We've done a remarkable amount of things this weekend already -- yesterday, since she got her new job that she starts on Monday, I told her that my plans for the day were to take her out to find some work clothing for it. Said job, even though it's on overnight shifts (for the time being) has a really strict dress code for its employees. Daisy has what I would call, ahem, eclectic tastes in clothing, as I've mentioned here before; she really doesn't have "dressy" clothing. She has clothing, of course, that she could wear to work at her old job, which (I will admit) is semi-dressy, but nothing that couldn't be worn out to say, a club, as well. And Daisy has a lot of clothing -- I've seen her closet, I know what's in there -- but the vast majority of it isn't business-appropriate under the dress code that her new job has. Also, while Daisy herself is a bit relieved at the fact that she'll soon have a paycheck coming in on a regular basis, she really doesn't have the money now to purchase what amounts to a new wardrobe.
Mind you, I'm sort of in this position myself, or will be in several months when I will start interviewing for more formal work -- I don't really have any "overly" dressy clothing either. I have clothing that's formal enough to get by, I suppose, but the vast majority of my own daily wardrobe consists of nerdy t-shirts, tie-dyes, and cargo pants/khakis. I don't own jeans (well, I have one pair of black jeans, but I never wear them), and I only have one pair of dress shoes -- a pair that, while comfortable, haven't been worn in about four years. Could I go to an interview and look very well put-together? Yes, of course, but so could/did Daisy. I wouldn't be able to work a job like hers without purchasing a ton of new shirts/ties/slacks myself.
My idea was to take her to the local Cato store -- a chain she'd never heard of before I mentioned it, by the way -- to see what she could find. For those uninitiated, Cato is basically like a Fashion Bug/Deb/Gap-type of store, and caters more towards actual women than fifteen-year-olds. They're also quite inexpensive and rather fashionable, and this is the time of the year where a lot of the more formal stuff -- longer skirts, slacks, dressy shirts -- are all put on clearance to make way for the summer apparel. Newton doesn't have a mall or even a real "department store" like place to get clothing; we don't even have a Kmart or an Old Navy up here. If you live here and you want clothing, you either order it online and hope for the best, or you buy the latest in Walmart fashions (and, again, hope for the best). Cato is basically the last bastion of civilization for any woman in this town who may want to dress professionally -- or, you drive 25 miles to Wichita or 35 to Hutchinson to shop at a real clothing store.
If Newton had any decent thrift stores left, I would've taken her to one or more of those as well, but since the only one that was worth going to up here (The Salvation Army) closed down over two years ago, there's nothing like that here anymore either. This town is where old people go to die.
Anyway, I'm belaboring the point.
After about two hours scouring the racks in Cato (including armfuls of clothing and two trips to the dressing room), Daisy had found a lot of good-looking outfits and stuff to wear. When she was finished (read: satisfied), she began thinking hard, making mental calculations.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm adding all of the stuff up in my head," she said, "to see how much I can actually afford to spend."
This sort of surprised me.
"Honey, do you think I would take you out clothes shopping for work, when I know you don't have any money until you get paid, and say something along the lines of 'well, here you go, buy it all,'? No. Duh. I'm buying all of this for you. Get whatever you want."
"No, you're not," she said. "I have money. You don't have to buy anything for me."
"Yes, I do. That's the whole point. I wanted to take you out and get work clothing for you. Why would you have assumed anything else?"
I have paid off all of my bills for the month already, including both of my credit cards which had balances. My electric and water bills are paid. The rent is paid. I even took the initiative after I got paid last week and repaid my mother the other $250 I owed her from last summer when she loaned me money to live on. My finances right now are completely in check, and I had no big expenses coming due aside from the seven or eight books left to order for comps. Daisy, meanwhile, has been living off her unemployment checks and her tax refunds, and does not have a lot of excess funds to work with. The plan all along was to get her whatever she wanted when I took her out.
