At the recommendation of a friend, I decided to have a little taste of culture and do the ArtWalk in Lancaster on Saturday afternoon. Sipping warm apple cider, I took in beautiful oil paintings and almost made it to an entire exhibit devoted to my favorite irrational number, Phi (also known as the Golden Ratio which is roughly equivalent to 1.618). I won't bore you with a long thesis about how I suspect that all beauty on this Earth can be reduced to this ratio because I've already blogged about that on Moonfruit. ;-)
There's only one thing which can distract me from the prospects of fine art that inspires one's mathematical intellect. Alas, it was a VINTAGE CLOTHING SHOP which prevented me from making it to the exhibit. Who can think about math when there's fashion to consider? :-)
Then, after a quick walk in the park (which I anticipated would be a lovely stroll through the forest but which unfortunately ended up being the least attractive trail, which indeed looked more like an industrial gravel driveway going through a field of weeds), I found myself sitting on the hardwood floor of a rollerskating rink watching what I thought was a completely new social phenomenon.
But I was incorrect. Roller derbies actually hail from the 1970s, only this scene was littered with skin-inked hipsters in their late 20s. Their sense of fashion was horrendously outrageous. In fact, it pushed the envelope so much that the entire parchment figuratively opened up, turned itself inside out, and then closed itself up again -- thus bringing it back to cool somehow.
To be on the royal blue team, I would have had to find myself a black-and-blue striped tee and some rub-on tattoos, but otherwise I would have had all the necessary fashion accessories: fishnets, a black skirt, a thick black belt, black earrings, and perhaps pigtails and some black eyeliner.
But there's no way I could have lasted out there with those rough girls. They were pushing and shoving and skating so fast! I'm much more fragile and would have been too scared to let go of the guard rail. :-(
Still, I had fun drafting up my alter ego's name. The brochure listed the girls' names as Irene Business, Sistine Shrapnel, Treasure Chest, Jolene Jawbreaker, and Marie Antoithreat to name a few. If I had to have tough girl name, I think I'd make up Lisa Loveless or something.
After saying good-bye to Nate and meeting up with Kate, it was time to make our appearance at the Cape Party, a pre-Halloween celebration where wearing a cape was an entrance requirement. It is convenient that my father is a former magician (yes, my mother and I were his assistants whom he'd levitate, chop into thirds, or make disappear altogether), and so I merely had to swing by my parents' house first to borrow from my dad's wardrobe.
With the capes around our necks, Kate and I spoke so intensely on the way there that we got ourselves completely lost in the dark. By the time we made it to the party, we had cemented our fate for the rest of the evening. There'd be no chance of us making it out to Harrisburg that night because it was just much too late.
People were smoking cigars out on the back porch, and when the tallest, most boisterous guy there finally calmed down about the size of my black hoop earrings (which only happened after I put an end to it by saying, "Dude, you're not funny anymore"), the whole rest of the party relaxed (with the tedious conversation they were listening to thus being over) and we had a nice time.
Actually, the guy ended up being quite kind, apologizing for his annoyance at three separate times in front of the entire group, which was an unnecessary but appreciated gesture. Then I started to feel bad for snapping at him.
But really, who disses a girl's earrings within seconds of meeting her, even if her earrings are as big as bracelets? It's just bad form, right?
