B: 8/30/02

Work Diary, 8/30/02

There is a woman who works in my building who is a sight to behold.
Actually, I think she's the owner of the printing shop on the first
floor because I've seen her driving around in this ridiculous Mercedes
(requisite cell phone pressed to ear).

Anyway, she has a helmet of hair that is literally two feet wide. She
can't be more than thirty-five or so, and really she has a very nice
figure and good taste in clothes. But her hair! It's that lemon blonde
color with the dark roots and it's poofed and puffed and blow-dried to
high heaven. She looks like one of those wobbly-headed Hawaiian dolls
you put on the dash of your car.

I think she must live in Cherry Creek, the cr?me-de-la-cr?me of Denver
neighborhoods that is actually just an over-priced suburb specializing
in old houses and big landscaping bills. I could never live there.
Denver is such a cow town; the residents of Cherry Creek grasp whatever
flimsy evidence they can of their own superiority, and it comes out in
the most disturbing ways: BMWs, Jaguars, Mercedes; the aforementioned
helmet o' hair; $10,000.00 gowns worn by sagging mummies at fundraisers
for starving children. Yuck.

I think what's interesting about the Helmet Lady is that somewhere, she
has a frame of reference for her appearance. It may be her peers, or
her hairdresser, or some Ivana Trump-ish socialite with no talent who's
merely famous for being rich. While Helmet Lady clearly has the money,
she somehow reminds me of those poor souls who save shopping bags from
ritzy stores and then walk around a mall, letting others know that
they, too, have money to burn.

It's all kind of depressing. But, then, if we were all the same, there
would be no one to mock and deride?so viva la difference?