Newlyweds, Tractor Beams, Books and Bundt Cakes
After sweatin' with the oldies and very skinny blondies at my prissy little gym, I ran into my my newly married friend Joan; luckily, she was unhurt. However, she is suffering from a drastic case of Newlyweditis, which may be characterized by the following symptoms:
1. A pronounced inability to to discuss anything other than houses and children
2. A glazed look
3. A nervous tic that causes her left hand to fly out at any given moment
4. An obsessive need to shop for tasseled pillows and decorative hand towels that no one may actually use
5. An intense compulsion to find husbands for all single friends, who are intensely miserable and wallowing in abject misery
I am hoping that she has not actually transformed into a Pod Person.
However, her alarming personality change did not prevent her from being inevitably pulled along with me into the Borders Bookstore Evil Tractor Beam of Doom. I am such a weak, weak person. I am physically unable to drive past the Borders Death Star without being sucked into the vortex. Their storm trooper sales force knows this, so they bombard me with 2 for 1 coupons and friendly sales reminders.
No matter how much I try to use the Force, I am compelled to buy their books, their music and their gooey chocolate bundt cakes, which have overcome all my years of intense Jedi training.
Darth Vader and his minions have won; I was completely overcome by the Dark Side and purchased the following:
1. Switch Bitch (Roald Dahl)
2. Calendar Girl: Sweet and Sexy Pin-Ups of the Postwar Era (Max Allan Collins)
3. The Theory of the Leisure Class (Thorstein Veblen)
4. t zero (Italo Calvino)
Obi-wan: you're my only hope.
1. A pronounced inability to to discuss anything other than houses and children
2. A glazed look
3. A nervous tic that causes her left hand to fly out at any given moment
4. An obsessive need to shop for tasseled pillows and decorative hand towels that no one may actually use
5. An intense compulsion to find husbands for all single friends, who are intensely miserable and wallowing in abject misery
I am hoping that she has not actually transformed into a Pod Person.
However, her alarming personality change did not prevent her from being inevitably pulled along with me into the Borders Bookstore Evil Tractor Beam of Doom. I am such a weak, weak person. I am physically unable to drive past the Borders Death Star without being sucked into the vortex. Their storm trooper sales force knows this, so they bombard me with 2 for 1 coupons and friendly sales reminders.
No matter how much I try to use the Force, I am compelled to buy their books, their music and their gooey chocolate bundt cakes, which have overcome all my years of intense Jedi training.
Darth Vader and his minions have won; I was completely overcome by the Dark Side and purchased the following:
1. Switch Bitch (Roald Dahl)
2. Calendar Girl: Sweet and Sexy Pin-Ups of the Postwar Era (Max Allan Collins)
3. The Theory of the Leisure Class (Thorstein Veblen)
4. t zero (Italo Calvino)
Obi-wan: you're my only hope.
posted by L at 9:47 PM
5 Comments:
Eww. Newlyweditis. I have seen it many a time. Talk about the Dark Side.
I had some friends who got it bad about six years ago. Then I ran into the male half yesterday, and the female half is divorcing him. I have known her since kindergarten. It's kind of a shock, especially since I haven't kept up with them for the last couple years.
When I see that kind of thing, where people go in a complete cycle from Newlyweditis to divorce, right before my eyes, I start to see marriage as a kind of Greek tragedy, where apparently decent people get caught up in forces beyond their control, only to find themselves at a critical denouement where they discover that everything they know is wrong, everything falls apart, and thoughtful observers are left with this troubling ambiguity: Was it the apparently decent participants, or was it Marriage the Institution, the force beyond their control?
This, I think, is part of the reason why people our age are not getting married. It is also why I want to go for the jugular every time I hear some Christian blathering on about The Sacred Institution of Marriage.
Sorry I had to be so Very Serious and pound your delightful post with this heaviness. Friends getting divorced tends to weigh on one's thoughts like a paralyzed sumo wrestler, though.
If you're trying to get anyone excited about what a hot, book-readin' bitch you must be, you have succeeded.
Thorstein Veblen?
Holy crap. I thought I was the only person in the world who's read him without being required to.
I think I'm in love.
The last book I bought at Borders was the biography of Gerald Durrell. See, not an intellectual bone in my body.
Theomorph: I agree-- with so many divorces around, I don't feel awful about being single... plus, I don't take nagging very well. You are a good sport, so now you are just very serious, and not Very Serious :)
Larry: I am smokin' book-readin' bitch and proud of it. However, I am also a nerd.
Average: Thorstein Veblen is actually pretty interesting -- I decided to buy his book because he is the one who originally coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption". Plus, his writing is actually quite accessible to a layperson such as myself.
Dear Laziest Girl: I like you anyway because I am Lazy too. I myself am not really intellectual; I've purchased rather too many books.
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