Since I Can't Go To Tiffany's...

I woke up with a small case of the Mean Reds and decided to dress accordingly. Some people dress down when they don't feel entirely themselves. I dress up.

Skirt: J. Crew Outlet, Shoes: Clarks, Shirt: Polo Ralph Lauren,  Sunglasses: Ray-Ban, Jewelry: From A Relative, of Otherwise Mysterious Origin

Please excuse the mirror picture, the sloppiness of my room, and my slightly rumpled appearance. On some days it's all one can do to make oneself presentable - taking a good picture would have been entirely too much to ask today. In fact, making myself presentable seemed almost too much today - I briefly considered the jeans-and-tee shirt route. If I had, though, I wouldn't have gotten one of the best and most surprising compliments I've gotten since coming back to school.

As I sat down with my roommate in a popular campus gathering place to soak up some sunshine and soothe my frazzled post-botched-pop-quiz nerves, she said, "I know you won't believe me, but when I was sort of scanning the crowd, not looking for you, I thought, 'WHO is that person? She looks perfect.'"

I was tickled pink. My roommate is one of the most stylish people I know, and not an empty flatterer by any means. (Translation: When I look dumb, she tells me, lovingly but bluntly.) And after all, I had fairly modest expectations for my day, and being told that my attempt to emulate even the most casual of the most iconic film star's onscreen looks was "perfect" was a lovely surprise.

Image courtesy of moviedearest.blogspot.com

I was surprised, but I suppose it goes to show that taking cues from Audrey in anything, especially Breakfast at Tiffany's, is always a good idea - even when one feels more like one is swinging wildly between Patricia Neal's character in the same film and Bridget Jones in other area's of one's life. It's a start.

I'd Say No One Cares, But That Would Be A Lie

Ariel from Apathetic Chipmunk and I are on one of our frequent Starbucks trips, ostensibly made for the purposes of working on the independent study papers for our study abroad program but usually spent discussing the merits of various online magazines and nutritional strategies. Early on in the visit, a deeply inconsiderate person settled into a chair near ours and began braying into her cell phone. (Ariel writes about this incident and reminds us of good coffeeshop manners here.)

My imagined response to such a person is usually along these lines: “No one cares.” The problem is that my imagined withering response is a lie. I do care what loud talkers are saying. I listen. Intently. And it makes me detest them. If I didn’t care, I would tune them out. That isn’t what I do. I listen and I dislike them irrationally. The same conversation that, overheard at a reasonable volume, would amuse me, elicit my sympathy or make me silently happy for someone makes me intensely malicious when it’s being screamed, especially in a confined space.

A sampling of what I heard and the silent responses it prompted follows.

“I’m just in Starbucks in town, all alone.”

Because no one likes you.

“Well, yeah, I just got a frap.”

I hope it keeps you awake all night, even though it isn’t even noon yet.

“Well, yeah, we went out…” and about ten minutes straight of conversation about some young man.

 It's because his eardrums haven’t healed from your last encounter. I hope you never hear from him again. Wait, no, I hope you end up together and he’s just as loud and annoying as you are, and you live in a very echoey house.

Just as being a horrible person was getting fun, she was joined by an equally loud friend a few moments later and excused herself from the call by saying that this friend’s arrival made the call rude. Her friend's arrival. Right. They proceeded to detail their grooming habits, and the new arrival was even louder.

“Yeah, the blonde  - the blonde who works downstairs – complimented me on it. The perm, I mean.”

The blonde lied.

Her friend settled her legs on the table in front of her and began to squawk: “Yeah, I haven’t shaved them in three days.” (My feminist body positivity and my deep vein of inner meanness came into conflict here – guess which won. A hint: I did not congratulate her for questioning patriarchal beauty standards.)

May every razor you use in the future be dull.  May every table you eat from be similarly contaminated.

Thankfully, the pair left before my ill wishing escalated. Ariel’s response to the situation was to remind her readers to be polite in coffeeshops. Mine is to explain why: some day, I will snap and these little unkindnesses will be unmuted. Pray it is not in response to you.