trying to get over the fact I keep envisioning how much glee I would get over carving out a certain someones eyes with a spoon. And eating them with platanos and roasted chiles.

The evil cow.

c’mon, show a little leg, whydontcha??

I am a prostitute.

Perhaps not the in the traditional sense- I am hardly a real life lady of the evening- but every day i dread coming to work and when I am here i feel like this job and what i do are no more than a sort of coporate prositution (masterfully massaging the metaphorical testicles of old & weathly adopters to keep them content and coming back for more). but then, i wonder if all of life is not really like this on some level- doesn’t it always comes down to you boucing around with a ball on your nose like some damned circus seal to prove to people how smart, how talented, how dedicated you are? How worthy you are for whatever job you are applying for , how much of an asset you are to whatever organization you hope to belong to: highschool, college, gradschool?  Even holiday volunteer work wants you to show them that you are serious about donating your time for free. Children are being asked to learn to tap dance for their respective approvers earlier and earlier- pre- pre kindergarten classes want the kids to already know their shapes and colors before they enter, taking  IQ tests before they are old enough to recognize their names on the top of the page. Their early resumes are as long as their first bowel movement. All of this to determine to smart, how extraordinary, how special your child is and what percentile ranking does your kid fall into. And why? Beacuse this way of thinking prepares them for their lives ahead- their whole lives will be measured on these initial size-ups.  They will spend the rest of their existence, trading and selling themselves to either accenuate or move past these initial measurements where size ( intellectually speaking, of course) does matter. So they spend their whole lives, which stretches out before them in an endless conrete road from here to the horizon (thanks, modern medicine!), trying to figure out new tricks to perform in order make their work speak for itself.  Because the sad truth is the work never does. The only things that matter are how fast you can type, how quickly you can answer email, and how quickly you bend that arse over & touch your toes for the revieiwng pleasure of approving body.

I hope you’ve been stretching ladies and gentleman. It is going to be an exhausting life.

Jeanology- a fall from grace

I have been on the quest for the perfect pair of denim for the past decade. I had a pair of Bill Blass jeans that lasted for 10 years, but they recently ripped and went to Denim Heaven ( where only the most worthy of jeans go).  They were perfect- right amount of stretch, nice medium dark wash, slighest bit of flare and they sat at my natural waist ( no  backyard vertical smile in these jeans). I have been looking for a pair to replicate this denim experience for a long time- even before the other pair gave out from exhaustion. Where have all of the good jeans gone? Now they are all skinny jeans, low rise jeans, jeans you have to pour yourself into, or just paint on.  Whatever happened to just  a regular pair of broken- in ,soft denim, dress’em up, dress ‘em down jeans?  Now they are so stylized you need more than one pair to do any job efficiently:  Jeans to go out? Check. Jeans to stay in? Check? Jeans to lounge? check? Work jeans? Check.  Club jeans? Check. 

I miss the kinds of jeans that used to forgive, the kind that used to mold to you. The kind of jeans that waited for you to make them your own- they weren’t sitting there on the hanger- hostile, snooty- telling you who they were and who YOU needed to be in order to wear them.  The jeans of old would embrace you like an old friend, they knew your comfort spots, they knew your secrets and they would never tell. The new jeans are harsh. They are cold, cruel, and can not wait to expose even your tiniest flaws to the world, because in their minds you don’t deserve them anyway.  They are made for the people on billboards and the folks on screens big and small now - and they know it. Flashing those perfectly toned asses all over town, jeans so skin tight skivvys need not apply -indeed, they are still a worker’s jeans. The work, however, is very different than what was in the blue-collar scope of the imagination in 1873. 

The perfect occupation

“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that. “

-Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything