faulty vision

I do not walk like a duck. Julia Roberts walks like a duck. I do not.

I was reflecting on this while walking back from the bathroom during work today. Our new office is on the fourth floor of an outdoor building. The walkways, while carpeted, are little more than covered balconies along which offices present their doors like very nice, apologetic motel rooms. The corridor that leads back from the restroom heads towards a plate glass window, which reflects the person walking back from the loo.

I noted my reflection in the mirror.

I noted I looked like a slob.

I noted I did not care.

This led me to other thoughts. Namely, that women today do not know how to walk in high heels, but persist on wearing them anyway. It is a bizarrely lost skill. All complaints about sexism aside — I mean, shit. If you’re wearing heels, you’re wearing them because you want to be feminine, so suck it up — what’s the point of wearing shoes that (ostensibly) are meant to make you look graceful and feminine, only to waddle like a pregnant baboon in the process of squirting out her young? I emphasize waddle. One’s reflection in the mirror should not rock from side to side as though buffeted by an indecisive wind. Sway, maybe. Swish, certainly. Rock, never.

High heels are sexy if you walk in a straight line. One foot in front of the other. Not one foot ahead and slightly to the side, but literally, in a straight line. If you stretch a piece of string in a straight line and walk down it, your heels and toes should land with each step on that line. With most women who wear heels, you could ink their feet, have them walk down a sidewalk, then ride a fat-tired motorcycle down the center without ever having to adjust your steering to avoid touching the ink. On either side. Why do women wear clothes to look nice and then chug around like they’re dangling a disco ball between their thighs? Okay. A small disco ball, but still. You are not hosting the ’70s between your legs, ladies.

I’m just saying.

It’s weird.

I returned from Texas just in time to dump my dirty laundry, pick up heels, a dress, and my husband, then hop back into the car to head to Reno for a wedding.

I am uncomfortable with weddings as a rule. I’m never quite sure how to act or how to look; growing up, etiquette was something that happened in other places, to other people. (My mother’s social admonitions were straightforward and simple. Eat with your mouth closed. Don’t interrupt. Keep your feet on the floor. Take your elbows off the table. Don’t encourage your sister to jump off the house and please stop putting your father’s neckties on dead moles.) I made it to prom by the breadth of a hair, and that only because Tara’s fantastic mother took me under her wing.

My mother’s reaction was along the lines of, “What’s a prom?”

My wedding was more of an excuse to get all my friends together in one place and feed them. We dispensed with most of the wedding traditions because — to be honest, I had no idea what they were. The event was held together by fantastic vendors and by Tara again, my irritatingly beautiful matron-of-honor, who picked up where her mother left off in my ongoing social shepherding. When I reach my 80s, I fully expect her daughter to continue the process. “This is Social Security. Repeat after me. ‘Social Security.’ Put the hearing aid back in your ear, Aunt Yuhri. That is not a lozenge.”

Anyway, the wedding. It was gorgeous. I spent all of half a minute wondering if I had dressed appropriately, and then forgot all about it. The bride was beautiful, the groom was adorable, and all in all it was a charming and fun occasion. Kimberly is much like Tara, in that she has an innate sense of aesthetics that makes — well, me, hi, proud owner of an orange kimono — envious, in the same way Leonardo da Vinci makes me envious. I could do that! I think, if I were someone completely other than who I am.

“Have you noticed,” I mentioned to the Guy halfway through the reception, “how an unnerving number of people in this room are really good looking?”

The Guy has been married two years now. He is wise. “Really?” he said. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“The women,” I hissed. “The guys are good-looking too, but the women.”

The Guy has been married two years now. He is not so wise as he will be when he has been married five years. “I’m friends with hot chicks,” he said smugly. “It used to be great when I was single. I’d get into all sorts of parties because I was friends with them. Sweet Pipes, Kimberly, Je–”

I looked at him. He stopped naming names. He patted me anxiously on the back. “Of course,” he added hopefully, “now that I’m married it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Nice save. Great save. Take notes, Tommy. They will help you in your future married life.

I’m not entirely sure how they’ll help.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Congratulations, you two! Call us you when you get back!

Texas continues to be strange.

There’s a sign that I’ve seen inside restaurants here that alarms me. In and of itself it’s not a particularly spooky sign; it is the standard rectangle of white plastic with black trim that you get with officialdom. You know, like, “Restaurant workers must wash hands,” or “Vehicles parked illegally will be towed.”

The one in Texas that bothers me says something along the lines of, “Carrying an unlicensed firearm in this restaurant is illegal. You will be fined if caught.”

