World Enough and Time

Ah, my: eBay and MySpace and The Gap and... a continual narrowing of what is available, what is "hip," and what will allow a person to continue to dwell in the safe middle ground of "normal person." Listen to the little bitty drips of ironicalness, oh my. I have recently run into the concept of "conformist non-conformists," which is to say, those people who loudly and aggressively reject what once would have been called "square" and instead loudly and aggressively embrace an alternative set of experiences and material goods, to the point of assuming the very same attitudes they say the "squares" espouse, attitudes that exclude as invalid any life choices but the ones they themselves have adopted. Just a thought. (There was a tv commercial a few years ago, several young people sitting outside complaining about how they keep getting forced to follow the crowd, how they are not allowed to be themselves. They are all wearing the latest clothes from The Gap. They end their conversation, on which we are eavesdropping for commercial purposes, by saying with great disdain, "Quit telling me how to dress! Show me the khakis!!" ...thus co-opting themselves with not only trendy, commercialized "pre-programmed coolness," but also tying themselves to current movie buzz-lines as well. Good going! Yes, by all means, be an individual!)

Actually, I'm now having a chuckle imagining you wearing a sleeveless dress and trendy flip-flops while you use your cellphone to check your bids on eBay hockey card auctions.

The red Converse shoes, on the other hand, are totally logical.