Having already slept half the day away, it seemed prudent to make the day's goal one of complete and utter indulgence. So after spending a solid hour on the internet catching up on web comics and emails I'd been too exhausted to deal with during the final weeks of school, I decided to grab some lighthearted reading material and head out to the backyard to catch a little sun. I threw on my skanksuit, grabbed a tall glass of water, my sunglasses, my sunscreen (because the goal was to tan, not to burn) and The Devil Wears Prada and set up shop in the one sunny section of my semi-private grassy knoll.
Of course, every plan has it's snags, and mine came in the form of yellow and black striped evil. I have an incredibly strong fear of bees and every time I attempted to lay still, I'd find myself pulled into a comic dance of shimmying away from whatever bee had dared enter my personal bubble. After about 20 minutes of this, and maybe one shade of tanning completed, I decided to quit while I was unstung and mentally planned a trip to one of the many metro-accessible beaches at some point in the near future. Because after all, I had plenty of free days a head of me.
Thinking about the many days ahead of me reminded me that while the summer was young, I was rapidly running out of time for the two weddings I would be attending on July 17th and July 24th which, of course, meant I needed a dress, shoes and any other additional things that girls add to outfits when they go to events such as these. In fact, it suddenly occurs to me now while writing this that I don't have a purse that even comes close to being appropriate for a formal event.
Anyway, a quick shower and a change into an easy to remove dress (for trying on clothes, and not for anything else, pervert) and I was ready to head off to the downtown area to hit all the typical department stores. Luckily, dress shopping is one of my favorite things do (if you're keeping score, shoe shopping is my least favorite), so aside from being entirely necessary, I could also consider this shopping trip a worthwhile pursuit of my summer hours. The actual shopping part of the trip was not that eventful, aside from the fact that every dress I tried on was either a 6 or an 8 (I was secretly a 14 when I started my first day of teaching two years ago) and I was happy to see that the choice of dress would actually come down to what looked best rather than a desperate search for something that would at least fit. In the spirit of attempting confidence and trying to act outside the box, I bought a dress that was very unlike me.
Here's one version of it on a model:
and a crappy cell phone photo of my actual dress, because apparently the color I bought it in doesn't exist on the Internet:
One thing I've noticed about this summer thus far is numerous strange encounters with strangers who want to talk to me. I can't tell if I was sending off angry girl stress vibes while I was teaching or if everyone is just friendlier during the summer in general, but when I attempted to try on shoes, I found a woman about the age of my mother casting me some sidelong glances. I flashed a smile because I am going to be an inviting and courageous person this summer and the nice lady showered me with praise for having selected such a pretty dress. Then, because the resemblance with my mother didn't end with her age, she gave me so unsolicited (though welcome) advice that although the shoes I was trying on matched wonderfully, perhaps 4 inch stillettos were not the way to go for a dress I was planning to dance in. We had a nice chat for about 5 or 6 minutes and she asked my for my youthful opinion on her shoe selection (although I fear that this was just to be polite). Apparently my newfound girly chatty persona continued and when I arrived at the checkout for my dress, I received accolades on my choice of dress from the salesgirl ringing me up. She said it looked like "runway" which I assume just means that it looks like it belongs on a runway, unless there's something I've missed.
Shopping trip complete, I continued my efficient getting things done attitude and headed over to Pearle Vision to pick up the contacts I'd ordered the day before. To treat myself for a job well done, I picked up my favorite food for dinner: sushi. Sushi is the main reason for why I'm rocking the pescetarian lifestyle instead of attempting to go completely veggie. Until they make raw tuna and salmon a fruit and vegetable respectably, a pescetarian is what I'll remain. I was also pretty happy to eat because I'd forgotten to do so earlier. Sadly, I have a pretty bad habit of eating when I'm bored and, conversely, not eating when I'm actually engaged in interesting activities. Like many things I'm planning on improving this summer, I'm going to work on my eating habits.
The rest of the night was as relaxing as most of the day. I played around on the computer and finally secured a Wacom Graphics Tablet from a nice lady on craigslist that I would pick up the next day (the tablet, not the lady. That's a different section on craigslist). When Ro came home later that night we had quick brainstorm for dinner and settled on a delicious Tex-Mex place up the street. The grilled vegetable quesadillas are a vegetarian's best friend and the margaritas that are served in a pint glass are so secretly alcoholic that they should be served with a warning label.
Eventually, it was time to head back to the apartment where me and Ro, secret fans of reality television, enjoyed Bravo's newest show about artists called Work of Art. It was the perfect blend of bitchy contestants and art world honesty and has thus earned it's right to take up about 1.2% of my waking summer hours (assuming that there's 12 hour long episodes and 1000 waking hours this summer). This show has actually managed to inspire me in a way that not many television shows manage to, but I'll go into that more in my next post. In the end, not a bad 36 hours thus far.
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