pleasure shopping (and probably something else)

I bought a pair of Levi's 527 jeans from Urban Outfitters a few years ago. The jeans fit well, and they haven't ripped, and they were relatively inexpensive, so on my shopping trip to Oakbrook with Cindy last Sunday I went back to Urban Outfitters to buy a new pair in a different color.

After flipping through the Awkward Family Photos book for a little while (which -- after you realize is real -- really puts a lot of things in perspective) I went upstairs to the men's department and over to the table where they laid out the Levi's jeans. The table was set up the same as it had been three years ago, except for one difference:

My Levi's 527's -- which had been prominently displayed on the table three years ago -- were no longer there. The jeans on display now were of a different fit.

I read the description and wasn't sure if I'd like the new style, but I decided to give them a shot.

Here's a picture of me wearing the Levi's 527's I bought a few years ago (which I happened to be wearing that day)

And here's a picture of me wearing the new style.

Maybe a side view will give you a little better idea of the difference between the two

Jeans I bought three years ago:

Jeans that would make my legs and ass look pretty good if I was a woman:

Here's another picture, just in case

Jeans I bought three years ago:

Jeans that require me to make a decision about which pant leg to put my penis into:

After I walked out of the fitting room, one of the guys working there asked me, "How did those work out for you?"

"I don't know man. I think they might be a little tight."

"Yeah," he replied, "that's how they run."

"Do you guys still carry the 527's?"

"Ooh, no, we don't have those anymore at this store, but Levi's still makes them. Try another store, like maybe Kohl's, I think they'll have them there."

"Really? Kohls??"

So I bought the jeans.

...

Has anyone else seen these new Apple Store's that sell Microsoft products?

Either that, or it's the most blatant display of copying a competitor's image I've ever seen.

It's absolutely shameless! They copied everything: the white theme, the organization of products inside, and even the salesmen's uniforms. I almost felt sorry for Microsoft while I was walking around in there. 

...

Another day, another Chicago police officer patrolling the city streets on horseback.

...

Ok, I didn't buy those tight jeans, but I'm starting to think I can pull them off.

lack of control

(taken down to proofread)

Ok, here's long one

Preface --

I wrote the following story about four months ago, and then kind of forgot about it.

It's long, and the thought of proofreading it was daunting, so I just let it sit in my computer.

But this morning, Cindy's best friend Nania started a blog. Nania is a very smart and thoughtful writer who I admire for giving up a promising career as a speech pathologist in order to pursue her dream of being a fiction writer. (She recently an MFA program at University of Michigan.) Some of you may remember Nania from my wedding -- she was Cindy's maid of honor, and she gave a speech that made me laugh, and then made me cry, and then made me think, "Holy shit! How the hell is Darayus supposed to follow that??"

(And to his credit, he went up there and followed it.)

So anyway, Nania dedicated her first blog post to me! She even said that the writing on this blog inspired her to start blogging. (Needless to say, I was honored.)

(Ok, she didn't cite the "In Defense of Tony Heyward" post I just linked to. But I reread that post today -- and there's some good stuff in there.)

(I'll link to her blog later. For now she only wants the people she told to read it -- until she becomes more comfortable with blogging. And more importantly, her blog probably doesn't have the bandwidth to handle the millions of hits she'll get if I link to her blog.)

Nania's first post was about her first day in an Asian-American Literary and Cultural Studies class (which -- unbeknownst to her -- was a PhD level course, full of PhD level minds.) At one point she wrote about her reasons for taking the class, one of which was this,

I'm also interested in "trans-culturalism"... where people feel they are essentially caught in the middle of two different cultures -- and have experienced how alienating and difficult it is to live in the "in-between."

That is not necessarily what the following story is about, but reading that sentence certainly reminded me of it.

--------

I'll repost this

a week and a half of wedding planning

Our wedding invitations give guests the following options:

_____ Will accept with pleasure

_____ Must decline with regrets

In retrospect, I think we should have given guests these options instead:

_____ Will accept with pleasure

_____ Will obligatorily accept

_____ Must decline with regrets

_____ Must decline because there are a lot of things I'd rather do on a Saturday evening than watch an asshole like you get married to a nice girl like Cindy

...

