Idiosycratic Life

Yay! I figured out my long sentence problem All By Myself. :) Thanks to all who tolerated the "annoying/have to keep using the sliding bar thingy" factor in order to keep up with my latest exploits. :)

So another long work week is behind me. Lately, I have been working Wednesday through Sunday, and even though it's the same amount of days as Monday through Friday, I can't explain it, but the work week seems much longer this way. And Monday and Tuesday seem to go faster as days off than Saturday and Sunday do. I am not sure why that is.

So in a little while I am going to curl up with the latest video rental of the third season of Sex in the City from Anarchist Blockbuster and settle in for a few days of Nocturnal Living and Sleeping In. Yay!

Actually, I don't think I have talked about Anarchist Blockbuster before. You know how sometimes you go to a McDonald's, and it's really clean, and there are always enough napkins and the fries are always piping hot, but at any time you could walk into a *different* McDonald's and it's like a war zone in there? (Getting to Anarchist Blockbuster in a minute, I promise) No napkins, the only ketchup to be found is in a dried streak on a sticky counter with three empty tubs of condiments and a thousand toppled pill cups and there's a homeless person who smells like pee asleep in a booth, right? (FEMINIST DISCLAIMER: I acknowledge that that is a classist statement- many homeless people are in this difficult situation because they are ill, shunned veterans, survivors of abuse, discriminated against by a matrix of oppressions, and are victims of hard luck and bad circumstances, and many, many of them do NOT smell like pee.) Nonetheless, in general, we as Americans take it as a Fact of Life that any McDonald's at any given time could fall anywhere on the continuum of Piping Hot Fries Served Really Fast to a Homeless Guy Passed Out in a Booth.

But I have never encountered a Blockbuster video store like this before. Every Blockbuster I have ever been to has been more like a library for lazy people- it is very cold, very quiet, everything is alphabetized and stacked and if you can't find something you can ask a clerk who will look it up on their computer, akin to a card catalogue, although they may be a tad surly about it on occasion because they don't really get *why* you can't find it by implementing the simple logic of the Dewey Decimal System-esque organization that rules Blockbuster. In general, a simple, somewhat apologetic, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival; I'll check in that section. Thanks," does the trick.

Not so at Blockbuster Miami-style. Oh no. I am talking about hundreds (hundreds!) of videos and DVDs scattered all over the floor. Boxes of styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap stacked to the ceiling. Maybe three Choco-Tacos and one measly Klondike bar in the Good Humor freezer if you're lucky enough to be there on a Monday evening. Scooby Doo keychains torn out of their boxes and shoved behind unstraightened stacks of magazines featuring Shakira, most likely by children who are traumatized by the fact that they lost their mother somewhere between New Releases and Family Viewing Choices. Meanwhile, Mother has donned a lighted miner's hard-hat and is most likely shouting, "Marisela? Marisela? Donde estas?!?! DONDE ESTAS?!?" as she tries not to trip over a box of Harry Potter videos that still haven't made it onto a shelf despite the movie's May 26th release.

The only part that I made up in the last paragraph is the miner's hat. Seriously.

Anyway, the line at Anarchist Blockbuster is always at least ten people deep, most of whom are muttering that “it probably WOULD have been worth it to take the Dolphin Expressway all the way to Bal Harbour, but this one is just so much closer, so....”

And, as a not-so-quick aside, on the other side of the spectrum, when I was at Syracuse, Stephen and I spent a lot of Saturday nights going to the theater, either to see him or other friends/roommates perform, (tickets are usually free for non-majors, too, when you are sleeping with someone in “the Department”), then we’d go across the street with friends for a drink at Syracuse’s version of an upscale, post-theater pub (midori sour for me, Coca-Cola for him) and invariably we would end up at Blockbuster around 11:35 trying to find a movie that we agree on that we haven’t already seen.

The store was under the command of a stroppy assistant manager, no older than 19, max, whom Stephen christened “Zitler” because he would follow us (and others) around, insisting we had to get in line NOW with our rentals, NOW, because the store would be closing in 23 minutes, NOW! (The “Zit” part of “Zitler” came about also because, um, adolescence was not being very kind to this young man, which was mean of us, but so is following customers around who are clearly about to decide between “When Harry Met Sally” for the third time (Me: “I won’t fall asleep this time, I swear!”) or Fight Club (Steve: “You’ll like it. You will. You’ll enjoy the anti-capitalist sentiments. And Brad Pitt! Come on.”) and yelling “NOW!” at them. Sigh...

Anyway, back to Anarchist Blockbuster in Miami. I have started bringing things to do, such as balancing my checkbook while I wait, usually because I don’t get the desire to rent videos until around 11:10 p.m. and never when I am wearing a bra. Going braless at Anarchist Blockbuster is practically mandatory (foam curlers optional, though common), but going to the one in Bal Harbour without a bra is probably carries a death sentence executed by a Fashion Police Firing Squad headed up Donatella Versace herself, and once my bra is off for the night, I’m sorry, it’s not going back on. SARK said it before, and I’ll quote her again, “Big breasts are like pets. Everybody wants them, but in the end, you’re the one who has to take care of them.”

Speaking of which, I am going to curl up with my dog, her cat, and yes, the aforementioned un-restrained breasts, and watch some more of the third season of Sex and the City since I made it out of Anarchist Blockbuster alive. Good night.