Musings on a Weekend Visit

A comment, during the first hour of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blue: "Um... not much is happening in this film, is it?"

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A shopping story. Without divulging any more than is necessary, remember that I am a fairly petite person who is small but by no means skinny (that honor is reserved for my sister, built straight up and down like a model).

Which means that in most generic department stores I am a size 6, and in the juniors section (where I still occasionally hunt, although less and less often) a definite 8. "Juniors," after all, are not supposed to have hips.

Anyway. At Ann Taylor (where S. took me, or -- more accurately -- I took him, since we quickly tired of exploring ill-fitting options at Target), I am a size 2.

No, not even that. A 2 petite.

I would say "be jealous" but I am myself appalled. (How would my sister, who is a department store size 0, manage? Does Ann Taylor make negative sizes, or would a person so slight slip through the cracks, um... literally?)

It also occurs to me that fudging the sizes requires the customer to spend more time in the store and carry more items into the dressing room, increasing the possibility of multiple purchases. Great. Because there's nothing quite as exciting as being manipulated.

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A comment, in the middle of the film: "This concerto is awfully depressing-sounding for a celebration of the unification of Europe." (Not to mention that it doesn't seem to actually be a concerto at all, as there is no featured solo instrument.)

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The whole reason we were out shopping in the first place was because we had learned that the battery I had recently purchased for my laptop (to replace the battery that appeared to be dead, as it no longer charged) was not charging. So we went down to the local strip mall to talk to the Geeks at Best Buy. Our Geek said he didn't really know what the problem was but his best guess was that it was the power cord that had worn out, not the battery.

Cost of a new power cord? $125. For a cord. Positive wire, negative wire, ground wire twisted together and wrapped in heat-resistant plastic. Plus the special little dooby shaped in only a particular way which guaranteed it would fit in only one particular kind of laptop.

Looks like I'll be buying mine on Ebay.

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A comment, in the middle of the film: "But none of these plotlines are going anywhere!"

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S. also taught me the luxury of browsing in bookstores; that is to say, taking a book (or several), retiring to a cushy armchair, and remaining there until the book is finished. Which was a very nice thing to do on a hot day when one no longer has access to her university library due to a series of bureaucratic idiocies (as with my university health insurance, one is instantly dropped from the rolls as soon as one is no longer attending class; thus persons wishing either health insurance or library privileges during the summer must jump through a series of hoops and cut a small check).

And I taught him the luxury of "going into a store just to play the sample X-Boxes and Playstation 3s." We almost bought a Wii. The only reason we didn't is because we couldn't find any Wiis available (plenty of Wiimotes and Wiipacks, but no actual Wiis). Ah, wiiell.

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A question, posed after we both woke up to find the credits of Blue scrolling across my laptop/DVD player: "Are we anti-intellectuals after all, if we fell asleep during a Kieslowski film?"