Yeah.

Like, okay. In California? This is not so much of a problem. I mean to say, yes, okay, it’s possible — and quite probable, in fact — that there are people wandering in and out of restaurants with unlicensed weapons shoved down their pants. Not all the guys I see coming out of the bathroom are just happy to see me. But a sign? To tell people that it’s bad? Not so much.

Californians know that it’s bad. They just don’t care. I honestly can’t figure out the purpose of the sign. Is it to tell Texans that it’s bad? And the kind of guy who carries around an unlicensed weapon into a restaurant. If he’s Texan, will he care that it’s bad? Will he subsequently say, “Oh, darn. I’ll just leave it in the car, then?”

Inquiring minds want to know.

Maybe it’s just that I’m eating in the wrong sorts of places.

Is Outback Steakhouse a high crime eatery?

For some unfathomable reason, I would really like to buy a 10-gallon hat.

I bet I’d look hot.

Like a bowling ball with a John Wayne complex.

(A yellow bowling ball.)

(Yellow because I’m Asian, see.)

(Just so we’re clear.)

(It sounded funnier in my head.)

Later edited to add:

An Authentic Texan: Was this Dallas-ish?

Me: Yup.

An Authentic Texan: Makes sense. See, if you head about 20 minutes West towards Ft. Worth, you don’t get those signs usually.

There are three words in the explanation that worry me. See if you can pick out which three they are.

I’m in Texas for work.

(Help.)

I’ve been in Texas before — even this part of Texas — though it’s been a long while. The last time I was in Texas, really in Texas and not just passing through the excrescence that is Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, I was 22 years old and here for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition: not as a competitor, but as part of the institute that accompanies the competition. Back then I was distracted by an endless round of parties and entertainments. I didn’t drive, I was chauffeured. I had an itinerary. Meals came down a trifle heavily on the side of beef and beans, and if I never see another black-eyed pea again, it’ll be too soon — but ignoring the fact that everywhere I went was a mansion, that most people I met had a personal income that outstripped the GDP of Brazil, that my hosts sometimes had servants and that everyone, but everyone was white, people were nice. I felt welcomed. I was surrounded by people who appreciated music and spoke my language. I felt like I was amongst my own.

Today I drove down President George Bush Turnpike — President George Bush Turnpike, y’all — and realized I had landed in outer space.

I went to a restaurant and they asked me if I wanted to sit in smoking or non-smoking. “I don’t understand,” I said without thinking. “Is there a fireplace?” The waitress smiled a little blankly and took me to a table.

I passed a gas station advertising unleaded for under $2.30. I circled it warily just to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood. Nope, there it was. Unleaded, $2.27.

I got to the office at 5 pm and almost everyone had gone home. “Well, of course,” said one of the people still there. “Most people get to work between 7:30 and 8:30.” “In the morning?” I asked. “Haha,” said the coworker. Literally. Ha, ha, with spirants and everything. I’m not entirely sure she was laughing.

Texas is strange.

President George Bush Turnpike.

It would be fair to say that I’m a liberal. In the Bay Area, this is hardly unusual or a stretch — and until now, I’ve always thought of myself as a fair liberal, not prone to knee-jerk reactionism. I weigh both sides of the argument. I even take the Devil’s Advocate position and defend Dubya when the Guy rips into him. So I hope you will all appreciate just how disturbing it is that I should have had the wild desire to cause a major accident with my electric blue rental car on President George Bush Turnpike for the sheer principle of the thing.

The state is red. Even the light is red. The sun hits the earth, gets to Texas, and actually blushes. The only way I could be more out of place is if I were a vegetarian communist. I panicked a little, I admit it. There was, I decided a few miles out from the airport, no way in hell I could possibly fit in here. None. Zero. Nada. They probably didn’t even know what tofu was. Scared little Asian chick in the GOP heartland, yo. Help. Somebody help.

…and then I looked up and saw a Fry’s.

You’d have to be a techie to understand what happened next, and a techie who has experienced Fry’s to really sympathize, at that. It was a Pavlovian response. Complicated little triggers fired off in my brain. Endorphins surged through my system. Panic subsided. Relief took its place. Peace wrapped its fuzzy arms around my brain and squeezed.

A people who can appreciate a Fry’s is a people who I can communicate with. They are a people who speak the same language I do. Red state, blue state, conservative, liberal: all are one in the face of Fry’s customer service.

“Where do you keep your RAM?”

“Uh, is that like hard drives?”

I saw the great equalizer, and it was good.