out to lunch

i've noticed what seems to be a bit of a trend around our nation's capital. as soon as the first of may shows up, us winter-weary and sun starved office dwellers pretty much mentally check out of anything work-related and do not return from this sabbitical until the end of august. if it's not about taking 2 hour lunch breaks to sit in the sun, befriending complete strangers because we hear their apartment building has a rooftop pool, standing in line for upwards of 20 minutes for a single scoop of ice cream or drinking a pitcher of sangria to counter the summer heat, we really just do not care. work? what is that? the sun is here. the days are long. it's 90 flippin degrees outside. i do not need your spreadsheets or your power point presentations. i need new sundresses and a picnic basket. it has come to my attention that no one in washington really gets any work done between may 1 and august 31. but the best part of that is, that no one in washington really CARES if no one gets any work done between may 1 and august 31. we collectively take this "vacation" because that way, if we aren't working, and no one else around us is working, then we all pretty much look like we are working since we're doing the same thing everyone else is. genius.

i almost feel like this is an unconcious effort on our parts to reclaim summer, since it was snatched away from us the second we left the safety of college and were thrust out into the "real world," where jobs do not come with a 3 month break during the hottest months of the year. and, since we no longer have the seductive promise of 3 whole months of doing whatever the hell we want, whenever the hell we want to, we deal with it the best way we know how: by slacking off at work. honestly, who can focus through a 2 hour meeting about budgets when all i can think about is how nice it would be to sit by the fountain down at the navy memorial, drinking an iced coffee and people watching. seriously. IT'S ALL I THINK ABOUT. but i know i am not alone, since the rest of DC is on mental holiday right along with me.

so, while i daydream about laying on a blanket in the shady grass on the national mall with a good book and my puppy dog for company, i still manage to make it to work every day, and someone who looks just like me gets all my work done. maybe when i "come back" at the end of august, my boss will ask me for an essay entitled "what i did this summer," and i can write page after page about the road trips to the beach, the afternoons laying out by rooftop pools, the piles of books i went through while sipping frozen margaritas, the museums i visited, the concerts and movies i went to....in my head. while i was at work. cause i'm a grown up.

there should be an "out of office" email setting for this...

thank you for your email. i am mentally checked out and cannot respond because i am busy daydreaming about the sound of ocean waves and the feel of sand between my toes. i will return your email in a week or two when i emerge from this fantasy, unless i succumb to another one before then, in which case it will be the end of august before you hear back from me.

cheers,

me

59FIFTY

ok, i'm sure my parents could regale you with story after story about all the ridiculous fashion trends that i fell victim to in my youth...the multi-colored scrunchie socks that HAD to be worn to school (and that had to match the multi-colored scrunchies in my hair), the neon pink and green LA Gear high tops i insisted on wearing with every outfit, the doc martens that made my feet look about 4 sizes larger than they actually were. no doubt my parents would just roll their eyes and laugh at the stupidity as i begged and pleaded for them to please please please MAKE ME COOL.

now that i am older and wiser (and less susceptible to ridiculous fads) i look around me at what "kids these days" are wearing and think, oh my GOD, am i glad i am not 16 right now. one thing in particular that i do not understand is this concept of wearing one's fitted baseball cap as if it were still sitting there on the shelf, all shiny and pristine and the bill of the hat as flat and rigid as the day it came off the assembly line. now, where i come from, boys LIVE in their baseball hats. they sleep in them, shower in them, and give them a proper funeral when they finally do become too ratty to actually stay on their heads a moment longer. now i see kids on the metro with the freakin TAGS still hanging off their hats, and the stickers still on the brim, and i want to say, excuse me, you forgot to take the tag off your hat. my cousin's nephew (my 2nd cousin? 3rd? i don't know what the lineage term for your cousin's nephew is) is at the very impressionable age of 17 and recently came to dc for a visit over his spring break. since he is one of the followers of this "fitted hat" phenomenon, i had to ask him what gives with not buying a hat for the sole purpose of beating the crap out of it like any good southern boy would. the mere suggestion of mussing up his beautiful hat made him look at me like he was considering which nursing home they should put me in. i mean, don't you know this is the STYLE? this is what everyone is WEARING right now, and IT LOOKS COOL. i guess now it's my turn to roll my eyes and throw my hands up and mutter about how kids nowadays don't have any common sense.

this fool 2nd or umpteen cousin of mine also was wearing a hat for a baseball team that he could care less about. he picked it for the COLORS. i saw the P on his hat and asked him how a country boy from louisiana got to be a fan of the pittsburg pirates. he again looked at me like i had suddenly grown a second head and informed me that hat selection was based entirely on color and he could not care less about what team he went around advertising on his head. again, where i come from, you wear one of 3 kinds of baseball hats: LSU, the saints, or a camo hunting hat. this whole brand new, i don't care which team i support, tags hanging off and stickers gleaming hat thing is totally beyond my realm of comprehension. but i guess my parents thought the same thing about those hyper-color tshirts that were all the rage at one point.

don't even get me started on the pants worn below your bee-hind thing, though. i could write an entire BOOK on how dumb i think THAT is! why bother with a belt? the entire purpose of existance for a belt is to serve to hold your pants up. if they are already hanging on the floor, isn't it then useless to put the belt on? someone explain this one to me, please...damn kids and their fads. when will they ever learn??