the cheshire cat and suburbanite mentality

I just booked our hotel in London. Now i want to go read some Dickens. honestly, it's a lot of pressure when two other people are depending on YOU to pick out a hotel. i discussed the price with my dad, he was OK with it. it is close to the hotel recommended to us by my sister's boyfriend and it is supposedly four stars. the recommended hotel was a bit cheaper (99 GBP as opposed to 135) but this one just looked nicer and it has a spa in it. and a bar and a restaurant and supposedly a fireplace. not that we'll be going all the way to london just to use a spa and then sit by a fire, but it is nice to know it's there. besides, my dad said the price was OK so there.

i got home at about 4:00 this morning. as i pulled into the driveway i saw the crescent moon; it was horizontal, like the smile of the Cheshire cat. and we didn't stay out too late; i took a nap on s's couch for about an hour to let the excess alcohol run through me so i would be alright to drive home. we went to this place called freddie's. upstairs they had a band playing and downstairs was dancing. this isn't the first time that we've gone though. and like all the other times we have been there, the music sucked. it sucks every single time. it was the same mix of songs we danced to in middle school with horrible transitions to somewhat current (as in within the last five years) songs with really stupid lyrics: i am getting too hot i wanna take my clothes off. but why do we continue to go there, even though we KNOW that the music consistently sucks? i think it is our young suburbanite mentality. the suburbs suck, but why do we stay here? because our parents are here, it is cheap, we already know our way around, and there is very little thought necessary to keep ourselves entertained even if it's the same stuff every time. basically because it is so EASY. it would take actual EFFORT if we were to say, hey let's go downtown tonight. hey let's move to the city and not be bored all the time and dependent on our cars. we would have to find the appropriate place to go. someone would have to drive. so, being the suburbanites that we are, we choose comfort over adventure and settle into our largely uneventful suburban lives.

not that my life is completely suburban: i don't know many other suburbanites who can go horseback riding whenever they want. i don't know many others that go to foreign countries alone. or that go to foreign countries period. i don't know many who have been south of the equator. i don't know many suburbanites who live more than 25 meters from their closest neighbor.

this suburban mentality is evident even in the ways we dress. i realized this last weekend at BHS's homecoming. Now, B is a town of mostly upper middle class families - the parking lot at the high school is filled with porsches, jeeps, mercedes, bmws, i've seen a bunch of minis and many unnecessarily large SUVs. But if you look at the way they dress, you can tell that B is still thoroughly suburban. i probably saw one or two people who actually pulled off a good, stylish outfit involving jeans that cost more than the abercrombie standard $60 (or whatever they're at now) and nice tops and accessories that you might see in this month's issue of Vogue. it seemed to me that most people at the high school still buy most of their clothes from stores like A&F (not that they aren't good for little things like tee shirts or shorts or anything else you might wear for comfort and not to make an impression). these kids come from families that have a lot of money, yet they spend it on crap to look like everyone else. it's not that they can't afford nice clothes, but it would take actual EFFORT to think of which stylish things you could add to your fall wardrobe and how you could put them together to make stylish outfits. it would take actual effort to be a stylish individual. But, since there exists a store from which everyone gets their clotes, it is just easier to go there and buy what everyone else is wearing and not have to think about which tops from this store would go with the skirts/jeans/etc i got from that store. this is yet another example of suburban complacency. i myself am not necessarily out of the water; i have my own style but i haven't gotten around to getting out to like nordstrom to pick up a poncho or sparkly brooch (mission for today?) but most of my favorite clothes (i call them "pieces") i have picked up in foreign countries. i own a few things from places like the Gap or A&F, but they're not anything i would wear outside my house.

and like a born and raised suburbanite, i'm going to sit here and rant about how complacent we are in the way we dress and the things we do and continue to do nothing to change it.

i did come to some kind of realization yesterday though: i was on top of a hill taking pictures of yellow trees and i thought, i am totally free. i have nothing at all holding me here to suburbia, so i am completely capable of changing it if i don't like it. therefore, i don't have the right to complain about it when it is in my power to go somewhere and do something else.


CD in the player: Juanes, Mi Sangre

damelo da me lo da me lo que quiero

venite para acá juanes y yo te doy lo que quieres