sitting naked in the garden thinking "pimp my thighs"
I got old this summer at the age of 22. Today I stood in line in the stripmall depot and squinted against the rainbow of cigarettes on the wall behind the register. The faces on the tabloids were ruined by cheap ink; the perfectly polished tans rendered in nicotine yellow, looking waxy and lukewarm. I decided to quit smoking again.
I thought about something John Lennon said about growing up surrounded by half-awake people as I left through automatic doors, passing people I'd always felt vaguely sorry for.Accidentally they become numbers. Factory farm cows drinking the milk.
But today, for a moment, I knew I was content to patronize a hated chainstore for cheap notebooks and pens, that my $2.03 was significant in an empire built of tiny sums. I thought, let anyone who can think like that make money. Let anyone who can cheerfully stuff populations into filing cabinets and pie charts consider the right color for blush this month, and how much to charge for a 20ft extension cord.
Maybe aesthetic sensibilities are a side effect of being too literal-minded. The thing is not the symbol and the symbol is not the thing. I can't do algebra because I fall in love with the variables; like having nostalgia for a certain time of day in the afternoon that I haven't noticed since I was 8.
But I saw a beautiful woman bending down to smell flowers on the sidewalk outside the grocery store. Her long brown legs arching up into an ugly pair of shorts that stuck out at the sides and in the back, the kind that make the wearer look like a duck. Shorts from the 80s. Shorts for your mom.
Next week, some art student with an ironic haircut will publish a portfolio of beautiful 20somethings gardening in ugly duck shorts from the 80s. A coke-head folksinger in New York will start wearing them at shows in August. By september, ugly duck shorts from the 80s will stride confidently through college campuses sipping energy drinks and eating organic bagels. The shorts will hibernate all winter and awake in catalogs for spring, clinging to expertly rounded asses and flaring out three inches above the knee on softly shining legs of every color, printed with sharp, nicotine-free ink.
I got old today when I realized that I'd take the bait eventually. That there is nothing essentially ugly about those shorts. That everything is essentially beautiful and that all signs are infinitely malleable. I will take them as they come. The thing is not the symbol.
I thought about something John Lennon said about growing up surrounded by half-awake people as I left through automatic doors, passing people I'd always felt vaguely sorry for.Accidentally they become numbers. Factory farm cows drinking the milk.
But today, for a moment, I knew I was content to patronize a hated chainstore for cheap notebooks and pens, that my $2.03 was significant in an empire built of tiny sums. I thought, let anyone who can think like that make money. Let anyone who can cheerfully stuff populations into filing cabinets and pie charts consider the right color for blush this month, and how much to charge for a 20ft extension cord.
Maybe aesthetic sensibilities are a side effect of being too literal-minded. The thing is not the symbol and the symbol is not the thing. I can't do algebra because I fall in love with the variables; like having nostalgia for a certain time of day in the afternoon that I haven't noticed since I was 8.
But I saw a beautiful woman bending down to smell flowers on the sidewalk outside the grocery store. Her long brown legs arching up into an ugly pair of shorts that stuck out at the sides and in the back, the kind that make the wearer look like a duck. Shorts from the 80s. Shorts for your mom.
Next week, some art student with an ironic haircut will publish a portfolio of beautiful 20somethings gardening in ugly duck shorts from the 80s. A coke-head folksinger in New York will start wearing them at shows in August. By september, ugly duck shorts from the 80s will stride confidently through college campuses sipping energy drinks and eating organic bagels. The shorts will hibernate all winter and awake in catalogs for spring, clinging to expertly rounded asses and flaring out three inches above the knee on softly shining legs of every color, printed with sharp, nicotine-free ink.
I got old today when I realized that I'd take the bait eventually. That there is nothing essentially ugly about those shorts. That everything is essentially beautiful and that all signs are infinitely malleable. I will take them as they come. The thing is not the symbol.