The Errands I Ran on Saturday

Display and Costume This is one of the few nice things about living in this neighborhood. Display and Costume is great for several reasons, not the least of which is that the folks who work there are pretty much completely crazy. They make something like fifty percent of their profit on Halloween. They have crazy costumes and fabric and crafty stuff and lots of Christmas ornaments and tiki torches and bellydance gear and stage makeup and lots of other good things. I love hearing the crazy people who work there call each other on the intercom set, especially the day before Halloween: “Cleanup in Fake Eyelashes, please.” “Price check on Wizard of Oz ensemble, please!” “We need all available help to Boas and Marabou! Repeat, all available help to Boas and Marabou!” Carl and I made it our first stop on our Day of Errands…which I am going to explicate for you in full detail, sweet readers, never fear…because we are going to a masqued party on Saturday. It’s not the sexy kind. I don’t think. Which is sort of a shame because I will be wearing rather a low-cut sweater, which is about as sexy as I get, sadly enough. Actually, the real shame is that it’s not a formal party because I have this really beautiful silver ball skirt that I have been wanting to wear since the Milennium and I have never had a chance yet. It’s so sad. Anyway, we spent a good hour in Masks, and I even had to get one of the (crazy) employees to help me get down a couple of the really cool and beautiful and expensice ones. I ended up not going for the Colin Powell mask or the paper-mache star mask or the C3PO mask, but I did get a lovely feathered blue owl mask. For only $4.50. I think it will look nice with my sort of sexy sweater. Carl got a Sun God mask which fits nicely on over his glasses. I can’t wait!

The U BookstoreWe go here all the time. This time, the chair I usually sit in over in Poetry and literary Criticism was taken, so I was forced to find a new chair in Art and Design. It turns out I love oversized coffee table books written by Karl Lagerfeld featuring underfed and sullen models from the seventies. I also love oversized coffee table books about log cabins, and oversized coffee table books about ocean views. Put something in an oversized coffee table book, it turns out, and I will read it. I bought some books for Christmas presents for other people. I bought some books mentally for myself, and put them in my mental library, after I read an oversized coffee table book about wallpaper, in my mental dream house. Carl got some office supplies and a decaf mocha.

The Glasses Place I’m pretty much done with my glasses. I hate them. They’re tortoise-shell wire rims and they just scream I’m An Earnest Grad Student! I want something cool and mysterious, like, my goodness, what could those lenses be hiding? Does she have astigmatism or is it all a disguise? So we went to the glasses place across the street from the bookstore on the Ave and spent an hour going “Honey? How about these? Too blocky?” My vision isn’t great, but it’s good enough for me to be able to take off my glasses, put on a pair of new frames, and look at myself in the mirror and get an idea of what I look like with them on. Not so Carl. He would put on the frames, and then have to lean in really closely to the mirror so he could see what they look like, at which point he woud realize he was too close to really be able to focus on what his face looked like with them on, and then have to take them off again. It was very funny. We were both captivated, for some reason, by some very expensive glasses. I don’t think I’ll be getting them, but it would be really cool if I could. I probably will get the cheaper black plastic nerdy-chic-in-1998 pair. Maybe before I go to New York. That’s what they all wear there, right? I want to fit in. I hope Carl gets the expensive ones though, because he looks really hot in them. I looked pretty hot in the ones I tried on too, if I say so myself, but unless I get a spontaneous contract to model themm (“Silhouette: They Make Anyone Look Good”) I can’t afford them.

Little Thai Place Right Off The Ave That’s the name of the restaurant, Little Thai Place. I had pad see ewe and Carl has pad thai and we died and went to heaven because it was good and hot and outside it was dark and cold and we were hungry after only two stops on our list. If you always get pad see ewe (with chicken, one star, extra broccoli) when you have Thai food, you will never be disappointed, I promise you.

Staples I just sat in the car for this one, reading one of the books I bought for someone else. Carl got a recycle bin for his office. He was very quick.

Banana Republic Not for me. No, no. For Carl. I don’t think they make anything in my size there. Plus I’m trying to wear more color and not so much with the neutrals. We went to get Carl some new pants and a shirt to wear to the abovementioned masque party. Buying clothes for/with Carl is always a barrel of monkeys, let me tell you. It’s a pretty novel experience to have almost everything he tries on actually fit him. It’s also novel to see him dressed up in even the slightest, faintest way. It turns out he looks really hot when he does that. The best part of the whole experience was that a) we had like four salespeople helping him buy a shirt and pants, and b) they all deferred to me. I’ve had this happen before. “Do you like a flat front or pleats?” one tiny, exquisite woman asked me, flipping her gorgeous hair and eyeing me seriously. “Oh, flat front, definitely,” I said. ‘I think so too, ” she confided in me. We would have these conversations (“you want it hemmed a little, right?”) and we’d sort of nod in Carl’s direction, just to let him know that we weren’t leaving him out or anything, and he’d nod back and go on struggling into the thity-third pair of pants I’d brought him (“Look, sweetie, it’s kind of heather gray. You like heather gray!”), and I’d confer some more with another salesperson (“Yes. Heather for winter. Nice for texture, I always think”). Carl started getting more into it and spontaneously began to model various black wool overcoats, which made me feel funny inside because, again, he cleans up great and looked totally like himself but also totally different. I had to go out to get us coffee after about hour two…the salespeople, by the way, were so understanding when I said I needed a break: “Go ahead! You deserve it! You’ve been so patient!” Meanwhile Carl was back in the dressing room drowning in pima cotton, feebly crying out for another mocha. After fortifying ourselves and getting over the sticker shock (and my jealousy that they were going to hem his pants for free) we emerged quite triumphant; him in the knowledge that he had a nice pair of pants and a nice new shirt, and me in the knowledge that I will have a very hot date on Saturday.

Some Chinese place on Aurora We tried to go to a movie, but it was sold out. We tried to go to another theater but all they were playing was 8 Mile and Harry Potter on about seventeen screens. We got some sweet and sour and a DVD which turned out to be broken and called it a night.


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