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Europe was meant to have been a sort of finishing school. Her parents had negotiated over her year off, trading off six months with her dad in Seattle, interning with a computer games company against her mothers best wishes, for seven months in Europe developing her tastes for the finer things.
Well, her tastes had certainly developed while she was in London. She didn't spend a great deal of time in art galleries and museums, though. Instead she hung around markets and fetish fairs, rock gigs and festivals, Slimelight and Torture Garden. She worked as a model, as a runner, as a film extra - anything she could do cash in hand while she worked on erasing her accent and staying one step ahead of anything that didn't look like fun. The last thing she wanted to be taken for is a nice upper middle class girl who finished private school top of her class. Instead of the glories of classical Greece and Renaissance Italy, she visited German festivals and Scandinavian sleezecore clubs. She came back with a barcode tattooed on her wrist, a portfolio her parents knew nothing about, dreads, piercings and really big shoes.
Her parents agree with each other, without question, that, well, it's the way young people are these days, and it's ok, because IT people are meant to look different. Her dad tells her mother that in his company, the branch offices vie to have the weirdest looking techs as something like a stamp of quality, and maybe something like departmental mascots. He doesn't say the last part out loud, but he takes a certain pleasure from sounding 'with it', and having his ex wife agree with him for a change.
***** ***** *****
Originally posted 31st March 2003
Well, her tastes had certainly developed while she was in London. She didn't spend a great deal of time in art galleries and museums, though. Instead she hung around markets and fetish fairs, rock gigs and festivals, Slimelight and Torture Garden. She worked as a model, as a runner, as a film extra - anything she could do cash in hand while she worked on erasing her accent and staying one step ahead of anything that didn't look like fun. The last thing she wanted to be taken for is a nice upper middle class girl who finished private school top of her class. Instead of the glories of classical Greece and Renaissance Italy, she visited German festivals and Scandinavian sleezecore clubs. She came back with a barcode tattooed on her wrist, a portfolio her parents knew nothing about, dreads, piercings and really big shoes.
Her parents agree with each other, without question, that, well, it's the way young people are these days, and it's ok, because IT people are meant to look different. Her dad tells her mother that in his company, the branch offices vie to have the weirdest looking techs as something like a stamp of quality, and maybe something like departmental mascots. He doesn't say the last part out loud, but he takes a certain pleasure from sounding 'with it', and having his ex wife agree with him for a change.
***** ***** *****
Originally posted 31st March 2003