Scrolling

… down … seems …

to be …

something … missing … 

after (before) may 7.

just me?

****************

we think that tomorrow (today) is the final one for the early-leave-takers.  nothing is certain, though, esp. in a government job, except the pettiness of people who will talk about others they then talk to to their faces as if they hadn't just said what they said for weeks and weeks and weeks or five minutes before.  we are complex enough to manage dozens of overlapping relationships simultaneously.

it's a delicate dance, a strange capitulation of levels and positioning.  she (M____) can be honest to criticize T____'s 3-inch heels or shown-through bra-strap and then be criticized for her own tops that men (B___ said, to me, when M____ was away) were coming to the atrium level on purpose just to look down and see and wear that same day and the next a bra with colorful straps, which i can for myself see … yes, the previous comment-day, i asked about hers out front, but in an off-handed comparative way.

and i can be honest about my "man shoes" as B___ points out her own slippers (after admonishing me about chips before i had seen the weeks of what i know she eats now …), and not give a damn what anyone is wearing. 

people say what they say when allies are near to say hear-hear — knowing and/or not caring that the allies have the power to relay that information to the talked-about …

i so so so wish i could hear what they say about me.  it's not vanity.  it's just material.

is it more honest to gossip and put your impressions about people out there (like mine about how M___ was wearing white pants i thought were ___) rather than not say them (like i never said anything about the pants or anything else around there)?

clothing is so WHATEVER, and even though i get a small kick out of the anti-hipster-look site, i have to say, "hey, we all wore really dumb clothes at one point, and really, what ARE dumb clothes?"

i'm all for wearing what you have, what you like, what you feel like that day.  i have always had HUGE anxieties about getting dressed (to leave the house or even to clean, because one never knows when someone else will show up … and naked cleaning is not "cool" — see, i'm not all that free) and spent, sometimes, hours doing it (putting on and taking off dozens of combinations), and i can only find peace in dropping back on a faux-buddhist feeling that THIS IS REALLY SHALLOW AND MEANINGLESS, thinking of what prisoners wear, what homeless people wear, what poorer people wear, what we see African and Vietnamese children wearing …

[not to downplay designers' art.  that's a whole other layer of discussion.]