Cesare Laetare
What happens when you walk around the city of Boston with a giant heart on your forehead on Ash Wednesday?
Approximately 10-15 people, mostly middle-aged women, will offer you dagger eyes, glottal inhalations of disapproval, scornful clucked tongues, or utterances of "offensive" or "sick; 10-15 people will laugh or say "Love the heart!"; 1 person will inform you that Jesus loves you even if you want to insult him; 3 twentysomething dreadlocked boys in short-shorts and neon green shirts reading "PARTY" will walk up to you with a boom box playing MC Hammer and proclaim you to be their Queen; 1 person will demand what you have against Catholics; you will be treated with suspicious regard by sales personnel at every retail establishment you enter; one lady will walk into the person in front of her while trying to nail you with a steely look; one gentleman will declare you to be "the woman of [his] dreams"; one state representative will slap you five and proclaim you to be a "wild woman"; and the Macy's makeup counter attendant whose sample lipstick you used to create it, and who happens to be sporting an ashy cross on her forehead, will walk up to you as you are applying it and state "I need that back now" (to which you will reply "Just a sec, almost done").
I'm giving up weather-related small talk, saying the words "Britney Spears" out loud, and any reading material written between 1900 and 1910 for Lent. You?
Emily
Approximately 10-15 people, mostly middle-aged women, will offer you dagger eyes, glottal inhalations of disapproval, scornful clucked tongues, or utterances of "offensive" or "sick; 10-15 people will laugh or say "Love the heart!"; 1 person will inform you that Jesus loves you even if you want to insult him; 3 twentysomething dreadlocked boys in short-shorts and neon green shirts reading "PARTY" will walk up to you with a boom box playing MC Hammer and proclaim you to be their Queen; 1 person will demand what you have against Catholics; you will be treated with suspicious regard by sales personnel at every retail establishment you enter; one lady will walk into the person in front of her while trying to nail you with a steely look; one gentleman will declare you to be "the woman of [his] dreams"; one state representative will slap you five and proclaim you to be a "wild woman"; and the Macy's makeup counter attendant whose sample lipstick you used to create it, and who happens to be sporting an ashy cross on her forehead, will walk up to you as you are applying it and state "I need that back now" (to which you will reply "Just a sec, almost done").
I'm giving up weather-related small talk, saying the words "Britney Spears" out loud, and any reading material written between 1900 and 1910 for Lent. You?
Emily