Opening presents at Bridal Showers is a tradition that needs to be broken. Once upon a time, in a land before gift registries, brides-to-be would open gifts and be genuinely surprised by what they got. 

But now there's just a lot of, "Oh, here's one of the four dinner plate sets I registered for."

or

"Oh, here's the coffee maker I registered for."

How about everyone just write a check, and then the bride will read off the dollar amounts and everyone can see who gave the most? (And more importantly, who gave the least.)

I'd be happy to brainstorm some new Bridal Shower traditions on behalf of women across the country. (some serious ones -- the check writing idea was kind of a joke.)

...

- Notes too random to even get their own section in this post: 

1) I think I'd make a very effective wedding planner

2) people should always have an active gift registry (Cindy's idea)

...

The whole gift registry system is kind of backwards for Cindy and I. We won't be able to use most of our gifts because we don't have space in our apartment. But we can't afford to move into a bigger apartment.

So maybe some weddings should be classified as weddings where the bride and groom want appliances and furnishings for their new home. And other weddings -- like ours -- should be classified as weddings where the bride and groom will accept money to pay off student loans and/or take long -- perhaps indefinite -- vacations.

(Although, in defense of wedding registries, Connors vomited on one of my pillows a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't mind throwing it away knowing we probably had a new one coming.)

...

Whenever someone tells me about their upcoming wedding, and that person is just an acquaintance (not a friend), I get a kick out of pretending like I expect to be invited.

"Oh man, I can't wait. Your wedding is gonna be so much fun!"

or 

"So who's gonna be at my table?"

(I'll tell them I'm kidding almost immediately, but it's always good for a quick laugh. And it doesn't seem to get old.)

(I don't think the word "acquaintance" would be much worse off without the first "c")

...

Anatomy of a Wedding Argument -- 

Cindy and I have had more little arguments about minor wedding details then we have about everything else in our previous six years of dating combined.

And every argument pretty much follows the same formula: Cindy wants me to do something wedding related, and I think it is unnecessary. (I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying that I think what I'm being asked to do is unnecessary for me to do at the moment I'm being asked to do it -- if at all.)

For example:

As I am typing these words, Cindy wants me to follow up with my friend JP's parents to find out whether they are coming to the wedding. I don't want to do this.

We set the RSVP deadline for later in the week, so my first response to her was, "Why don't we just wait until after our deadline?"

But she wants to set up the seating chart now, and understandably so because my parents are throwing us a separate wedding reception near their house two weeks later so the only people from my family who will be at my wedding are my brother, sister and one cousin; and that makes it difficult for Cindy to find people to seat at my parents' table. (Especially since my brother and sister will be at my table.) Cindy's position is even more understandable because whenever she asks me for seating chart suggestions, I come up with the most unusual groupings I can think of. I've even joked about the idea of splitting up couples. ("Sorry guys, this was the only way we could make it work.")

Nonetheless, I don't want to follow up with JP's parents because it's not like I have their phone number sitting in front of me. I will have to call JP to get their phone number, and then call his parents and ask whether they're coming to the wedding. And then I'll feel like an asshole because 1) I've just bothered two households about my wedding, and 2) I'm not even honoring my own reply deadline.

And 3) I rarely sit down and write anymore, so I wouldn't mind finishing something

I told Cindy I wasn't going to follow up with JP's parents until after the deadline -- and even then I wasn't sure I wanted to follow up with them at all. So Cindy was annoyed with me for a little while.

I got up and changed my clothes and ate some chips and then sat back down and finished typing this, and by now she has forgotten about it. But still, there were a few of minutes where she was annoyed. And I was annoyed because she was annoyed. And I was annoyed because I knew that some little disagreement like this would probably happen again soon.

...

Readings --

A big part of a wedding ceremony is the reading(s). I've found it hard to pay attention to readers who plow through a piece they've been given; so all things being equal, I wanted to find readers who would chose their own readings. (this was one of my only stylistic decisions for the wedding)

Our ceremony will be small, so I wasn't worried about putting any undue pressure on anyone. Plus, I have quite a few friends who enjoy poetry and literature and would appreciate the opportunity to select something themselves, so I didn't expect that to be a problem either. (Note: the words "wedding" and "I didn't expect that to be a problem" should never be in the same paragraph.)

