Archived Observation Lounges for the following months can be found here:
October, 1998
September, 1998
August, 1998
[Avery] 11/22/98
This afternoon, Janet and I decided to walk from our house to Andronico's,
a great supermarket about 2 miles away. On the way, we decided to walk through
a neighborhood called the Upper Haight.
The Upper Haight, also called the Haight-Ashbury district, is the home to all of the stoner 16 year olds who have decided to run away from their trust-fund granting parents for the weekend, as well as some hippies who don't realise that the sixties ended 30 years ago. Thrown into this mix of losers are a smattering of pot and acid dealers, some leftist activists, a hell of a lot of tourists, and some legitimately homeless individuals.
This afternoon, the activists decided that they wanted to protest the city's Make Some Change policies. You see, most neighborhood leaders have realized that giving money to the homeless doesn't help the situation, and that the best way to help the homeless is to give the money to the shelters and large organizations that help the homeless. Over the last few months, the city has made up signs asking people not to give money to beggars on the street, and most of stores around the city have placed them prominently in their windows. So, to protest the policy, the activists came to the Upper Haight with buckets of pennies. Then they decided to walk up and down the street, throwing the pennies on the sidewalk.
Imagine the image, five or six homeless men on their hands and knees, scrambling for ten cents worth of pennies. Did this really empower the homeless, or just humiliate them?
[Janet] 11/20/98
I think that I like the idea of makeup more than the makeup itself. I don’t
really wear much of it, but I like looking at all the groovy names of the
colors. I’m intrigued by the promises of a healthy glow, as if you were
just outside skating on a frozen pond in 32-degree weather, when in reality
you never left the confines of your life-draining, flourescently-lit cubicle.
I kind of relish the hunt to find a lipstick/lip gloss/lip stain that stays
on my lips for longer than 30 minutes and doesn’t cost me close to $30
to find out that, despite what the pretty Stila lady told you, this one
won’t, either. What I don’t love, though, is the actual
scary act of going into a department store to look at the makeup in person.
On second thought, maybe the experience is not so much scary as it is a shocking overload to the senses. Since the other day I discovered that my procrastinatory nature had led to my once-pointy Origins Olive Eyeliner being worn down to a little nub, I decided that it was high time I went to Macy’s to seek out it’s replacement. Macy’s in and of itself is enough to drive you have a nervous breakdown, what with all of it’s constant expanding into neighboring buildings and relocation of departments, not to mention it’s inexplicable tourist draw which forces you to do the exhausting shuffle-and-dodge-dodge-and-shuffle walk to get around all of the gawking obstacles that are the non-Macy’s-having midwestern/European tourists. Multiply that annoyance by about a thousand for Macy’s during the holiday season, with all of it’s miles of cheap red carpeting and about a million gold stars hanging from the ceiling.
After stepping onto the red carpet and shielding my eyes from the gazillion-watt lightbulbs that light up the cosmetics counters and, most likely, highlight every facial flaw of the consumer, I went over to the Origins section, passing on my right the MAC section with all of it’s music and dressed-in-black beautiful young salespeople, and passing on my left the Lancome counter with all of it’s French-looking, beautiful, older salespeople, the beautiful salespeople seemingly being the other device used to highlight every facial flaw of the consumer. When I finally got to the Origins section and picked up a display eyeliner, a saleswoman swooped, swooped (if she had wings she would have been flapping them furiously, that’s how fast she swooped) over to me, desperately wanting to make a sa--…I mean really wanting to help me. Well, the thing that would actually help both of us, makeup department persons, is for you to just leave me alone when I say I’m "just looking," because that way I could actually look at everything without the added pressure of you and your perfect skin hovering around me, and who knows, I may end up actually buying more that way; and it would be nice to browse for a change, rather than having to institute a military strike-type visit to your counter.
[Janet] 11/18/98
The other night I was lying around looking at the invitation to my company's
holiday party and, much to Avery's boredom, was going on and on about how
terrible it was that both the word "coriander" and the word "vegetables"
were spelled incorrectly on the RSVP card ("I mean, if you're going to use
the fancy font and the heavy paper and color in the borders with a gold marker,
you would think that you would at least run the Spell Check...") which led
to me going on and on about the terrible state of the workplace today, and
how infuriating it is when you see certain people just slack, slack, slacking
the day away, and how unfair it is that these careless, unprofessional
workers will never get fired simply because their bosses don't want
to go through that whole troublesome hiring process again, and how cosmically
frustrating it is that these certain invitation-designing people somehow
end up smelling like roses at the end of many a day, no matter what
they do (or don't do, whichever the case may be.) Then, in a flash of spite,
I proceeded to correct all the errors on the invitation with a red pen, and
planned on giving it back to the slacker in question (because, god dammit,
if her boss wasn't going to tell her she was a sloppy worker, then I
would!)
