The Mall of America is the worst part of Minn.

A few months ago I hastily proclaimed (I don't like to proclaim unless in haste, I make all of my well-meditated announcements discreetly) that I would forevermore buy all of my clothing on the internet.

Now, possessing the wisdom of two additional months and a few ill-fitting and downright strangely colored shirts, I am taking it back. I know I should pause here to denounce unfounded decision making and sudden personal policies, but I won't and for a single reason: it seemed like such a great idea at the time.

Buying things online means no more going to the mall. And I seriously abhor the mall. I mean, who would guess that a place smelling so heavenly of doughy over-sized pretzels could be so heinous? I suspect that my least favorite part of the mall (aside from the obvious high population of intimidating teenage mobs sulking about) is the way that a person's true personality will reveal itself during the exercise of walking the mall corridors. For some alpha personality types, walking the mall is like parting a sea of humanity with their double-wide stroller. For a squeamish sort like myself, the mall is all about false-start walking and dodging out of the way.

And so the internet seemed a perfect solution. Though by no means a spectacularly proportional specimen of humanity, I figured I was familiar enough with the S, M, L, XL system to wing it over the web. Having done more complicated things over the internet (e.g., banking, cellphone bill, buying bird feeders during the holiday season) I thought myself well qualified.

However, the other day I bought a shirt that I thought look cleverly like a sack, but when it arrived it looked like a simple non-ironical sack. And thus I may be heading back to the mall, that isolated hell dimension perched on the edge of an enormous parking lot.

The only way to get MORE carpal tunnel is to learn to quilt

Today I did a particularly uncharacteristic thing (only more shocking since the principal feature of my character is to resent any sort of change). The offending action was a massage, an unlikely thing because it is a frivolous expense and because I am prude unrivaled by anyone outside of the Shaker/Quaker demographic.

I went and got this massage (and hear my defenses, oh judgmental internet) not for some pansy relaxation, but because my mad carpal tunnel has been flaring up violently. Just yesterday I had my hand turn into a claw of pain when I was adjusting the quilt on the couch, and since I must have the finger mobility to pretend that I am cleaning my house, I decided to pursue some help. Of course I didn’t go to see the doctor, because I’ve been a million times since my fingers started doing their impression of heart-attack symptoms only to leave with a set of wrist splints and a heart pat on the back.

So I went and got a massage and though I was quite earnestly freaked out, I managed to calm myself by focusing on the fact that the massage person looked like gym teacher (you know, sneakers, gently balding, polo shirt). I did my best to focus on this and the periodic wild monkey calls in the soothing jungle tunes that they pipe into the rooms.

I would consider today as the most unclothed that I’ve ever been in public (note: not real public, this wasn't one of those middle-of-mall shacks that sells cellphone skins on the side). Is this admirable? Or does it just make me feel worse about my voodoo backsliding?

No answers here. I will admit to be writing this mainly as a distraction. A certain human of my personal acquaintance is making his radio debut and listening to it is giving me a alarming surrogate stage fright.

Not a stained-glass cinderblock

People often tell me that when they see me driving about town I have a very intense (some venture to say, however abstractly, "uncool") look about me...or at least it seems that way as they zoom past me at a more "reasonable" speed. I usually take these observations in stride, because it allows me opportunity to gloat about how unfailingly prompt I am.

I would categorize being punctual as one of my more positive personal features. Of course it can be a little awkward to be on time, especially since I have a romantic affiliation with an equal punctual person and thus we are always the people browsing the dollar-store next to a restaurant when we arrive 15 minutes before they start serving lunch, but mostly I find it very satisfying. At several teenage-era employments punctuality was lauded as my most redeeming quality (not surprisingly, since I spent most of my time at various office jobs building catapults out of rubber bands and binder clips). And to this day I try to be on time to work, mainly because there seems something moral about it. Obviously this is a secular morality, since I claim possession of the same spirituality inherent in a cinderblock, provided that the block is of a shape and quality in no way suggestive of the facial features of certain saviors and/or key biblical babes.

A mere glimpse of my secular moral code is included below:

1. Be on time to work.

2. Don't comment when you think someone is wearing a new shirt. People in new shirts are nervous enough without you bringing it up.

3. Do not, even under the most tempting of situations, read another person's e-mail or text messages.

4. Don't yell at people in service positions, even when they deserve nothing more than to be strangled by their lanyard and left in a shopping cart to die.

5. Never drink enough that you are unable to wait until you get home to puke.

6. Give people rides in your car and never ask for gas money.

Old-town-of-work

Last week I went back to the town that I used to work in for the first time in over 6 months. Strange as it may seem, I felt oddly nostalgic for the surroundings of my old job, though not the actual building, my sentiments for which are recorded earlier in this very blog.

The creeping nostalgia began as I got on the I-5. After months of trolling up and down 50 and 80, I was struck by the recollection of crossing the causeway on foggy mornings, partially awake and very grumpy. Living in Midtown and working in Woodland was my first taste of commuting, and I hated it with every bicycle loving fiber of my being. And yet I caught myself thinking with near-fondness of my trial-and-error theories for selecting the best exits and routes.

I cruised into Woodland and observed the scenery during the long stop-lights at key intersections that I had resented so vehemently in bygone days. I was surprised to feel the first inklings of the strange exposed feeling that I get in my hometown Dixon, and to some degree, post-college era Davis. When I’ve lived somewhere and left it, I feel weirdly guilty, (or potentially just embarrassed) to be back there. Thus I shuffle with great stealth around the Safeway of my youth.

So I felt nostalgic about my old-town-of-work, and it was brought to my attention afterward that we might have lived there, if I had gotten that newspaper job back last September. (Remember kids, I didn’t get that job because my car alarm went off without cease in the parking lot for two hours, not because I was under-qualified). Probably in some raunchy duplex, making peanuts and writing Peanuts (the comic, because I think journalists in regional papers just write it themselves to save money).

What is the point of this tirade? Only that things are very strange, and I might have lived in a town that now makes me feel equal parts embarrassed and nostalgic.