The first person we asked to be a reader was Jake. This was a no-brainer. 

Jake is an extremely busy attorney, but was once a voracious reader and writer of poetry and prose, so he was an obvious choice. I spent some time in Jake's house last month and saw that his shelves were stocked with poetry books, so I figured he'd have no trouble picking out a poem. I told him to take his time, and also gave him the option of reading something he had written.

The second reader came down to Braden and Johnnie O. We didn't think we could go wrong with either: I appreciate both of their tastes, and both would do a great job reading in front of people. Johnnie's advantage was his incredible voice, and Braden's was the slight chance he would be inspired by his own recent nuptials and write something himself.

It was shaping up to be a tough decision, but we ended up asking Johnnie because we happened to be drinking with him and his wife one night when the topic of weddings came up, and one thing led to another...

Johnnie sent me an e-mail a week later suggesting a poem called "I Carry Your Heart With Me" by EE Cummings. I liked it. There was even a part that reminded me of something I had thought about that very morning, so I was especially pleased with the choice.

A week later Jake told me he wanted to avoid cliche wedding poems and suggested reading Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda. I googled the poem. The first hit showed the poem written in red font on a black background. Here it is:

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

in which there is no I or you
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand
so intimate that when you fall asleep it is my eyes that close 

I read the phrases "I love you as certain dark things are to be loved" and "lives darkly in my body" and realized that my life had just become a tiny bit more complicated.

I liked the end of the poem. And after I reread it, I liked the whole thing. To me it seems like Neruda is trying to say that doesn't believe in the theatrical love that people are often conditioned to expect. But he believes in love, and believes it to be a deeper connection that goes to the core of a person and cannot be explained so lightly. (or maybe that's not what he means at all, but that's what I'm getting out of it)

That being said, the first verse still contained the phrase, "I love you as certain dark things are to be loved."

I knew it would be a tough sell to Cindy. And although I was dreading going back to Jake and telling him his selection had been vetoed, I certainly wasn't going to stake any of my relationship capital on it in an argument with Cindy.

That night I showed the poem to Cindy and the first thing she said was, "I love you as certain dark things are to be loved? I don't know..."

I let Spencer read the poem a few days later, and he said, "Dark things? Lives darkly in my body? I don't know about that for a wedding..."

The next day I wrote a poem and e-mailed it to Cindy and told her it was Jake's second choice, this is it:

I hate everything in this world,

Including you.

But I hate you less than I hate most everything else,

So therefore you can say that relatively speaking,

I love you.

But I still hate you.

And I am so consumed with hate and anger and the darkest most deviant lusts that you probably shouldn't be with fucked up guy like me, but you are, and that either makes you incredibly fucking stupid, or something else.

Here's to hoping for something else.

She got a kick out of that, but we still needed a poem. 

I looked over at Cindy right now as I'm typing this and tried explaining what I thought Sonnet 17 meant and concluded the explanation by saying, "I think we should go with it."

Without looking up from her computer screen, she replied, "It's not gonna happen."

I guess she's right. When you hear a poem at a wedding, you're only going to hear it once. You're not going to have it written out in front of you to read again and think about. You're probably not going to google it and reread it. You're just going to remember what you hear.

So sorry Jake. I'm probably going to call you very soon and break this to you. (And by the time I proofread this post, he picked something new, and we went with it. And he didn't appear to be offended that his poem was vetoed.)

...

Remember how I said I was annoyed because I knew there would be another argument?

Remember how I said that the words "wedding" and "I didn't expect that to be a problem" should never be in the same paragraph?

After we fired our wedding planner, I took charge of finding a hotel and reserving a block of rooms. I googled hotels near the venue and called about 10 of them to get information about rates, proximity, and shuttle service. 

