Setsuled's Journal

I heard a great story at Fashion Valley to-day.

Fashion Valley is a slightly concentrated example of San Diego's strange fushion of snobbish decadence, beauty, and truly pathetic creatures. As malls go, it's really very nice looking, with earth-tones and green trellises on the upstairs and . . . Well, a thousand times easier on the eyes than nearby Mission Valley Centre with its bold, mismatched Crayola paint job.

I was at Fashion Valley with my family this morning--they'd invited me yesterday to go with them and eat at a restaurant called The Cheescake Factory. Yes, they make great cheesecake, but all I had were avacado egg rolls and a portabelo mushroom burger. The avacado egg rolls were definitely the best part.

Anyway, another feast for the eyes at Fashion Valley lately is the legion of terrifically tiny skirts being worn by seventy-five percent of the girls. It's amazing what goes for respectable wear these days.

In Charlotte Russe with my sister, watching her buy one of the denim variants of these, I remarked that I'd seen more of these skirts to-day than I'd seen in any one place in my life.

"What?" she said, looking up at me uncomprehendingly.

"Yeah, NASA," I said.

"Oh . . ." she replied and went on with what she was doing. I suppose it's uncharitable of me to share that anecdote, as my sister is pretty smart. Really, I think it was more an issue of her knowing I was being weird and not caring.

Yes, perfection, or a conception of it, is visible everywhere at Fashion Valley. These skirts make you think about how nice it would be for these girls to sit on your lap but they're in terrible colours. And yes, there's probably an annoyingly unconscious sluttiness that goes along with them.

I saw a dress I sort of liked at Charlotte Russe, on a rack. It was black and its hem looked sort of like it was shredded. I pointed it out to my sister and all she had to say about it was, "Ew!"

Three inch skirt--good. Big black dress--just poor taste.

So on the way out, near Cheescake Factory again, we ran into my parents' friend Denise and her daughter, my sister's friend, Rachel.

Plain, pleasant conversation insued between them all as I stood silently among them, slowly feeling heat from the cloudless sky cement all my insides into a single melted organ mass.

Then Rachel told a great story. It seems that for one reason or another, a few days ago, she needed to have a urine sample for something at school. So she got the sample ready and put it in her backpack. Upside down. With the lid on not so tight.

When she stood up to leave class, there was an embarrassing mess.

Now, the best thing about this story was hearing it being told by one of the pretty-perfect denizens of Fashion Valley, giggling about it as a quaint little misadventure.