Bright Lights, Big Daddy
Straight Guy,
Christmas approaches.
To say that I am nowhere near ready for Christmas would imply that I have started getting ready. I took the plunge on Saturday and followed the star in the sky that is the red bull's eye of Target. I had steeled myself for a madhouse, but the store was pretty calm. The aisles were busy, but not clogged. Except for indoor/outdoor holiday lighting, that is.
It's not the number of people in holiday lighting that was remarkable, but 1) it was almost all men and 2) they were immobile, settled in for slow, deep, ponderous deliberation. Myself included.
Lighting is still in the cave man's domain. There were a few women there, but they had gotten the signal that they had entered the man sphere. The women acted as consultants, as in "No, we don't need a string of 300," but that's about it. I know that I sound sexist, but I'm just reporting.
The lighting aisle was a guy bonding experience. This neighborhood is newly gentrified, so it's pretty integrated across the gay/straight divide. Married, single, dads, gays, couples, we were engrossed in deliberation and comparison. This is serious work. There are a lot of choices to be made: multi-colored, white, blinking, rope, candle-shaped, bulb-shaped, round, frosted, clear, icicles, string. It took me about 30 minutes just to confirm my that my choice of a box of basic tiny white string lights was the right one. (And it is. They are very pretty.)
--Gay Guy
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4 comments:
My other half is a lighting designer so spending 30 minutes to assess and discuss the merits of lighting is nothing for us.
If he heads to the lighting aisle, I try to find a starbucks that I can call home for the afternoon.
We're also left alone to deal with replacing burnt out bulbs, which is, by far, the least enjoyable holiday tradition at my house.
My wife put the lights on the tree this year. I'm such a eunuch.
My dad put up the tree and got the lights on it. Then he grabbed a PBR and let my mom and me do the prettyfing with the ornaments.
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