These were final three hotels in the running:

1) Hampton Inn - 

- Rate - $89/night

- Proximity to venue - 3 miles

- Shuttle Service - one 8 person shuttle to share with another wedding (so essentially we would not have a reliable shuttle)

2) Courtyard Marriott -

- Rate - $79/night

- Proximity to venue - 6 miles

- Shuttle Service - one 25 person shuttle to ourselves for two hours before and two hours after the wedding (as long as we booked 15 rooms) 

3) Holiday Inn - 

- Rate - $79/night

- Proximity to venue - 7 miles

- Shuttle Service - none

(You're probably wondering why the Holiday Inn even made the list: it's because the sales manager called me "brother" on the phone, so I was looking forward to doing business with him.)

I knew the Hampton Inn would be easiest for me because all I'd have to do is reserve the block of rooms and forget about it.

But the Marriott was tempting because I liked the idea of providing guests with a shuttle -- especially since we're having six hours of open bar. The risk with Marriott was that if I didn't get 15 rooms, everyone would have to drive twice as far. But I took the chance and went with the Marriott. (Worst case, I suck it up and pay for shuttle service)

The sales manager at Marriott who I had dealt with up to that point put me in touch with an event manger who would be my contact the rest of the way and keep me updated on how many people had booked rooms. Simple enough, except that after the first "hello" e-mail, the event manager never contacted me.

Whenever I wanted an update, I would e-mail the event manager, not hear back, and then e-mail the sales manager who would contact the event manager and get her to send me an update. The event manager said that perhaps her initial e-mails were being filtered to my junk e-mail folder -- which would be a sound theory but for the fact that I received all of her e-mails whenever I contacted the sales manager first. But I hate confrontation so I didn't want to press the issue. Plus, I was getting my updates, so I was fine with sending an extra e-mail to get them. (A lot of wedding vendors are worse then this when it comes to communication)

(I had a good line to Cindy about this type of thing last week. Basically our jeweler had screwed up Cindy's wedding ring to the point where he had to completely redo it because he didn't follow the simple directions we gave him -- I gave him a picture and said, "make it look like this" -- and so I had just been told that Cindy's ring would "probably" be ready the day before the wedding. Cindy was shocked that jeweler could be so incompetent, so she asked me, "Who is this guy? How can he be so stupid!!" to which I replied, "Listen, if he was smarter, he'd probably be our doctor or accountant as opposed to our jeweler." (no offense to jewelers))

So anyway, our guests were understandably slow to book rooms, and I was getting worried about everyone booking after the deadline and not getting the shuttle. I was even worried that we wouldn't get 15 rooms total because some of our friends were booking at other nearby hotels where they'd earn/redeem rewards points. So as much as I absolutely DETEST bothering people about my wedding, I sent out e-mails and asked people to book their rooms before the deadline. And for the most part, people booked.

We were still short a few rooms on the day of the deadline, so I e-mailed the event manager and asked for an exact update. This time she wrote me back with an update and said that she was no longer going to be my event manager and gave me the contact info for her replacement. I called the replacement, but her phone had not yet been set up. 

I called the original sales manager and learned that the entire Detroit area sales office had been closed down and their work had been sent to the Chicago office, however, my new contact in the Chicago office was gone for the week.

I made a bunch of phone calls from work to try to find anyone from Marriott who could tell me which of my guests had booked rooms so I'd know who to follow up with. The end result: someone from Marriott's national office told me we needed three more rooms, and someone from the hotel itself told me we needed two more rooms. And the staff attorney who supervises my project included my name on an e-mail to my boss passive-aggressively complaining about certain contract attorneys improperly accounting for their break time (which was kind of BS.) (This same staff attorney essentially fired a guy because the staff attorney loved Avatar, and the guy he fired once spent 10 minutes at work talking about how much he hated Avatar and that it was pretty much nothing more than entertainment for the simple minded -- which the staff attorney apparently took as an insult.)

So anyway, I spent part of the afternoon making more phone calls and getting three more friends to book their rooms to make sure we'd have a shuttle. I finally got it done, and was proud of my efforts. 

So what's the disagreement about?

To make a long story short: I might not be able to take the shuttle to the wedding.

(Update: I will be able to take the shuttle to the wedding.)

...

