- there was this guy in minneapolis - he was short and tucked his shirt in, he was in advertising or graphic design - straight out of collage job - i didn't know people with jobs, let alone careers - or trajectories. he hated me - in a deep soulless way. he would make announcements at the urban bean coffee shop "she doesn't live in manhattan proper - she lives in brooklyn." he would make sure he stood on a curb when critiquing my reading material and shame me for going to a school that didn't require latin. he said being around me was like putting lipstick on a pig. - i had no idea what this idiom meant -i figured it was a midwestern thing - i had gone to the state fair that summer and seen the "oink booth" - people cuddled up in cages stroking the bristly hair on their snouts calming the animal before the slaughter. i called my mother and told her about the boy and the insults and the idiom. she told me it was a nasty thing to say to a woman and we both, my mother and i preferred "throwing pearls at swine" if you choose to use a pig in a crude comment - the imagery of swine swatting hooves to grab pearls is sort of charming. anyway, if a pig wants to wear lipstick - let it. if a pig want to fly a spaceship let her that too.