Broke Ass Good Looking Fun

Originally Posted Sunday, October 12, 2014

I've spent the past forty-five minutes trying to find the right connector for my new Sony camera so that I could download yesterday's pictures.  Nothing but frustration.  I can't find the charger, the cable. . . not a damn thing.  I am a bit of a mess, I know.  No, I'm a mess. 

All I have to illustrate today's post, then, are iPhone pictures.  It's O.K.  Who doesn't love iPhone pics?  This one was sent by my friend just now when I explained my predicament.  She is on a walk from her new house in the woods.  She sent me the pumpkin pictures as well. 

So yesterday I went with my friend to Ikea.  She needed some things for her new place.  Lamps.  You probably know it already, but if you don't. . . Ikea things are cheap and not meant to last more than a month.  But the lamps are O.K. if they don't burn down your house.  She had never been to an Ikea before, so we joined the Great Unwashed and walked around like it was Disney looking at the amazingly attractive 250 square foot rooms.  It was like being in a Manhattan apartment (if you know the sort of people I know) if no one lived there (no shoes on the floor, no papers strewn about).  It looks good enough that you might want to unburden yourself and live there.  So we walked through the rooms and past the restaurant with the Swedish meatball dinner for five bucks (I've eaten them before, and they are good, but when a news story came out about what was in those meatballs, my friends were all laughing and asking "who would eat an an Ikea?--oops) and downstairs into the housewares where we found the Orgel Vreten lamps (I bought a small one for the bedroom) and then got cheap ass wine and water glasses besides (they chipped before we got them to the checkout register). 

And when we were finished. . . we went across the street to the mall. 

Going to this upscale mall is always like going on a mini-vacation for me.  It is not like my usual life.  There are bright and shiny things to see and if you stay on the quarter where the high end stores are, you see pretty, shiny people, too (I was laughing at the people in Ikea until I ran into a mirror).  In the mall, I went wild.  My friend said I was fun to shop with, that I was like a girl trying on clothes and prancing about.  I found some pants I liked that made me look better than the pants I have now, and I was so happy that I bought three pairs. 

"Wow, I mean why not.  They're cheap." 

When the boy at Bloomies checked me out, I asked, "What's $88?" 

"The pants." 

"Oh," I said.  "My eyes aren't any good."

My friend leaned in and asked, "How much did you think they were?"

"I'll tell you later," I said. 

When we walked away, she asked, "How much?"

"$38," I said. 

Oh, she thought this was hilarious.  She got a big kick out of me.  I was fun.  So, in the spirit of the day, I took her to lunch.  We sat at the bar, of course, and ate a delicious caprese salad and soaked up a buttery lobster bisque with big chunks of heavy bread.  We washed it all down with big, cold glasses of dry white wine. 

"You're fun," she said again.  "It is like watching a show."  And it was true.  I hadn't shut up for a minute.  I was like a travel guide taking a tourist to wild, unnamable places.  We went to Anthropologie and sat on a couch where I brought books to thumb through (now that there are no bookstores, this is one of the few places you can find beautiful picture books and specialty things). 

"The music is great," I said.  "I used to buy CDs here when they sold them.  Do you think there is an Antrhopologie playlist online?" 

She took out her phone and adeptly used The Google.  Yup.  There was.  As a reward, I bought her a big, wonderful candle for the new house.  "My old girlfriend's little boy always said this candle smells like love," I reported. 

"Good," she said. 

We went into another store and another and ended up in a clothing store that sells things I have been liking lately even though I have to wear extra large in everything because the clothes are made for younger, thinner fellows than I.  I loathed to do it, but my friend talked me into trying on some jeans.  I looked at the labels on the shelves.  There were many different styles. There were lots of straight legged and skinny jeans which I knew would not work for me. 

"Do you have any jeans for fat boys," I asked the woman trying to help me.  She took me to a giant wall full of rows of jeans.  There she pointed to the row that said "Relaxed" at the top.  Next to that was a row called Boyfriend.  Really, I thought?  The woman asked me what size.  I looked over my shoulder to see if my friend was anywhere near.  She was standing behind me. 

"Um. . . I don't want to say this out loud," I told the clerk.  She handed me the right waist and length anyway. 

"Hey!" I said.  "How'd you know."  My friend was giggling.  "I've got a good marketing idea," I told the clerk.  "If you are going to stack these next to the Boyfriend size, you should call these the Divorcee!"  Everyone in the store seemed to like the idea. 

My friend handed me a denim shirt.  "Try this on," she implored. 

I put on the jeans and the denim shirt and everything fit just right.  I was almost in tears.  These really were fat boy skinny jeans.  I mean they had cut them so even I didn't have to wear baggy jeans any more.  But I couldn't go out of the dressing room in a denim shirt and denim pants.  They didn't look bad together, really, if I was like Ryan Adams on stage explaining how I came to write the next song, but I wasn't stepping out of the booth that way, so I put my head outside the curtain and began yelling for my friend.  As is inevitable, though, she was at the other end of the store.  Why?!  Why would someone do that when she knew I would want her to look?  The clerk went to get her. 

"Hey, those look really nice.  Are you getting them?" 

"Sure," I said. 

"Oh, good.  Those look so much better than what you've been wearing."

I knew it was true, of course, but I could feel my neck flushing. 

"How'd they work," the clerk asked me. 

"Great," I said handing them to her, "I'll take both."

"Double denim," she said with a giggle. 

"Yup," I said, "I looked like a buckaroo in that getup.  I'll be telling tales about breaking broncos to all the kids at the bar.  They'll be calling me Buffalo Bob." 

Her eyes laughed as she rang them up.  Shit!  I hadn't looked at the price.  Fuck me, I'd spent like five hundred dollars shopping that day. 

"Oh, you'll look so good in those," my friend said.

"I spent a lot of money today," I said. 

She began to laugh.  "Do you want me to start telling you the price?  That was funny at Bloomingdales--ho-ho.  You're fun." 

Oh, yes, I was fun.  I was one broke ass well dressed fun guy now. 

The afternoon was waning and my friend needed to get home to let her dog out.  We had kicked off the holiday season, I thought.  If I can afford it. . . it should be fun.