loads of stuff

Let’s get back to talking about the Fairfax 401 bus blended together with a little chat about bags…and purses. (I’m going to excuse the WonderTwins as lab rats for my useless observations because they both carry totes in addition to, or in place of, ‘purses’. Smart girls.) Public transit commuters need to carry stuff because we don’t have the benefit of cars and trucks to run to during our smoke break. We need stuff. What I’ve noticed about the busgals is that they tend to want to maintain their designer purse-cute clutch ideal, probably as much for the other gals as for the busboys. I don’t have any issues with girls and large bags so it must be for the other fashionista dames; they do glare at each other-. The deal with men is this, when we finally realize that carrying a bag is a grand idea we are completely overrun with perfecting the bag life. We have no worries about overall size and certainly no need to find a small clutch or cute little lamè bag to impress the girls…we’ve decided, and we’ve got stuff to carry. It used to be that it seemed women carry purses so that we can laugh at them; as if they needed to bring along all that lipstick, powder, brushes, huge wallet, mirrors, and other womanly needs. In fact, the root of the problem, from the man logic jail, is they don’t go big enough and then end up with and an additional carrying platform like a recycled, handled paper shopping bag from Nordstrom or Macy’s so they’ll have shoes and lunch for the day. I guess the fact that the bag has nice rope-like handles and comes from Bebe or l’Occitane makes it fashionable. Guys would never do that, it’s counter-intuitive and we’d end up with a ratty old Subway bag with our ratty old shoes inside. The point of carrying a bag, any bag, is so our hands are free to do things like:

Describing a sweet golf shot from the 17th hole,

Explaining a great passing maneuver from the weekend’s Formula 1 race, or possibly,

Giving an accurate spatial relation demonstration representing how we shot down a Russian MiG, or our watch, on our Cold War video game.

It’s not so we have free hands so we can carry other bags. The great bag life allows us enough room to carry everything needed to survive either the workday or trip around the world, you never know: lunch, clothes, newspaper(s), book, magazines, iPod(s), first aid kit, umbrella, snacks, keys, wallet, sunglasses, water bottle, spare water bottle, day planner, camera, hand soap, maps, and tons of other stuff. We’ve no need to be svelte and overly fashionable; in fact, the more stuff we can pull from the bag the more impressed the crowd. As if a few lipsticks and rouge is enough to get a man through the day.


I’m off to the 9:30 Club to see the flaming redhead tonight. It’ll be my first Neko Case show and the general tenor of most reviews is that the crowd is a bunch of guys swooning over her. I’ll be mature. I think my review will take on the boy:girl ratio along with how mesmerized and full of woo the men were…

T.