thanks
Thanks to everyone who called 713-335-3443 and listened to my readings. And thanks, especially, to those who left messages. I do get to hear them, and I enjoy them very much.
You can still call any time, 24 hours a day. I won’t mention it again until around the fifteenth, when they switch out the recording and you get to hear 2 or 3 other stories.
Later I will tell y’all about Friday’s show, which no one attended, but which was fun and life-changing, anyway. But for now, you can just read my petty, judgmental, evil thoughts, instead.
petty, judgmental, evil thought
I hate classicism, but the other day I indulged in it for just a moment.
We were at a big outlet mall on the outskirts of town. It’s always chock full of all sorts of people, which makes it a good place to people-watch while eating your overpriced mall rations. This day, though, I was in too much of a hurry for that. I was on a shopping mission, trying to buy as many bargains as possible before my three kids reached their tolerance limit.
I took my youngest son into the Ann Taylor outlet, which is called Ann Taylor Loft. (So as not to be confused, I guess, with the real Ann Taylor, where I usually can’t afford to shop. As if this is the stuff you’re getting down from Ann Taylor’s attic, where she stores her outdated and ill-selling garments. But she calls it her loft, because her house is way, way bigger than any house I can afford.)
My son sat on the shoe center couch and pouted while I navigated through the sorority-looking blonde girls who bulldozed me over on their way through the clearance sweater racks. “Work skirts, work skirts,” I chanted to myself, in order to stay on track. I hurried around a corner and ran smack-dab into a stroller. It contained a baby and was attached to a pregnant woman. Also attached to her was a young boy. Next to them was a daddy with another son crawling under the work skirts, at his feet. The mother and father had these looks on their faces as if they were ambling through the livestock show and had come across cows with new kinds of horns. All of them wore worn clothing that I recognized from the cheaper stores around town.
When I came around the corner, they didn’t move an inch. They didn’t resume shopping, either, because they hadn’t been shopping. They had been ambling and gawking, as if they were out in the mall’s huge hallway instead of in one of its crowded little shops.
I looked at them and thought the evil-est thing: “You can’t even afford to shop here.” For that moment, I wished they would see how they looked to me, realize they didn’t belong in Ann Taylor Loft and get the hell out of my way. I probably conveyed this with my facial expression, because they looked back at me with facial expressions of stubborn defiance. Probably just like the one I used on the sorority girl.
Thinking back on it now, I know that those people had just as much right to be there as I did. Also, I’ve realized that if I want to shop without any other citizens of Houston around me, I’m going to have to make a hell of a lot more money than I do now.
another petty, judgmental, evil thought
There’s this woman I see rather often and she wears too much eyeliner. Under her eyes. Black. Almost a quarter inch. Not as much on top. With her strawberry blonde hair. And her rounded eyes. And the always slightly open mouth. She used to always look slightly lost and nosy. Now, with the eyeliner, she looks like a lost, nosy zombie.
I don’t know why she does it. Does she think it looks good? I know that when I look in the mirror, I look way better than I do in real life because when I look in the mirror, I’m sucking in my gut and making little supermodel faces at myself. Isn’t that true of everyone? However, I can’t imagine the face this woman could make at herself that would make that eyeliner look good.
Maybe something’s wrong with her eyes. Maybe her vision is blurred. Does she think it detracts from the wrinkles? Why don’t her friends tell her? Maybe they aren’t really friends to her at all. Or maybe they think she looks good, too. Maybe they’ll copy her style. Bite her flavor. Jock her mode. Maybe I can look forward to seeing spooky zombie women all over the place.
Hey, maybe it’s only part of the Halloween decorations.
Hey, maybe they’re thinking the same stuff about me.
