It's not all melted cheese

I got my packet of documents from the HR department of my new employer today, and they very kindly included a copy of the Fox Valley Magazine, to give me a sense of the place. All kinds of things in the magazine are freaking me out, but the one freaking me out the very most is an article on places to eat in town where they have messy food that will make you need lots of napkins. The photos accompanying the article show two different gigantic, overstuffed, obscenely large sandwiches on open buns. One of them was a meatball sandwich with tomato sauce that looked to have about two pounds of cheese melted on it. How am I going to manage that kind of food when it's all around, all the time?

But then I've started to be reminded of the nice things about America as well. I was reading my new issue of The New Yorker, and now all the ads are aimed at me (I have a sudden desire to buy myself a Mini to drive, but that's another discussion...). I went to see a really mediocre movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones in it, but her clothes in the film are just fabulous, so I guess you can buy fabulous clothes in America, and the interiors were glamorous with lots of wood trim and etc., so American has at least some houses in it that look, on the inside, just like Surry Hills terraces.

I will be myself there. I don't have to eat two pounds of melted cheese for lunch, if I don't want to (if I do, it will be there for me). I don't have to live in a suburban mansion. I can still live somewhere cool, with modernist furniture, if I want to. I can still wear lots of black. I can retain my class and intellectualism (people who actually know me are laughing now - "Class? Her?" Maybe I'm just classy on the inside).

And at the bottle shop on the way home I was headed to the back corner and trying to decide between Crown and Toohey's Blue, wondering which one I will miss more (my sister drinks Toohey's Blue all the time at home, they're importing it now, so I'm sure it won't be scarce). And then I stopped short and turned to the exotic imported beer fridge instead. So, sitting waiting for me in my fridge right this moment is a whole six-pack of Budweiser.

God bless America.