bruising and schmoozing

I had a crappy day. I am shooting/writing up fashion week and spent all day at the expo center, shooting and interviewing but mostly just standing in fucking line because I applied for a press credential too late. Live and learn. I have decided that I never want to shoot a big, corporate fashion event ever again. It was a lot of super pretentious people parading around, and instead of doing my usual "well aren't we special," I was ingratiating myself to them and taking their photos.

I was really excited about it at first, but today was so rough. I like pretty things as much as the next girl (and then some, even) but I don't think I want to put fashion on a pedestal. Expensive clothes should be a guilty pleasure, and not really advertised, particularly if you live in a city where people regularly knock on your day and ask you if have any old clothes to give them. Maybe that is just my neighborhood.

After that long day, I ran off to meet a guy who'd offered me a ride out to a fancy suburb of Buenos Aires to see this rock show. I posted on a message board to see if anyone wanted to go, and he said he did. I called him to set up a time and it turns out he is 65 years old. Why, why, why, as a 65-year-old man, would you think it is kosher to offer to take a 29-year-old woman to a PUNK ROCK SHOW? When I explained to him I didn't think he'd enjoy it, he was like, "No, it sounds fun. I'd really like to go." I didn't know how to say I didn't think that would be cool, so I just said...well, okay. If you're down, I'm down. I'm not ageist at all. My best friend here is 62. I don't go to punk rock shows with her, but hey, everyone is different. But I was also confused by it.

I thought maybe it would be cool. I showed up half an hour late because I don't have a watch and I assumed that fashion week was running on schedule, but it most certainly wasn't. We chatted pleasantly but a few moments into my return to non-bitter humanity with pizza and beer, I decided it was too late to go (it really was), and that I just wanted to go home instead. Also, I was really not entertained by the situation. I tried to be engaged, but he was just talking at me. I have noticed that Argentine men do that. They just talk, and talk, and talk, and you just sit there and smile. They like to talk about this country and the politics and such but they also do the Indian thing of talking about things they have no clue about with the utmost authority. For example, I saw these two guys jumping extremely high and doing tricks. They were wearing those jumpy-shoe things. It was pretty cool. I said, "Look at those guys jumping over there." And he said, with the utmost authority, "Ah, yes, they have a bungee board." What he meant was, a trampoline. I said, "No, they have special devices attached to them." And he tried to fucking argue with me! He couldn't even see them. I don't have patience for people like this. Particularly when they are more than twice my age. I then hated myself for not listening to my gut, because my gut tends to be ageist and racist and classist all those stereotypes that guts have. It is a lot of effort to be open-minded.

Working makes me feel better after social mishaps like that, even though it was all fine but skeezy in other ways. When I came home, I set to work processing my shitty photos that I shot from a mile away, and as I was walking down the stairs to put some water on for tea, I fucking slipped and fell and fucked my shit up bad. I am a bumbling fool who has broken her ankle walking before, but I have never fallen down stairs. It was scary. I thought I had broken something. And you know what? All I could think was, "Great, now I have to go back to fucking Fashion Week tomorrow with two broken fingers and a goddamn broken tailbone."

Nothing is actually broken, but I do have to go back to Fashion Week tomorrow. I think this is someone's way of laughing at me. You want it bad--like, real bad? Here, have a broken leg. That's right. Bet you don't think Fashion Week is such a hardship now, do you?