In conclusion, ,, you know what, I'll save the "in conclusion" for another post, you've suffered enough

perception

I treated myself to a long hot shower after work today. My scalp had been kind of dry, so I looked through Cindy’s hair-care products for something new to try as the hot water splashed softly against my back.

(The best thing about having a shower with weak water pressure is that you get used to it, and then you’ll have the time of your life whenever you shower someplace else. I can’t remember the last time I used a different shower without going out of my way to comment on the water pressure.)

The first product that caught my eye was a 30oz bottle of “Bed Head Brunette Goddess Conditioner.” I remember Cindy bringing the bottle home from the salon a few weeks ago with a matching shampoo and telling me that she had treated herself to something expensive.

Even before reading the description on the bottle, I was already leaning towards using the Bed Head conditioner because of its unique pump-action dispenser and because I was curious to see if an expensive product would do anything different to my hair.

(“Hey Mom, has Dad done something with the shower upstairs since I moved out? Because that water pressure felt amazing!!”)

I picked up the bottle of Bed Head and read the first line of the product description. It said, YOU MUST HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR TO USE OUR PRODUCTS

Has that language ever cost them a sale? Has anyone ever picked up a bottle of Bed Head Conditioner in the store and read that line and said to themselves, “Well, so much for Bed Head”?

I almost expected that sentence to be followed by some faux science explaining how people with senses of humor had more of a certain chemical in their brain that affected their hair and was activated by one of the ingredients in the shampoo.

(“Spencer, I know I just spent a lot of time in your shower, but I’ll tell you what, I could have spent a whole hell-of-a lot more. And listen brother, I’ve taken a lot of showers in my life, but I’m gonna remember that one for a long time. You’ve really got yourself a great house.”)

Underneath the sense of humor line was this,

Feed your inner goddess! The liposome delivery system releases nutrients into your hair. Soy and wheat proteins retain moisture and revitalize shine. Panthenol strengthens your hair to help resist breakage and reduce split ends. Brunettes do it better!

The label didn’t say anything about moisturizing my dry scalp, but I didn’t care and quickly squirted it into my hand. The conditioner smelled great and the pump’s squirting action lived up to the hype. I enjoyed the smell a little longer and then rubbed it into my hair and let the liposome delivery system go to work.

It has been a few hours since my shower, and although my scalp is still dry, it’s reassuring to know that I’ve got soy and wheat proteins revitalizing my shine, and panthenol strengthening my hair.

(“Cindy, remind me to always err on the side of staying at a Courtyard Marriot, because this shower is FUCKING INCREDIBLE!”)

You must have a sense of humor to read this.

.

The Bed Head conditioner reminded me of a trip to the eyeglass store with Cindy a few weeks ago. Cindy chose a particular store on Broadway and Briar because it received glowing reviews online and because their optometrist accepted her insurance.

Other than sushi restaurants, bars and convenient stores, few businesses are more abundant in my neighborhood than eyeglass stores. However, since it was my first time inside of one, I did a little browsing while Cindy met with the optometrist.

(Cindy just sat down next to me and read what I have written so far and her first comment was, “Yeah, and the water pressure at that hotel in San Diego last month was really impressive.”)

Several issues of Chicago Modern Luxury Magazine adorned a large white leather ottoman near the front of the hardwood sales floor, and flat screen televisions showing slide shows of models wearing glasses were mounted between the racks on the walls.

Slow loungey house music played in the background as I took a closer look at some glasses. Almost all of the glasses either had thick frames or bright colors (or both) and all were very expensive. Most were between $400 - $600. Even the very small selection of plain looking glasses fell within that price range.

(“Jake, some people may complain about the lighting in your shower – and if they’re the type of person who prefers a well lit shower, they may be justified in doing so. But show me the person who says one bad word about your water pressure, and I’ll show you a liar. I’ll show you nothing less than a person with a vendetta.”)

A display case large enough to fit two people stood at the center of the sales floor, but held only three pairs of glasses and a large picture of a model.

This was the picture:

That model silences anyone who associates wearing glasses with being a nerd.

One look at him and it’s clear that his eyes didn’t go bad from too much reading.

His eyes went bad from getting hit in too many barroom brawls.

His eyes went bad from getting too much cocaine in them.

