enough to hear our hushed giggles). Relieved to step back into the real world, where there’s dirt on the pavement and exhaust fumes in the air, we escaped to go find J. C. Penny.

Setting off into the snowy countryside, talking about the wedding, and singing along with the iPod, we found ourselves driving between two uncharacteristically hill-ish hills for this particular area. Most hills around there are of the gently rolling variety. These would have made for some exciting sledding. And on closer inspection, they would have made for even more exciting sledding because of the random pipes sticking up out of the ground. Pipes that seemed far too homogeneous and evenly distributed over the hills to make sense unless… unless these weren’t so much hills as landfills. That’s when the steady stream of garbage trucks that kept turning in up ahead of us started to make sense.

Laughing at ourselves, we continued on only to find that the first non-waste-management-related building after the landfill had a prominent sign reading “Metro Harvest Christian Church.” Priceless.

After all this, finding and settling on a pretty dress at J. C. Penny was sublimely anticlimactic.