santaland
So I went to Macy's yesterday to try on bridesmaid dresses and I was really aware of the apocalypse. It took me 20 minutes to get from the front door to the bridal salon, the store so crowded with holiday shoppers you could barely move. I was on deadline for a dress so it had to be done, but seriously I do not understand why people cram themselves into retail space like that. You can buy a bridesmaid dress online without trying it on but that is a big old accident waiting to happen, don't you think? But you can buy gloves online or a tie or a dvd player or whatever and have that shit mailed to someone, no problem.
The bridal salon, satanically JUST PAST the famous intense jam-packed Santaland where David Sedaris got his big start (I'm looking at that as a bit of subterfuge style birth control for young financees all giddy with reproductive fantasies) was actually heaven compared to the rest of the store. Totally empty. Quiet. The salesgirl was sweet, got me dresses and left me alone, and looked a little like she was a goth in her spare time.
She pointed out the large and fabulash "mother-of-the-bride" section. There was this one great dress in 2 different animal prints with details that were sort of like hairbeads hanging off of shoelaces all over the place, imagine: what Stevie Nicks made on crafts day at summercamp. Halter, thin nylon, low- and high-cut. That is the stepmother of the bride dress, the third-wife dress to show off the lipo. They think of everything don't they.
My friends are getting married in Seattle and they are so worth going to Macy's for. They have a blog about the weirdness of weddingness that is so funny. Also, one of my favorite guy writers is going to be a groomsman so that is very cool. Brooklyn represents.
Anyway: I do manage to hide in Brooklyn most of the time, this is where everything is for me. Manhattan feels so weird, like the shells of things are still there but the content has been replaced by something Dick Cheney created to make himself feel safer and happier. The books at the Borders I stopped in all LOOKED like books but they were such utter crap that I had a new epiphany about what I'm up against as a reader, nevermind as a writer (THAT part I can take care of, actually).
Further evidence of apocalypse sneaking up on us so quietly: I went out on the Lower East Side with an old friend I haven't seen in 5 years this weekend. She's an amazing visual artist in LA and she was a comp lit major at Yale and she has stopped reading contemporary fiction because it is such utter crap. That wasn't true 5 years ago. Somehow hearing this from her made me see that this pot of water all of us are slowly being boiled in is really much more toasty than it was just a brief time ago.
It's like someone took a magnet and erased thought and replaced it with discussions of cell phone plans and nosejobs and shitty dumb parties and VH1 shows. I am a little bit grouchy here, no? Time to get out of New York for a bit. I may be going to Chicago in January for a writing spell so that is VERY exciting, my friends. xoxo