His eyes went bad from bringing so many different women to such violent orgasms that their limbs flailed uncontrollably and accidentally struck him in the eye too many times.

No one is looking at that guy – with his shirt unbuttoned down to the middle of his stomach exposing his silver chain and heavily tattooed chest – and mistaking him for a nerd.

This was one of the glasses in the case.

They also had non-tinted glasses in the display, but this particular pair was likely made to protect your eyes from the thousands of flashbulbs that go off when you’re on stage. (And the hundreds of flashbulbs that go off when you’re walking to a restaurant on a Tuesday evening.)

This was the display for a German eyewear brand in the back of the store.

It may not be clear from the picture, but the male model with the bleached hair is wearing lipstick.

Granted, this store is in a neighborhood with a much higher percentage of upper middle class homosexuals than your average American town, but nonetheless, I imagined that a lot of straight white collar working professionals wandered into that store with their wives or girlfriends and tried on glasses like these,

 and then hesitantly asked their more fashion-conscious female companion, “Uh.. You think these are too much?”

(“How was the shower?” --- “It was so good that I was almost expecting it to bring me off at the end.”)

On my way back to the ottoman, I noticed a small curtained off entrance with a sign in front that said, “This room is by appointment only.”

I moved towards it and peeked in.

A middle-aged, blonde, well-dressed – but not quite attractive – saleswoman noticed me peeking in, so I asked her, “What’s in that room?”

“That is for appointments only.”

“Oh, ok.”

I was beginning to walk away when she continued, “But you can go down there and take a look if no one’s in there.”

I got a text message from Hansen as she said that, so I thanked her and told her I would check it out in a minute. I sat on the ottoman and responded to the message and then walked into the appointment only room.

I didn’t see a light switch at first, so I looked around in the dark and took a picture.

I eventually found the light switch and turned them on.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the room – add a bottle of Grey Goose and a few dancing strangers and you’d feel like you were buying glasses in a nightclub. And I didn’t see anything wrong with that.

(“Cindy, I can’t shower in your parents’ bathroom. It’s too much. The water pressure is too strong. It actually hurts my back. I’m not joking.”)

I considered looking around for some champagne, but it was still early in the afternoon so turned off the lights and left.

The saleswoman noticed me walking out and hurried over and said, “You’re not supposed to be in there! That room is for appointments only.”

I was speechless.

This SAME WOMAN had JUST TOLD ME THAT I COULD GO BACK THERE. And now she was panicking because I had gone back there.

I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there and stared at her with my mouth hanging open even more than it normally does.

(Stop reading and take the time to truly imagine my confusion.)

I hate confrontation. Plus, I didn’t think it would help to refresh her memory about the details of our last conversation, so I just stood there and stared at her – completely confused – and all I could think to myself was, “Is this woman fucking with me?”

After a few moments of thought, I concluded that either:

1) This woman was fucking with me,

2) I was finally starting to lose my mind, or

3) This woman had some short term memory issues that required immediate attention.

It was a very long silence. I couldn’t think of anything to say. What does one say in that situation?

Finally, I softly and slowly asked, “Uh,,,,, Are you talking to me?”

I knew the question wouldn’t accomplish much – unless she answered “no” and proved that she was crazy – but it felt right at the time (and looking back, I still think it might have been the right thing to say.)

“Yes” she replied, “You’re not supposed to be in there. That room is for appointments only.”

I decided to pretend that she’d never given me permission to go down there, “Oh, sorry about that, I didn’t see the sign.”

She didn’t say anything and hurried into the appointment only room to make sure I hadn’t disturbed anything.

Some battles aren’t worth fighting.

I walked over to the front window and noticed a discount optical store across the street with the words “within your budget” written on the window. Maybe that's where I'll go if my vision starts to go bad.  

(“Juice, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve got terrible water pressure in my shower, but your’s is non-existent! How can you shower with water pressure like that?”)

…

Epilogue –

A few weeks later Cindy bought a pair of glasses from that store, and I must admit, I like the way they look.

Had I known I was going to write a blog post about that store, I would have taken better pictures of it. (And if I wasn't lazy, I'd walk back over there and take more.)