Tuesday, June 24, 2003

2 old 2 B Hootchie?


On my way to work this morning I happened to pass by my favorite store of all time; a little boutique called Ragmatazz. Upon glancing in, I spied, there in the lower left side of the store display, a pair of pink, seude, velcro tennies. I began to salivate. beads of sweat dotted my brow. I feverishly checked the hours of business and considered the feasibility of hanging around outside for close to two hours until the manager arrived so I could explain my situation and perhaps get her to do one pre-sale...just one, please.... while I was thus captivated, a largish woman who appeared to be mid-forties, possibly fifty arrived on the scene with a set of keys. She saw me staring hungrily at the shoes and hopefully at her and laughed. "I'm just going into the side office" she remarked, "but those are nice. I have a pair." she nodded and winked and went on her way.

O.K. Here's the thing. Me liking the shoes? Cool. Fresh. Contemporary with just a hint of youthful whimsy, dare, i say, even slightly Fly. Her liking the shoes?? I dunno. She seemed very nice and all that but she was just so...old. When I was a twenty-nothing I worked at a "vintage" clothing store in the Haight called the Wasteland. I'm not gonna say we copped tude or anything but we were sort of expected to be half an hour beyond whatever was going on right now and we did act somewhat superior about it. Thing is, I remember these old ladies coming in (like 35-40!) with all this money and their newly lifted bodies buying stacks of stuff and (I'm not ashamed to say it) these women were regarded with just a trace of pity. Back to me. now. I want those shoes. I like Forever 21 dammit! I try to dress like a rebrobate. Granted not at work (usually) and not nearly to the extent that I did - back when the body was a bit more, shall we say... slammin'. But what does this make me?? Have I become one of them? I've already accepted the fact that I'm going to embarrass my kid(s) Will this be my area of annoyance? (Interestingly enough, my mom has been known to throw togther an enemble that makes her accessories cringe and throughout my growing years, I've at times wondered why she "couldn't just dress like a normal mom"... eh hem... realizing, of course, that that has NOTHING to do with this post, so... moving along...) I don't think I'm an embarrassment yet... My friends are still, for the most part, willing to hang out with me. But... (and here's the rub) even if I was pathetically clinging to the styles of my youth... I don't think I'd do anything about it. The one thing that makes sense to me as a 35 year old lady is that this is what I'm like. This is me. My hair won't grow longer than my shoulders, I will always scoff at {shudder} green food. I wear ripped clothes. I like old books bound with leather bindings and I love my kid's shoes. I'll age out of the other mid-twenties stuff (no more drama if it can be avoided, and definitely no more staring at someone for three hours in a club waiting for them to come talk to me then going home alone. In fact, no more clubs period. Clubs suck.) but the clothes thing... Nah. To all those ladies I snickered at back in my Wasteland days, a heartfelt apology. You go, my fashion-sistahs -- You're never to old to be Hootchie!



So, I participated in this survey last night. It took fifty million years to complete but it was interesting to see the sort of methodology utilized by our United states Governmental fact finding agencies.

[alert: Grad school geeking out ahead. If you're eyes begin to glaze over, skip to the next section. It's got puppies...]

First off, the materials were in English and Spanish. There are apparently no readers of any other ethnic flavor that our government is interested in. Filipino? nah, thanks all the same. Russian? Nope. Sorry. I found this interesting. Also interesting was the fact that the guy conducting the survey had to read each question (and all the responses) out loud. He had to. I tried interrupting a few times (for instance when the answer I wanted to give was listed first) but was informed that "all the answers must be read in case there is a more appropriate one in the list." I also realized that I suck at math. A part of the survey involved deciphering ad content. For instance: if a pillow is typically 12.99 but is on sale for 9.99 and you have a 10% off coupon, how much will you end up paying? huh? In real life i just hand over a twenty but that's not gonna cut it as far as the United States Government is concerned!

There were some great, questions about children's reading too. "Do you read more than 15 minutes a day to your school-age child?", "Does your child see you reading - often, sometimes, seldom, not at all?" Oh! and the best part was the end where I got to read made-up words. I dunno what they're checking with that but i gotta tell ya, who knew simply reading the word "floom" off a card could make a person so smiley??

Anyways, interesting experience. I highly recommend to anyone who is approached for (non-incriminating) data that they tell all. Everything in our world is based on numbers and the more of us out there adding to the national statistics the less likely (I would hope) it will be that truly evil things (like library closures in poorer neighborhoods) get suggested.



Puppies!!

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