I wish I was like you, easily amused

The AFI Silver held their SILVERDOCS documentary film festival last week and had several very good documentaries.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see any of them.  There was one in particular that caught my eye.  I stumbled on this review for the film.  I’ve written about the Rape of Nanking briefly before relating a story that my grandmother told me while she was in Nanking.  While not nearly as monumental as the Holocaust, it is undoubtedly just as tragic.  Hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were raped maimed and killed by the Japanese army.  It’s getting a wide release before Christmas this year and I urge you to go see it.  Or go read The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang.  Just be prepared for some very disturbing pictures in the book and, what I would assume, scenes in the movie.  The pictures in the book are more disturbing than the video in the Holocaust museum where you have to look over the wall.

On to less serious matters.  Having lived in the D.C. area all of my life, I have always viewed tourists with a bit of contempt.  Now that I work and live in the district, I can’t stand them at all.  I understand D.C. is chock full of history and a huge tourist spot, but as everyone in the area knows, tourists simply do not know how to use the metro.  Walk left, stand right.  Don’t stop at the end of the escalator unless you want to get run over by a gaggle of angry people rushing to get to work.  And for chrissakes, move to the middle of the friggin’ car.  You will have plenty of time to get off the train and I don’t appreciate getting smushed against the door by some large midwestern woman.  It really isn’t pleasant, for either of us.

With my first real job, I’m slowly remembering why I hate wearing socks, and shoes for that matter.  I’m lucky that I don’t have to wear a suit and tie everyday.  Just slacks and a collared shirt.  But, obviously, you wear dress socks with your dress shoes.  Now, common practice with dress socks is to pull them up all the way just under your knee.  You look like a complete mook with bunched up socks around your ankles.  This is not the early 90s, Andrea.

Unfortunately, socks have a tendency, by about 2  in the afternoon, to sink down and begin to bunch up.  As is common practice, you pull your socks back up.  The only problem is, the second time around, you somehow manage to pull every hair out of your leg.  At least that’s what it feels like.  For the next couple hours your legs feel, not so much painful, but perhaps slightly irritated or uncomfortable.  Well, okay, its a bit painful.  If you are a woman I don’t think you can understand this phenomenon.  I imagine this is what Gulliver felt like when the Lilliputians shot him with tiny arrows.  Why this doesn’t happen the first time you pull your socks up is beyond me.  But, I’m not complaining.