"I'm getting it," I said with finality. "Don't worry about it. Get what you need, get what you want. I can afford it. You can't."
She finally relented (though she protested silently up until the moment where I slid my Citi card through the machine). The final haul? I'll quote her on it:
My darlin' took me shopping today for work: five skirts, one dress, two jackets, and three shirts.
Thanks suga' papi, ahem, Brandon.
The grand total was $116. And I was happy to do it. The bag of clothing easily weighed ten pounds or more, and if it helps her look formal for work (she got a lot of really gorgeous things, actually), then I'm even more happy to do it.
She did bring up later, however, how I always "do for her," but never let her do anything for me. I reminded her that every time she comes down here, she brings a veritable cornucopia of foods and/or little gifts for me, and the fact that she makes the journey at all is more than enough. I'm basically locked here in Kansas until I'm done with grad school (a huge factor in being stuck here and unable to really go anywhere or do anything, obviously) but also because it's not like my Monte Carlo is the most up-to-date and up-to-repair car on the planet. I want to do everything I can for my fiancee to make her visits comfortable and worthwhile, even if she says simply being with me is enough. Daisy is one of the most generous people I've ever met, and also hates it when people try to buy things for her or gift her with things. It's not like I'm trying to "buy her love" or repay her for anything, it's just who I am. All I want to do is make things easier on her and make her happy.
I did later relent, when we went to Walmart last night to look for baby clothes for her (a month away from birth) pregnant sister, and let her get me a $10 bag of almonds (she insisted). I do let her do little things like that from time to time because it makes her happy to do them. But, really, she's right -- when she's here, I do as much as I can for her. She made the comment last night that I "wait on her," meaning that if she needs something -- a glass of water, or an item from across the room, etc -- I get it for her, and jump to attention in doing so. She's not used to this. She also asked why I don't "let her in the kitchen," i.e., why don't you let me cook with/for you?
Well, the answer to that is multifaceted, really -- for one, while it is open and easy to move around in, my kitchen is rather small. Not super-small, but small enough. There's not a lot of counter space, and the lighting is dim because the overhead lights burned out a long time ago, and I can't figure out how to replace them (fluorescent lights, like you'd find in an office). Daisy and I are both large people, so it's not like both of us working in the kitchen at the same time really works that well most of the time. For two, when Daisy is here -- even though she and I are equals, and even though we're engaged to be married -- I still consider her my guest. She's the only other person who is ever in my home with me, unless Rae and Jay are visiting. It's the mentality of, to some extent, this is my home, so sit down and be my guest, let me serve you. This is mainly because I feel that she makes such sacrifices to spend time with me, what with the drive down here and back (which is taxing on her car to some extent, as well as her gas tank) and the fact that she always brings a bunch of stuff down here to eat/cook/feed me/etc. Getting out of the house to come down here for a weekend is like a mini-vacation for Daisy -- why should I be like "Okay, you're here; get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich" when she's here to be with me? I'm not that sort of guy anyway.
Also, to a smaller extent, I am...ahem...fairly particular about a lot of things. Since I live alone and am a bit obsessive about my home and where everything is/goes, Daisy (unknowingly, of course, and certainly unwillingly) disrupts my flow of normal life. This is not her fault, of course -- it's one of my own little mental quirks. I've noticed, for example, that almost always when we're getting ready to go out, that I sort of follow her around and talk to her a lot, watch her, etc. It wasn't even until this weekend, when she brought it to my attention jokingly that she didn't need supervision, that this is really what I was doing -- making sure she turns off the water, making sure she turns off lights, closes doors, puts things away in their proper places, doesn't leave out stuff where the cats can get it, etc. -- I realized that this is exactly what I'm doing. And really, it's mostly subconscious. I trust Daisy inherently, yet I get twitchy about my living space being...altered? disturbed? I don't know exactly how to phrase it. It's not her; she's a grown woman, she's intelligent, she knows I get twitchy about my stuff and compensates for that, yet I still find myself checking every door to make sure it's closed, checking the lights, the water faucets, etc. Again, one of my quirks. Again, pretty sure there's something wrong with me.
