Liststravaganza - Day 3

Today was a little more passive than the last two, but I accomplished quite a bit anyway.

Our original plan was to find a city on the map I'd never heard of and visit it, but I panicked about (possibly) small town businesses being closed for Labor Day, so we hung out in F-Way.

I continued my marathon of "Movies I Assume I'll Hate," which will actually have to be completed another day. While I generally consider a marathon a solid, back-to-back viewing fest, I had other stuff to do today. Look for reviews in an upcoming post. I will say that "In Good Company" with Topher Grace was and is one of the worst cinematic abortions I have to date witnessed. That's all I'll say about the movies for today.

After lunch we headed to Christian Craft (a.k.a. Michael's) to look into getting two Johnny Cash concert posters I have framed. These poor posters have been moved around since our early days in Florida, and have miraculously been spared any visible damage. They are, of course, of a random size that will fit no pre-existing frames, and therefore custom framing is required. While I would love to support one of the local framers, the savings of going to a chain is significant, and brother, can you spare a dime?

The disheveled, morbidly obese bitch that "assisted" us in the custom framing shop - after a manager went to get her - managed to take a painful process and make it excruciating. She was either not working on commission, or possibly working on commission and just one of those salespeople whose snobbery regarding their trade intimidates customers into buying more than they need. A hint to framers for the future: a slovenly man with rockabilly posters could give a shit about triple matting and portrait glass. I like this frame. Your matting suggestions are obviously slowing down my decision making. Oh, what? You CAN just frame it, without $146 worth of matting per poster? Well, hell, why didn't you say so? So shut the eff up and reeeeeeead me, woman! "Sir, I can see you don't give a shit. You obviously don't want to spend a lot of money, and you clearly don't care about the viewer's eyeballs becoming exhausted by traveling the excessive distance from frame to picture. You came in excited, and are now withdrawn and uncomfortable. Tell me, sir, what do you like? Just a frame, and no matting? Yes sir! We can certainly do that. It's your frame, you know your tastes, and this is an investment that you will be looking at for many, many years to come. I would be happy to help provide you with something that will bring you joy now, and someday, your children, and your children's children. Also, have a free bag of Baked Ruffles. And did I mention you look sexy in your kilt?" That is how I expect to be treated in a frame shop. Deal.

After a trip to and from Michael's and a brief stop at the Met, we continued watching movies which I anticipated to be complete crap, while I worked on sorting audio files, pictures, and videos on my hard drive into something resembling an organized collection. To give you some perspective, I tend to overshoot pictures in order to insure that at least one will be good (a tactic I will abandon once I take the time to really learn my new camera.) This habit, combined with my other habit of merely dumping new pics into a folder named "pics to sort," and about once a month, dumping its contents into a folder on my external hard drive called "misc." Now, imagine the same thing for pretty much every audio file and video I've acquired in the last two years or so - including finally putting every CD we own into MP3 format - and you've got yourself a bit of a mess. While I certainly don't have as much stuff accumulated as lots of other people, the stuff I have is collected in bins of nonsense. I have dozens - and dozens - of "Track 1s" to play, remember, rename, and sort, not to mention the other "Track xx" that fill seemingly every nook and cranny of my computer and XHD. Shwoosh. I should have started this a while ago.

In all fairness, I have been making huge leaps. By the end of this week, I anticipate being done, or at least close.

I also wore my kilt out in public for the first time today. I would have worn it all day, but it was still wet from its wash last night, and "lay flat to dry" translates to "in the PNW, it would be best if you forget about wearing that garment for a few days." Our walk to and from Starbucks for morning coffee saw me in my new man-skirt, but the discomfort of moist, cold fabric caused me to change into jeans (read: slave coverings) for the rest of the day.

Geographical proximity of Federal Way to Seattle not withstanding, my dearest Rose worries about a deep, deep fissure in cultural, um, norms.

In other words:
Seattle: "Hey, that guy's got a Utilikilt. Tight. He's supporting local artisans while expressing his self confidence, and damn he looks comfy and sexy."
Federal Way: "Lookit that faggot in a dress! Jump in my pick-um-up truck, and let's stomp that piece of shit!" Or, possibly: "Doesn't that guy in the dress live on our block? Well, if their house is ever on fire, remember, our faucets don't work."

I say: screw it. First: I wore a t-shirt with a stripper dancing to a wedding rehearsal dinner. Second: I have a bumper sticker with the "f" word on it on my car. Third: I haven't blushed since 1992. Fourth: When you look this good, you don't have to sweat anything.

And for any woman who DARES think that a man in a kilt is weird, I can throw down. Mary Tyler Moore negotiated to be allowed ONE scene per "Dick van Dyke Show" episode where she was "allowed" to wear pants. You have all gone from girdles, garters, bodices, petticoats, and slips, to an era where you can where whatever you want and no one thinks anything about it. Men have been wearing trousers and ties for hundreds of years. We still are. What's wrong with wanting something nonrestrictive and ventilated? Nothing. Nothing at all.

OK, my soap box is collapsing, and it's time for bed.