Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Out with the Old...

I'm so weary. I'm so tired of dieting and studying and being pale and patient and cranky and cold. And, contradictorily, despite how desperate I am for change, I am also very tired of the new. I am sick of hailing the new ideal kitchen knife, the new athletic shoe innovation, the new hit song, the new, new, new, new. Everyone is inventing things with an eye to revenue and convenience instead of inventing things that are worthwhile and nontoxic and biodegradable.

But as much as I am tired of the new before it even arrives, I am also very tired of pretending I don't like a trendy cocktail or hot shoe or new song just because it's a hit with everyone else. (I thoroughly enjoyed a new song recently and later discovered, to my surprise, that the artist is Miley Cyrus. I'm still going to enjoy it the next time I hear it.) Maintaining a truly marginal* lifestyle must be exhausting, and possibly quite boring.

*I say this with more than a little sarcasm because the other day at the grocery store I glanced at a kid wearing baggy, dirty jeans, numerous piercings, black eyeliner and a mohawk, and I wanted so badly to walk up to him and point out that he's not doing anything that hasn't been done before, most of it decades ago. Even the elderly rancher in the Cadillac next to me was unfazed. I'm so tired of people trying to be different in the same old ways.

2 Comments:

Blogger mister anchovy said...

I'm not so sure that people who dress and fashion themselves in very particular ways are trying to be different. Perhaps they are trying to be the same...as other people in the same, tribe or group or clique or whatever.

May 7, 2008 at 3:43 PM  
Blogger A said...

A very valid view. And since the boy is probably earnestly emulating a favorite rock star who makes more money in a week than I'll ever make in my life, I should stop criticizing. His friends probably dress that way, too, true, and they just might be good, supportive friends who spend time piercing each other and practicing Guitar Hero instead of robbing convenience stores. Even I once wrote in wet cement.

What I have learned from this is that I can practically measure how much my frame of reference shrinks every additional day I spend in this town. I need to get out of here.

By the way, how can I get my hands on a copy of Cachorros Piquantes?

May 7, 2008 at 10:16 PM  

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