Festivus for the rest of you
I'm home in Stalem until tomorrow evening or Sunday morning--woohoo! fatalism! no point in confirming return date when I'm stuck here until then anyway!--but it's not really worth recounting. Merry Christmas, I guess? I somehow transformed into 100% Grinch this year because all this holiday hoo-hah is failing to elicit any kind of warm, fuzzy, even capitalistic feeling in me. I'm buying some late presents for people because I have some disposable income this year and I consider it making up for not having gotten gifts for the last, oh, never.
Monday evening I elected to go to the closest Barnes & Noble with Das Kapital and Amy, though I probably should have stuck with my original plan and stayed at home drinking everything that wasn't consumed on Saturday night. I can't help but cringe every time I step foot in one of those (except in instances where I run into my lovely friend Edgar). I always think going to B&N would be pleasant, but then I get there and the book selection always puts me on edge, making me feel lame and negative because I don't want to pay full retail price for this white people western lit canon crap. Plus Frank McCoy and some heartfelt story about dogs, or an engagement gone wrong, or I don't know, James motherfucking Frey. And Oprah putting her damn Book Club stickers on everything. And Twatlight. And conspiracy theories on 9/11, and all the books in the Current Events section being dominated by conservatives (more of the nonsense ones, though, like Palin and Ann Coulter). Blaehhhhh. Also, the books I lean towards purchasing are magically never available, and serendipitous discoveries haven't taken place in a B&N for me since I was probably 14, with the exception of my Lopate find earlier this year.
It was a less horrible excursion than usual, though. I walked away with a book that was on my 2008 reading list and got to laugh at the spectacle of other customers approaching DK in the business/marketing/advertising section and asking him for advertising advice. BAHAHA. Oh sigh, some days he really looks like a Mac Kid (tm?) and I guess he got typecast. Hilarious.
I'm not too thrilled about my situations in Richmond (the job, the housing, the not being able to stay up past 12:30, the dreariness of having to initiate everything, the never feeling at home) but these are things I can at least explore when I'm there! And it is much preferred to lying in bed on the computer reading old Xanga entries (SHADAP don't judge, I'll uh, get on the whole web 2.0 bandwagon eventually). I'll probably make a 2009 end-of-year meme post soon since I have nothing better to do anyway.
Monday evening I elected to go to the closest Barnes & Noble with Das Kapital and Amy, though I probably should have stuck with my original plan and stayed at home drinking everything that wasn't consumed on Saturday night. I can't help but cringe every time I step foot in one of those (except in instances where I run into my lovely friend Edgar). I always think going to B&N would be pleasant, but then I get there and the book selection always puts me on edge, making me feel lame and negative because I don't want to pay full retail price for this white people western lit canon crap. Plus Frank McCoy and some heartfelt story about dogs, or an engagement gone wrong, or I don't know, James motherfucking Frey. And Oprah putting her damn Book Club stickers on everything. And Twatlight. And conspiracy theories on 9/11, and all the books in the Current Events section being dominated by conservatives (more of the nonsense ones, though, like Palin and Ann Coulter). Blaehhhhh. Also, the books I lean towards purchasing are magically never available, and serendipitous discoveries haven't taken place in a B&N for me since I was probably 14, with the exception of my Lopate find earlier this year.
It was a less horrible excursion than usual, though. I walked away with a book that was on my 2008 reading list and got to laugh at the spectacle of other customers approaching DK in the business/marketing/advertising section and asking him for advertising advice. BAHAHA. Oh sigh, some days he really looks like a Mac Kid (tm?) and I guess he got typecast. Hilarious.
I'm not too thrilled about my situations in Richmond (the job, the housing, the not being able to stay up past 12:30, the dreariness of having to initiate everything, the never feeling at home) but these are things I can at least explore when I'm there! And it is much preferred to lying in bed on the computer reading old Xanga entries (SHADAP don't judge, I'll uh, get on the whole web 2.0 bandwagon eventually). I'll probably make a 2009 end-of-year meme post soon since I have nothing better to do anyway.