two moments in urban archaeology.

I went downtown today. I hate downtown in the Christmas shopping season, because there are all sorts of crazy people (and only a small fraction of them are societally-deemed-crazies; the rest are just upper middle class housemommies with expensive strollers and too much time on their hands). But I have to buy shoes, and I heard that this one particular department store won't charge me for two pairs because I have to buy two sizes now because of the orthodic thingy, so I go downtown.

First stop: the Japanese dollar store. Daiso is a trip (possibly including acid) because I can't read about 75% of the signs, and 15% of the remaining signs are in Japanese Mutant Random English Words (Engrish) where they just kind of spray random nouns at a wall and see what sticks. Kind of like magnetic poetry. So it's great to buy things like stationery, not so good to buy things like laundry detergent. But I got a fantastic new-baby card for dawnstar and kolys.

Going in there just reinforces my opinion that the Japanese people will eventually take over the world by lulling us into submission with kickass computer electronics and adorable tchotchkes. I mean, dude. How can you not buy 'cute wave' kitchen sponges with polka dots on? Seriously.

And then I went to Nordstrom's and bought shoes. Contrary to an opinion expressed by Man In Expensive Sweater as I was trying to find the shoe department, all women do NOT have three hundred pairs of shoes. I have ... about five, I think; they are all bitterly utilitarian in a cute sort of way, either Mary Janes, sandals or (in one case) boots. I hate buying shoes. A wonderful friend of mine who knows my pain because she has similarly wacky feet described the act of buying shoes as displaying your mutant-ness. And I don't even get cool powers like the ability to throw fireballs (I would have liked that going through the goddamn perfume department, even though it would have had the side effect of lighting the whole store up like a roman candle) or blades sheathed in my hands. So my usual tactic is to have half a clue what I want, find the first thing that I can stomach that looks like what I want, buy it and damn well go home before exposure to the perfume department sets in and my remaining brain cells die of overpriced perfume poisoning.

Which is what I did. And now I'm going to play with my adorable stationery. I think that's more my speed.

(Apropos of nothing: DUDE. Most Expensive Designer Handbags are UGLY. I was briefly shocked by the Coach bag section: not in an 'I want this!' kind of way, but more in a 'you're kidding, right? you must be kidding!' kind of way. You have to wonder if they're not propogated as a joke, you know? "Oooh, let's see how fugly we can make this thing and still make it desirable and expensive enough that people will buy it! ha ha!)

snips and sugar and stereotyped gender roles, that's what children are made of

He's such a boy.

(food for thought.)

(for the record: my father baked better cookies than my mother, and my mother shingled our roof singlehandedly, and that's a big indicator as to how I feel about gender stereotyping.)

(still need a good queer icon)

I prefer 'twits'. And here's some.

• 09:34 gah. I do not want to go shoe shopping today. and yet, here I am. :P going shoe shopping today. suck. #
• 13:41 have cute shoes. have cuter accessories from japanese dollar store. omgwtf*headdesk*, downtown sucks around christmas. #
• 17:08 must attempt not to be sarcastic in the 'our family' questionnaire. no matter how many of the questions don't apply to us. #
• 17:09 /is unfairly amused at the thought of sending Dragostea din tea (aka: the numa numa song) to them. but it IS one of Sean's favorites ... #
• 17:11 and they want to send a bag of things that make us 'unique'. most things that fall into that category don't fit in a bag. #
• 19:04 dishes. wash frustration down the drain. #
• 19:04 also: kid just did backwards roll (somersault) on the sofa. wish I could find a gymnastics class that wouldn't freak out about him. #
• 19:49 soon time for the kid to go to bed. *phew* then time for writing and sandwiches. #
• 20:53 listening to glenn gould's bach fugues; eating brownie bites (bbcookies.com - the mint ones) and /breathing./ #
• 21:18 I can hear GG humming on this recording now. which makes me inordinately happy. (not so much on the organ fugues, but the piano definitely.) #
• 21:37 I can has kitty nao. he will lie beside me and protect me from demons. *skritches Neko* #

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