Friday, January 31, 2014

Shoeshank Redemption

Holy fucking shitkickers, it's almost been a month since I've written. There's the draft of a post I forgot about on the 6th called "Shawshank Fashion Tips" but it's unfinished. I'll get into that later.

So...how have you been? Feel free to answer in the commentary or just speak to your laptop as if I can hear you. It doesn't make you crazy, it's kind of like talking to the other cars in traffic. If you like my logic because it justifies your insane behavior, feel free to use it. I always do.

That last paragraph made no sense whatsoever.

So you're good? Awesome! What have I been up to the last four weeks? I've stood in my sister's wedding, taken the GRE, and finished the third draft of The Water Door Magician. Oh and I cut my hair. Now I'm impatiently waiting to see if I got into grad school.

What do you mean that's no excuse not to blog? Aaaah! Thought I couldn't really hear you, did you fucker? Well, I did and I will have you know that all of those things take a great amount of concentration and leaves very little time for bloggery. What? No, I haven't been seeing anyone, why do you always assume that's why I haven't written in a while? I've really, actually, genuinely been busy .But now I am back and ready to talk about how the movie "The Shawshank Redemption" helped me pick out a pair of bridesmaid shoes.

Shoeshank Redemption

It was the morning of my sister's wedding day, and at 7:00 I thought I had everything ready to meet her at the salon where my sisters and I were getting our hair and makeup done. And anyone who reads this blog regularly should know how much I have to love my sister to get my hair done and put on makeup. Anyone who does not, can read this as a tutorial: Femme Failure

No let me say, I really, really love my baby sister. I would have done just about anything she needed me to do for her wedding day. Having said that, I hate getting my hair done. The term "updo" makes me want to shave my head. Because when I have this done to me, someone, usually a loud woman with long, stabby nails, rakes her fingers through my hair, ties it up on top of my head, and sprays it with something that they also use as a pesticide on crops. Then she tells me that I look really good when I honestly I think I would look better if I dropped my hair in a fish tank.

And don't even fucking get me started on makeup.

This was the hesitation I was feeling when I gathered my things to meet my sisters for a morning of artificial beauty before the afternoon wedding. While I was taking stock of everything I needed to bring to the car, I think I might have actually been chanting, "I love Stephanie, I love Stephanie, I love Stephanie" when I realized that I had forgotten to buy shoes.

I hate shoe shopping. Surprise!

But not enough to skip it completely when I'm the maid of honor in a wedding. I spent about five minutes beating myself up. "I can NOT believe you forgot to do this. How on EARTH could you forget the shoes? What are you going to wear? Black Chucks?...well, those would look good, but you CAN'T you just can't! It's 7:00 in the morning, you have to meet April and Stephanie at 10:00. No place is open practically until then!"

On top of a time crunch there was also the matter of my feet. I'm six feet tall. My feet are huge. Well, long at least, just like the rest of me. Shoes can be hard to find. I needed a pair of dress shoes that would match a lavender bridesmaid's dress. In two hours. In the morning.

So I hit Target. There was almost nothing to choose from, and keep in mind that it was about a week and a half after Christmas so I was left to pick through the odd ones that hadn't sold. I was trying not to buy heels, heels make me, at minimum, 6'2." The conversation in my head, while I desperately scanned the shelves for size 11's, went like this:

"Lavender...what goes with lavender? Silver? There isn't anything silver in my size - wait! Sparkly silver Converse rip-offs! YES! No, no, bad Genevieve, bad, choose wedding shoes. White? There are no white dress shoes. Does the fashion industry actually stick to the no white after Labor Day bullshit?...hold on...nude. Nude heels. Heels? No flats? There are no flats. Does that go with lavender? I...I honestly don't know."

I didn't. God help me, I could not figure out whether a nude heel would match a lavender dress. In my moment of crisis I realized three things. 1) I didn't have a choice, I was running out of time, 2) the dress came down long enough to cover them for the most part, and 3) the line from Shawshank Redemption, "seriously, how often do you really look at a man's shoes?"

Let's set aside how ridiculously fitting it is that I would use information from a prison movie to make a fashion decision, and just focus on the relief I felt.

"Yes!" I thought. "That's brilliant!...Maybe I SHOULD get the sparkly silver sneakers! Who'd know?" I didn't. I did the responsible thing and bought the ugly heels, which I think is what I was supposed to do as a maid of honor anyway, since it is my job to make the bride look good. And I got my hair and makeup done. Then we went to my aunt's house to get dressed for the wedding, and my sister brought out her rain boots.

"What are you doing?" I asked April, who pulled a rubber black and white checkered boot onto her foot.

"It's muddy out there, dude. We gotta walk across the grass, I ain't wearing heels."

April let down her dress, which covered the boots completely. Stephanie laughed and took pictures. She thought it was great.

Mother. Fucker.

PS- The wedding was beautiful. And because it was at my aunt's house the three of us hit the trampoline in the backyard during the reception. It's not really a family wedding unless you're on a trampoline in your bridesmaid's dress, trying not to step on the bride's gown while your other your sister does a front flip.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Rain and Leftover Fireworks

The rain's been around for days, not storming but steadily falling and the sky is gray and bleary like its eyes are half open.

When the weather is like that it makes me think that the sky is in a mood. Like it's a person that feels weird. Not sad, well maybe a little sad, but that's what's so weird about it. It isn't depressed and it doesn't have anything to be bummed about, but still it feels kind of eh and it can't shake it.

It fell on my windshield last night like little taps on the shoulder. It was the end of New Year's Day and I was driving from a friend's house with a neat sprinkling of raindrops on the car that fit like a guitar pick tucked between strings or a lighter in a box of cigarettes. They clung to the glass just long enough to let me know they'd been there before they were wiped away. With them gone I could see my neighbors dragging the Christmas leftovers to the trash, and other drivers whose hangovers were almost gone. The rain drops gathered again and splintered in green when a firework exploded. It was even brighter than it would have been at the Ball Drop because it had been waiting since midnight to be shot off, and finally here was its chance.

Maybe the sky's not feeling weepy and weird, maybe it's just wringing out what's leftover like the rest of us. It's a new year but also the end of another day with rain and leftover fireworks. I turned off the radio and listened to the tires splash, with intermittent clear visions of the wet, black road ahead of me through my half open eyes.