This morning I decided yet again that I wasn't going to be a business suit conforming jacket monkey. I dressed again in sleeveless summer top, jeans, sneakers, and striped green and pink frog socks that look like gloves, so every toe has its own home. I make myself look nice and wear perfume, but this week, I am not going to dress up.

This is my corporate rebellion in teeny tiny baby steps.

On my train into London I sat down across from a young man, iPod in ears and bracelets up and down his wrists. He smiles at me in greeting and I smile back. Next to him sits a standard specimen of Businesssuitus Miserabilis Commuterati. Grey business suit, unremarkable tie, black briefcase with generic business detritus. I pop open my briefcase and dig out the remarkable find I made last night while excavating my bra drawer for something, something I bought from the U.S. and had, incredibly, forgotten about.

It was a pink plastic holder of Hubba Bubba bubble gum tape.

Fucking magic.

I crack open the seal and draw off about 4 inches of bubble gum tape (men think that women can't tell what four inches is without a ruler, but we really can. To prove it I can direct you to a few of my exes). I slide the delectable vagina-pink gum into my mouth and feel a sugar rush as it melts on my tongue. I work it to a soft and pliable condition and then blow a bubble roughly the size of a baby's head.

Businesssuitus Miserabilis Commuterati stares at me as though I am the strange specimen instead of him. I smile through my bubble gum and crack open the pink plastic bubble gum tape, rolled up to look like a delicate cow tongue dusted with powered sugar, offering it to him.

'Hubba Bubba bubblegum tape?' I ask cheerfully.

He stares at me, his mouth slightly agape. 'Er'¦.no, thank you.'

I shrug and close the bubble gum tape case. His loss. I head into London, blowing quiet bubbles the rest of the time.

Corporate rebellion, man. Corporate rebellion. You may know me from such roles as Project Director, but my real job is testing the walls of humor for any breach in security.

In London today I am strapped into a meeting until lunchtime, which then sees me off to Covent Garden to be bought lunch by an account manager at Company X. I have no idea what he wants but suspect it has something to do with the next release of Project Rocket Riding Gerbil which I start working on in a few months. We haven't sent out tenders yet for the business, and perhaps this has something to do with it.

The amusing thing is, in the corporate world I can't be bought.

Like, at all.

But we'll see what he needs to talk about.

After that, I get to experience the horror that is known as Shopping for a Dress To Wear To a Wedding (it's a movie about to be released, and critics say it's horrifying). The truth is, Jeff is off for all of April on his honeymoon, and Angus and I are going to his wedding the weekend of my birthday. I have to buy a dress to do this, and the invite specified that men wear a tuxedo (which Angus has) and women wear evening dress (which I don't have. I have frog glove socks and pink Lolita wigs, I do not have evening dress just chilling out in my closet waiting for me to wear it to my next ball).

Angus and I checked for 'evening dress' over the weekend. We went to one shop that had formal wear, wearily consigning ourselves to the fact that I would have to invest in an evening dress. As we rounded the evening section, all around us was a sea of pastel taffeta. Seriously. It looked like Attack of the Killer Prom Queen, and as I fingered one light blue taffeta number I wondered if someone was lurking around with a bucket of pig's blood.

Taffeta gowns are for teenage proms, not for adults. When you reach a stage of worrying about crow's feet and cottage cheese thighs we should not be subjected to the possible horror that is mutton dressed up as lamb. We should not have to make so much noise with artificial clothing materials when we walk that Richter needles go off. We should not have to worry that someone is going to come by wielding a horrifyingly huge wrist corsage that we will wear in a state of humiliation the rest of the evening, stabbing ourselves with it and hoping that the damn thing will fall off at some point.

Angus and I did find one dress that we really liked-a shorter Jersey number (thank you, Hillary Swank, for bringing down the bling factor of eveningwear). It was soft and sexy with a shorter skirt and a tiny bit of cleavage. Jersey is an unforgiving fabric and I have only just started my workouts at our new gym after being away from elliptical machines for a month (and I start yoga tonight, which I am very much looking forward to) but this dress bells out a bit and makes me look skinny, which I love.

I'm going to buy that dress this afternoon after lunch with Company X man. It's all about the comfort in my world.

I had one other mission that I had to accomplish in Covent Garden today that I managed to get done yesterday-my friend in Holland needed a souvenir. A specific souvenir. Turns out her brother-in-law is getting married on the same day as Charles and Camilla, so they requested some Charles and Camilla memorabilia as a gag gift. This would sound so easy, but my god the embarrassing horror of it. Not only did I have to ask a shop if they had anything, I had to go back again yesterday once they got the shipment in. I bought my friend two incredibly naff mugs of Charles and Camilla with their pictures and wedding date. It was just what she wanted.

She asked me what I thought about Charles and Camilla's wedding and as I sat there and thought about it, I realized my stance: I just don't give a fuck. Get married, don't get married, I don't really care. I don't particularly want Charles as a king, but I don't care who it is that's sitting next to him. Diana died 7 years ago and they were already divorced-true, she was a kind soul who appealed to the public, but how long should he continue to refrain from what it is his heart wants?

As I looked at the mugs in the souvenir shop, I realized that the Charles and Camilla mug was next to the Diana mug. That, side by side, it was a confrontation of then versus now, right versus wrong (and, in some way, taste versus profit). I realized that even though I don't really care if Chuck and Cammie get wed, I do understand her. I do, in some way, understand her position. Even though we're worlds apart and her world includes royalty, money, designer gowns, privilege, fox hunting (shame on you) and Bentleys, and my world contains bubble tape, frog glove socks, buying my evening dress at House of Fraser and train commutes into London in standard class, we do have more in common that I did with Diana.

I am nothing like a fragile, kind, beautiful and worshipped princess, but I do hold court as a war-torn, disliked, home-wrecking whore. I like to hope that maybe it's a moniker we both can graduate from someday. All this because we fell in love with someone that wasn't available, and I'm nothing if not a sucker for true love.

-H.

PS-I got home yesterday and found a large box on my doorstep. In it was my own version of G-dog, which Sporty sent to me, and I just utterly love him. I was looking for companionship everytime Angus travels, and now I have a cuddly black G-dog of my own to sleep with at night. Thanks, Sporty gorgeous, I just love him.

PPS-Happy birthday Best Friend.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:32 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 1393 words, total size 8 kb.