This past weekend, a friend from work invited us out to see the real English countryside, both where she lives, near Windsor castle and where her boyfriend lives, near Hungerford. (If you are familiar with the events of WW2, you know the historical significance of Hungerford.) It was really great! It rained the entire weekend, and was kinda cold, but it meant that there weren’t as many folks about. In Hungerford we walked along the canal with the dogs and stuff. We saw bunches of ducks, swans, cow turds. I know that it sounds awful, but it actually was really cool. And her boyfriend is a great cook, and prepared dinner for group of us, which was really nice. We had a lot of fun!

Interesting observations: She has two sons. (I think 13 and 9, but I am awful with ages, so…) So the older one (very, very bright kid) was hoping to have an interesting conversation with us because he feels that the people at school are shallow and fake and stupid. He said that he couldn’t wait until he was older so he could have more interesting things to have conversations about. The problem is that, from my perspective at least, this entire country is shallow, fake and stupid. He recounted the normal conversation that he hears at school every day:

“Hey”
“Hey”
“You ‘k?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatcha up to?”
“Nothin’. You?”
“Nothin’.”

Then, depending on recent events, something like:

“Did you hear she is going out with him?!”
or
“Can you believe that he dumped her?!”
or
“Omigod, is so hot!!”
or maybe,
“Did you see that goal that he scored?!”
or
“Did you see last night?”

I feel bad for him if he wants better conversation than that. For the most part, all of the overheard conversations on trains or restaurants are just that empty and meaningless. It’s like life here is high school all over again. Except that most people grow out of high school.

In the same light, another co-worker of mine feels like everyone looks down on those of us not dressed in suits and short skirts and high heels. See, we are software engineers. We are technical folks who don’t have to stand in front of customers and lie to them. We fix the stuff that is broken, etc. Therefore, we are permitted to wear jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers. However, the majority of this building consists of marketing and sales folks, who are always dressed up. So, we’ve had snide comments about our general scruffiness and my co-worker’s stripy socks. They kind of look down upon us, partly because we dress for comfort and partly because sales folks in any business always look down on everyone else until they have to ask for a favor. (And maybe even then…) Consequently, my co-worker kind of feels that people are always looking down their noses at us. She feels very self conscious about it, too. I, on the other hand, have managed to ignore the majority of it, and be really mean about it when I do notice. Case in point: The other day, a group of three women were walking along the river, dressed up, giggling and talking. One tried to looked me up and down, and get this haughty look of superiority, so I laughed at her. Her reaction was great – she immediately looked away, and got really upset and looked like she was going to cry. No, I don’t believe that she actually cried. And, yeah, it might be really petty and low to want to make someone cry, but she wanted me to feel like I was crap, that I am beneath her, because I don’t wear makeup, I don’t color my hair, I don’t dress up and I am not shallow or vain enough to actually care what anyone thinks of me. So, I think she deserved it.

Well, that’s my rant for the day.