Reading: Blind Assassin

Moving: pushing maximum density

Watching: "Freaks and Geeks"

Learning: I've still got a job

26 September 2000: Polka dots

Today I wore the black leather pumps with the long black jersey skirt that form the seldom-varying lower-half of my winter wardrobe. I love this skirt, but I do wear it often. I decided to dress it up. My three-hole punch lost its little tray ages ago. I punched some papers on my lap, and bingo! A polka dot skirt. Worked for me, all the way until I stood up.

Sunday I wanted Jessie and T. to see the mountains from behind the Museum of Nature and Science, but even after the sky cleared in the afternoon, clouds remained in the west. Monday was completely clear, and I saw that somebody had fixed the mountains over the weekend. The foothills were generously sprinkled and the mountains solidly covered in white. And that's the way it should be all the time. By today a lot had melted, but still some snow remained. I don't like broken mountains. I like proper, glistening white mountains. So I guess I should be happy until May at least.

This afternoon I called my father. When I got home a package waited for me on the porch. He asked a while ago what knickknacks we needed for the house, and I wondered what I could tell him that would fit his budget and my taste. I eventually told him we needed picture frames, and I liked purely simple wood frames. And that's exactly what he gave me, two 4"x6" frames of completely unadorned oak. When I called, Sheryl answered, and I told her that since they've been together, he's been a better present buyer. "Oh, I work on him every day, hon." And this is despite his being the most impossible person in the world to shop for. She found something perfect and original, though. She is A Shopper and you should tremble before her. She bought him a beehive. Kind of an adoption, actually: at Christmas he received a picture of his beehive and all year long he was mailed various bee products, honey mustard, honey butter, actual honey...what a great idea! She told me about her son's wedding earlier this month, and I asked whether my father had danced with her. "No, he didn't. I love him like crazy but the fact is that he's a poophead." He was sitting right there when she said it. I swear he's a totally different man than the one I grew up with.

In the evening after supper I settled down to a night of television. I'd had my annual review, and while it went just fine, still I was de-stressing. So I watched two episodes of "Freaks and Geeks" and the latter two-thirds of a Blackadder (III, Sense and Senility) and then I found some high school version of "Pygmalion" called "She's All That" in which a boy bets another boy he can transform random geeky girl into the prom queen. Remember, OMFB, when Marcia Brady did the same thing? She asked the nerdy girl if she had contacts, and the nerdy girl said "Yes, but I never wear them; what good would they do?" or something equally unlikely. So she just happens to have this huge investment--I figure hard contact lenses in the early '70s were astronomically more expensive in proportion to a family budget (especially when not for the wage-earner) than soft contacts are now--but not use them? Mm-hm. So. Basically all that had to happen was to cut her hair and ditch the glasses and then this Galatea was perfect, because she was already slender and had great skin and some self-esteem. I watched about a half hour until the antics at a houseparty got too stupid for even my excessive torpor, at which point I repaired to my computer, which occupies my mind in a so much more intellectually taxing way.

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Last modified 2 October 2000

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