Dirty, pretty things

I took this trip with my friends Whitney and Laura. Good kids.

They taught me something about myself. This thing, it's a defining characteristic. I'm accommodating. Absurdly so. I accommodate until there's nothing left to bend to, no opinion of my own to dash nor any desire left to quash.

All of which is a tactful way to say I'm a goddamned push-over. A failure as a self-interested rational agent. Whitney uses words like this, she's a Philosophy major. So does Laura, her thing is History. In their free time they psychoanalyse me. This is their official diagnosis.

They are, of course, correct.

My rebuttal: I desperately need people's outward approval. It reinforces my existence. When I shun this aspect of myself bad things happen.

Like Job before me, Family members die inexplicably when I assert myself. God kills them.

This is not news. I know I'm a goddamned push-over. The thing Whitney and Laura taught me is that what had been my secret shame is blatantly obvious to everyone around me. Realizing this made me suddenly want to rage against it.

We were at the University Village, post-curry, pre-second-macchiatto.

U Village is a big crappy complex of crap made to look like a quaint little township--a compartmentalized monument to self-deceptive capitalism. You can tell this because the majority of people have cars worth more than my education. That is to say: cars which are priceless.

First stop, J.Crew.

J.Crew is nothing to rage against. They have men's clothes, and I generally like those clothes. It's easy enough to pretend I'm considering purchasing those clothes. Pretending to shop J.Crew does not make me a pushover. I'm poor, make-believe is all I can muster. 72% of my wardrobe is already J.Crew. Being a brand-loyal whore is not the same as being a pushover. They have a nice corduroy jacket, but it's green, I want brown. Not a pushover.

Next is Sephora. Cosmetics. My chance to dissent. Though I probably should try some concealer to mask the colony of stress-zits overpopulating my jawline, I go and sit at a tastefully uncomfortable bit of all-weather wrought-iron in this manufactured commons area and wait for my friends to finish spraying themselves with things. To finish consuming. I begin to count the ways I hate this place. I make an alphabet game out of it. A is for Anthropologie. B is for Bed, Bath and Beyond . . .

Before C come the birds. Flying, banking in formation. Migrating. Shitting. Bombarding the sleeve of my jacket. Karma. Retribution. Laura coaxes me into Sephora to use the de-makeup-ing station to de-shit my sleeve.

You can't fight the moonlight.

Next comes A. A is for Anthropologie. Another chance to dissent. But the birds are still circling, so I enter. Anthropologie consistently amazes me. It is like Urban Outfitters on a grander scale. Exquisitely packaged trash. And such variety.

If you're an affluent housewife who digs a stitch of kitsch or if you are a particularly urbane transvestite, Anthropologie is really the only store you'll ever need.

They have clothes for you, of course. They also have Aromatherapy candles. And candles to make love by. Sexy candles. They have clothes for the resulting unplanned pregnancy. Devotional candles by which to pray your man doesn't leave you. Clothes for the human you birth. Furniture for yourself and for that child. Candles to deaden your post-partum stress disorder. Bath oils to make your child smell nice while you're drowning it. The oils also act as a preservative. They make your hands soft.

Purses, wallets, home furnishings. All manner of brick-a-brak.

Books. Candles to read them by.

Greeting cards. Candles to inscribe them by.

Brand-new vintage knobs for the antique chest of drawers you're refinishing. Candles to stain it by.

Better-than-antique chests of drawers that look as though they've been refinished by an amateur. An amateur just like you.

Thoughtful.

Anthropologie.
Consistently Spontaneous for the uniformly eclectic.

Thus, I dissent.