Poshdeluxe

so a few weeks back, i found my copy of “girlfriend in a coma” (douglas coupland) that i thought i had lost while traveling. hallelujah!!

before i lent it to my friend erik, i typed out two of my favorite quotes from the book, both of which are funny and yet very scary (typical coupland).

i wish i was reading for fun. instead of reading apps. oh well. enjoy!

“Imagine you’re a forty-year-old, Richard,” Hamilton said to me aound this time, wile working as a salesman at a Radio Shack in Lynn Valley, “and suddenly somebody comes up to you saying, ‘Hi, I’d like you to meet Kevin. Kevin is eighteen and will be making all of your career decisions for you.’ *I’d* be flipped out. Wouldn’t you? But that’s what life is all about– some eighteen year old kid making your big decisions for you that stick for a lifetime.”

******

What she doesn’t tell Richard, though, is that in a strange way her old friends aren’t really adults– they *look* like adults but iinside they’re not really. They’re stunted; lacking something. And they all seem to be working too hard. The whole *world* seems to be working too hard. Karen seems to remember leisure and free time as being important aspects of life, but thse qualities seem utterly absent from the world she now sees in both real life and on TV. Work work work work work work.

Look at this! Look at this! People are always showing Karen new electronic doodads. They talk about their machines as though they possess a charmed religious quality– as if these machines are supposed to compensate for their owners’ inner failings. Granted, these new things are wonders– email, faxes, and cordless phones– but then still… big deal.

“Hamilton, but what about *you*– are you new and improved and faster and better, too? I mean, as a result of your fax machine?”

“It’s swim or drown, Kare. You’ll get used to them.”

“Oh, *will* I?”

“It’s not up for debate. We lost. Machines won.”