Ahem. Anyway.
As I've mentioned before many times, Daisy is not, by any sense of the word or stretch of the imagination, a nerd. Never has been. She once referred to Star Trek: The Next Generation as "that show with the bald guy and the one with the funny forehead. In space." While she is well-versed in things like RENT, Avenue Q, Anne of Green Gables and stuff of that ilk, she couldn't pick Darth Vader out of a lineup and has no clue what planet Superman is from (Krypton, for you nerd-luddites). While I was able to culture her a bit a month or two ago by showing her all of Firefly and Serenity, both of which she liked, it was only proper for me to continue that education by showing her where modern science fiction truly began -- and that involves, of course, invoking the Holy Trilogy.
I also shouldn't have to explain that the Holy Trilogy, of course, is the original three Star Wars films. The prequels, in case you were wondering, I refer to as the "Unholy Trilogy." I am one of the few people I know who defend the prequels, actually -- yes, they have their goofier moments, of course, but by and large they're good films in their own right. I am especially fond of Episode III, as I found it to be a fantastic wrap-up to what basically amounts to "the fall of Anakin Skywalker" story arc.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Daisy has never seen any of the Star Wars films. At most she says she's seen bits and pieces of them, a few minutes or moments at a time. She told me that as a child, she watched the beginning of Star Wars (Episode IV, A New Hope) and found it boring and slow, so she lost interest and never tried watching any of them again. This is a situation, of course, that I wanted to rectify -- because, really, no one should be in their twenties (or older) without having seen at least the first three films. I do firmly believe this, actually -- these are films that shaped our entire pop-culture environment, films that changed how people make movies period since their releases. I believe the Holy Trilogy is universal; anyone can watch them and enjoy them, and understand what's going on within them.
I don't meet many people who have never seen the films; when I do, as it's so rare, I absolutely delight in introducing those people to them. Of course, there's always the backstory to traverse as well -- I had to explain to Daisy why they were made out of chronological order, and why they'd been re-released over and over ("Special Edition" and all that) briefly, so that she could get her bearings, but I'm wondering if that was even necessary. I have the DVD releases of the films, all of which include both the Special Editions as well as the normal theatrical presentations -- yes, I made sure to jump on those while I still had the chance to get them before the Blu-ray releases -- so I had the choice of which ones she could see.
I will state now that I chose the Special Editions for Star Wars and Empire, and the theatrical presentation for Jedi. Mainly because, even though there's the controversial Greedo/Han scene in Star Wars, there's also a few added scenes that weren't available in the original version, such as the scene with Jabba in Mos Eisley and Luke's added interactions with Biggs and his friends, which rounds out the film a bit more and explains things a little more deeply. For Empire not a lot is different; they update the special effects and backgrounds a bit here and there, and they redid the conversation Vader has with the Emperor to make it more up-to-date -- as well as replacing Boba Fett's voice actor with Temeura Morrison for continuity issues and....wow, I'm going way too in-depth with this, aren't I? Ahem. Let's continue.
Daisy told me a while back that she would watch the films with me if it was important to me that she do so. It is, of course. I want to foster in her the childlike fascination and grand scope of rich storytelling that I had when watching these films for the first time. It's like a gift I wanted to give her. Come, darling, join me in my world. Again, to me it's like an education of sorts. She's been educated in a completely different style and manner than I have when it comes to pop-culture stuff; I want to open her to a whole new side of that world. It's not a forceful thing (ahem, no pun intended), but more of a "honey, let me show you a big part of why I'm the person I am" sort of thing. The bonus in watching the films, of course, is that she'll now get a lot more of my nerdier references, such as how I refer to my Monte Carlo as the Millennium Falcon. "Hear me, baby? Hold together" and all that.
How did she fare? Well, I'll have to answer that in my next post here...
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