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On the walk to the tanning parlor under broken umbrella I conjured synonyms for the weather: bleak, dreary, grim, dismal, murky, gloomy. I wish I'd remembered stygian and tenebrous but that's what a thesaurus is for (or is that a kind of dinosaur?). It was my first time rent-a-tanning. I'd always thought of it as a tacky expression of vanity, but the relentless grey of this dark season sent me and Sarah scuttling through the dank afternoon in search of light therapy. It was my first time and I still don't trust this radiation casket which fries your skin in 6 minutes flat, but it did feel good, even if the cooling fans blew so loud I found myself imagining I was on a beach beside an interstate. Very few things today retain such a futuristic aura. Cars, phones, computers all look dated surprisingly fast, but the glowing sarcophagus of a tanning bed still elicits science fiction comparisons. Not so much the suspended animation pods of A Space Odyssey or Planet of the Apes, but more the shabby and absurd attempts of the hairy astronauts in Dark Star to replicate their lost natural world with technology. |
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