They Say

I’m not a particular fan of American Apparel … apparel. I am a fan of their labor and environmental policies, obviously, although their CEO makes it difficult to focus on that aspect with his unabashed sexual antics and wildly inappropriate workplace ethics. But really, what bothers me most is that they think that these pass for shorts? REALLY? THOSE ARE NOT SHORTS. THEY ARE, AT BEST, UNDERWEAR. I can’t believe we live in a society where ass cheeks are an appropriate accessory.

This, by the way, further underscores the fact that I continue to age, most recently brought to light by the fact that I live in a college town and spend much of my day surrounded by college students. And every day, as I remark to friends nearly hourly, I remain floored by the fact that college freshman and sophomores look like infants. Teeny tiny INFANTS who should not be allowed to leave the HOUSE, much less attend college on their own and be given free access to things like hot plates and microwaves and BEER. And yet, there they are, walking around without someone holding their hand. I can’t believe it.

It reminds me, somewhat incongruously, of the a time when I was at a bar in the BU area of Boston and was being strangely courted in that drunk, not-so-charming way by a young college student wearing beer goggles. The fact that I announced that I was married left him with a “So what?” glare — I believe he said, “That’s kind of hot” which of course, it wasn’t to a normal person — but what REALLY got him was the fact that I announced that I was twenty-nine. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he realized — again, drunkenly — “Wait, dude, you’re going to be THIRTY? Dang, that’s old.” I mean, there are a lot of times in my life that I feel like I’m living a terribly contrived sitcom, but that might best them all. I’m also fairly certain that I went home and smeared an avocado and honey mask and bought eye cream online, because OH MY GOD, I was suddenly very old.

Hey, how was your weekend? In addition to the host of errands required after moving into a new home, we found the closest mall, if by “close” you mean about an hour away, and was also very tiny in comparison to the terrifyingly robust shopping available in Naples, which is a retail MECCA, if you didn’t know. I counted five Bed, Bath & Beyonds within a ten-mile radius there once, which is both comforting and petrifying, because how many people do they need to support that many pillowcases and placemats? It’s … it’s a far cry from our hour-ish journey to the nearest Home Goods and KMart, because let me remind you again, WE HAVE NO TARGET. This … this is very difficult for me, as I could use endless aisles of trash cans and bath mats right about now, and no such oasis exists, Martha Stewart Every Day or not.

We also watched No Country for Old Men, and I had the same struggle that I always have when watching anything by the Coen brothers in that I feel like I’m supposed to be extracting some deep, fatalistic meaning from every scene, though I largely adore them. This also makes me feel deeply inadequate when I dislike one of their films, as I sort of did with No Country for Old Men.

It’s not that I didn’t like it, necessarily, it’s that I … I didn’t love it, primarily because it did little more than give me the creeps because just two days ago, I swear, I had a dream that Javier Bardem was trying to kill me, and hey, guess what? THE ENTIRE MOVIE is Javier Bardem trying to kill people, with that ultra-creepy Prince Valiant page boy (really, I’m giving little away here: that’s evident in the first three minutes). This meant that I spent the greater part of the movie with my face hidden behind a fleece blanket, because ew, nightmare on film, HOW FUN — that is, when I wasn’t telling Sunny the pug to just SHUT UP already, because there were a lot of dogs and horses in the film and she had to tell us about it repeatedly, each and every damn time she saw one. OH HI. WE GET IT. A HORSE ON TV, THANK YOU.

Plus, and this is strange: I usually don’t mind adaptations when I’m watching them if I haven’t read the book, but in this case, I kept thinking that I’d SO prefer reading this than watching it. I felt much the same when I saw The Sweet Hereafter, which you should only see if you feel like taking a dull butter knife to your wrists and killing yourself VERY SLOWLY. Because Jesus, was that ever depressing.

Which reminds me: now that we have a living room we like and can sit in comfortably, we’re watching movies again. What have you seen lately that you really liked? Rentals, if you don’t mind, because remember: there is no movie theater with first-run movies within a 30-mile radius. No, I’m totally not kidding. And because I know someone is going to ask: we already saw Juno.

Thank you! And happy Monday!

*Common, John Legend & Kanye West, but it’s on Common’s album, in case you were wondering.

42 comments March 16th, 2008