Sneak preview of upcoming novel.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Scene-SettingToday I accidentally dressed like Alice in Wonderland. I put on a pleated skirt to minimize ironing time, then added tights to keep from having to shave my legs, then the flat Mary Janes that that hurt my corn the least this week, and oops. Cakes saying "Eat me" have appeared all round my head.
In the nearby halls, someone has posted childen's variations on a local company's logo. A bevy of coloring-contest entries, I mean. There are three that are very clearly better than all the rest. On closer inspection, you see that those three were done by three children, all of whom belong to the same person. You go, unisexly-named person I've never met! Raise those artists!
People, People, People
So, like every single other time, I got thwarted in my lunch-time mission to be alone.
I no longer believe that my fellow citizens are doing this to me on purpose (mostly I don't), but something's going on. Long-time readers remember that I can no longer read and eat Jack in the Box tacos in my car, in a nearby normally-deserted parking lot, without party-poopers feeling the need to park right next to me.
So, instead of whining about that more than once, I began parking in a different spot, in such a way that makes it impossible for the lonely space invaders to park alongside.
Well, no. No, no, no. It's not going to work out that way (me being alone, with privacy) because the strangers will just drive in circles near me, peering through their windows. ("What in the heck is that girl doing? Is she eating Jack in the Box tacos and reading a book? Weird!") Or, like today, they will just park illegally, blocking the parking-lot entrance adjacent to my car. Why? I don't know. I hope the person who did that today got immense satisfaction out of it, though.
So then, in the parking garage, I unintentionally inhaled the cologne/deoderant combo of the gentleman twenty steps ahead and wondered if I'm becoming a misanthrope. And, if so, if it's caused by hormones.
The fragrant gentleman and his friend began a disjointed conversation that caused them to slow down. ("So what are you..." "What [turns face into cell phone]?") They slowed down exactly long enough for me to reach them, then sped up to exactly the pace I was walking, so that we were all three walking abreast, as if we knew each other, and it became clear that some kind of rearranging would become imminent at the parking garage door.
So I walked very fast and got away. And I tried not to be a misanthrope about it. And I almost ran into another guy near the elevators. And we both paused at the same time to be polite and let the other go ahead. And he gestured for me to go. And I looked at his face and it looked like a nice face. And the spell was broken and I was glad.
In a huge, airy hall, me and several men walked along behind two women, one of whom had on a belt too tight for her tight low-rise pants. The two women talked loudly. Me and the men fell into silence behind them, awed by the belt and pants, I think. Something fell from the side of the belt-pants women. It hit the floor with a "blap!" She didn't notice, but all the rest of us looked down at it. I felt us all wonder if we should pick it up for her, or at least maybe say, "Excuse me."
The thing she dropped was a condiment packet. Psychically, I felt us all decide not to bring it to anyone's attention.
As I stepped over the condiment packet, I could not resist noticing that it said "Sweet Relish."
For some reason, this embarrassed me so much that I started to giggle. I couldn't stop. Then, twenty steps later, I saw that Pants/Belt had lunch items in her hands. I felt bad, then, imagining her at her desk, wondering what the hell happened to the sweet relish she'd planned to employ.
Cakes Saying "Eat Me"
I'm not even going to talk about what the endocrinologist said yesterday, for fear that it will upset me to dwell on the fact that his diagnosis will most likely parallel that of my gynecologist last year. (In short, I've paid hundreds of dollars for him to very carefully reach the same conclusion, and explain it more fully, but offer no more underlying reason than she did, and treat it with pills that have all the same ingredients as the Pill she gave me, but without any contraceptive effect.) (Maybe. Won't know for sure until after Friday's test.)
But... I'm taking a special, multi-needle test on Friday morning. In the meantime, my endocrinologist explicitly instructs me to eat more carbs. "CARB LOADING," he writes across the paper that tells me what to do.
And so I've thought of a new diet plan, which is "Have your doctor tell you to eat stuff that makes you fat." Because, now that he's told me to do that, I don't want to. I don't feel like eating any carbs at all, now.
And yet, dutifully, I eat a Halloween mini candy bar once or twice per hour. And I think doing that is putting me in a bad mood. Unless I'm already in a bad mood because I'm about to start my period - my third period of the month. No, wait, it's November. First one of the new month, then. But anyway. Maybe that's why I hate people, too. But, then again, conversely, what if that is why people like me? What if my smell - a heady combination of candy, testosterone, and impending blood - is what's making people park, walk, and drop condiments next to me?
I don't know. What do you think? Do you think I should maybe start a new book and become an endocrinologist? See about getting a radio show? Get a hysterectomy? Stop reading so much Kazuo Ishiguro?
I don't know now, I don't know. Everybody, stand back please. Just take twenty steps in the other direction and let me love you again.
Labels: health, psychobabble, stories, vanity
1:14 PM #Comments:
Hee hee hee! In my editing-induced state of slap-happiness, this post really made me laugh. 'Blap'. Bwah!Mmmmm, Jack-in-the-Box tacos. We don't have Jack-in-the-Box in Denver anymore, and I never ate there when we did. But those just sound like greasy yumminess right now.
# posted by
tina : 1:49 PM
1. I think the superior coloring contest entries were probably all colored by the parent. Clearly I have no faith in humanity...
2. Yes, stop reading Ishiguro. The Unconsoled made me want to commit suicide, and take someone with me.
# posted by
Nyarly : 3:31 PM
i think it makes me happy i'm not a woman.
# posted by
blake : 3:40 PM
This makes up for not seeing you in the last few years; I bet I know exactly the look you gave the sweet relish. And the pants, even though you won't remember those body parts tomorrow. Probably.
# posted by
olive & rose : 4:03 PM
Do you see how sad it is that my icon is now a headline of doom? Snarl.
# posted by
olive & rose : 4:03 PM
Tina: I'm glad you liked it. I could probably mail you a taco and the preservatives would keep it viable.
Nyarly: I did think that the parent coached the kids as far as their subject matter, but not that he/she colored them. Instead of coloring the circle and the words in it, they each filled the circle with a montage of themed items. But you could tell they were each by different-aged kids.
Blake: I would be scared to be a man. Unless I was a gay man, though. I think most of men's problems are caused by them being scared to look gay. So... you're exempt. If they say I have to be a man, I'll say I choose to be you. :)
Rose: That makes me laugh because I can't imagine that I looked at them in any certain way. But I do believe you, and next time we see each other you have to mimic the faces for me. Also, Flickr sucks for doing you like that.
Goddamn you, Flickr!!!
# posted by
Gwen : 4:17 PM
Oh, shoot, and I really came here to say:
I'm sorry to whoever commented last entry and said they loved Unconsoled. But... Reading it is making me want to commit *homicide.* I want to kill the narrator. I don't like him, and his narration is torturing me. And yet I must read to the end.
# posted by
Gwen : 4:20 PM
Just sending my love.
# posted by
Marigoldie : 6:52 PM
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