Avery eventually talked me out of that pettiness, but it was at that moment I realized just how Frank Grimesian* I had become.
[*Frank Grimes is a one-time Simpsons character who came from nothing, but worked hard for what little he had in life and successfully conquered all the obstacles in his path. He got a job at the nuclear power plant and was very, very bothered that Homer had gotten so much by doing so little. He couldn't believe that he was the only one who was bothered by that fact, and the more he watched Homer come out on top by basically acting like a moron, the more he got upset, until he eventually electrocuted himself and died in a fit of hysterical anger. If there ever was any character that expressed my exact sentiments, that would definitely be the one.]
[Janet] 11/10/98
Ever since California passed it's smoking ban this past January, there always
seem to be little "updates" on the news from time to time on whether or not
the ban is actually working. The most recent news segment basically reported
that some bars pay attention to the ban and some don't, but the consensus
of the tobacco-haters is that half of the bars being smoke-free is
better than none of them being smoke-free. A week ago we voted on
whether or not to impose a new state tax on tobacco products, which would
raise the prices of things like cigars so high that it will most likely drive
the cigar shops out of business as people go the cheaper mail-order route.
Not only will it put small businesses under and people out of work, but it
will eliminate a gathering place where people with similar interests get
together and have a good time. As of today (absentee ballots are still
being counted), the people who voted for this tax are outnumbering
the people who voted against it by a mere 38,000 or so, which is a teeny
tiny margin when you see that the total amount of people who voted numbers
well into the millions. These anti-tobacco people are going way too far,
in my opinion, with their "it's to protect the children" diatribe. I'll be
extra-generous and grant them that whole "kids should be kept away from the
dangers of cigarettes" thing (though every single person in my family
smoked and I never had the urge to steal a cigarette out of my mother's purse,
and didn't even try a cigarette until I was, like, 24 years old),
but c'mon, when was the last time you saw a 10-year-old chomping on a stogie?
I don't see anyone banning alcohol, which is also addictive and can cause just as much (if not more) pain as some wafting tobacco smoke. And what about the rest of the country, where you can even smoke in *gasp* restaurants, never mind bars...and what of the rest of the world? Are those children's lungs less important that those of precious Californian children? If the majority of California voters continue down the path they're currently on, I'd better dig out my sewing needle, 'cause the only social activity that'll be left will be the good 'ole-fashioned Quilting Bee.
[Avery] 11/8/98
I don't remember if I ever told you about our neighbor. No, not the asshole
neighbor who used to crank up his techno music at two in the morning... the
woman who lived kitty-corner from us. For six months or so, every morning,
our neighbor would stand at the floor-to ceiling window and iron her clothes
while naked, or at the most in her underwear. Then every evening, she would
come home, strip down to her skivvies and lounge around, again, in front
of the open window.
Now before you think that we're some kind of Peeping-Tom perverts, let me explain. One night, while watching some mindless sitcom, we noticed the cat meowing at the window. So, I went over to the window to see what the heck the cat was meowing at and I noticed her... standing in her window... with the light on... stark naked.
I'm certainly not a prude, but if I ever walk around naked at the apartment, I usually close the shades... or at the least, I avoid the windows.
Anyway, the nudie neighbor moved out about a month ago. This afternoon, the new neighbor moved in. Though I doubt we'll be seeing her prancing around in her tightie-whities... but the next time the cat sits at the window and starts meowing, I'll just have to wonder... is it a sparrow flying by or is it my neighbor standing there and ironing as naked as a jay bird?
[Avery] 11/3/98
Last week, I attended my office's holiday party. It was held at a nice hotel,
and the food was passable, if not memorable. While I was milling around,
I happened to notice that my director was walking around with this absolutely
stunningly gorgeous woman on his arm.
Wow.
As the night rolled on, Bill, my director, happened to come by to shake my hand and introduce his companion. So, as I extended my hand to shake hers, he finished his introduction: I'd like to introduce you to my daughter.
I stood there absolutely stunned. His daughter. As she sipped casually at her drink, Bill nudged me as he said that she was only seventeen. I was floored. I remember seventeen year old girls from high school. They were flat-chested, awkward, spindly little things. Bill's daughter could have easily passed as a 23 year old model.
I don't know what they're putting in the school milk these days, but it sure does a body good.