Fancy Penhaligon’s orange blossom water from London..or Listerine? Photo: Wikipedia
Perhaps this is a frivolous tip.
But a few weeks ago, I realized my shampoo was terrible. It was also expensive, from a shop that sells fancy French skincare and bath products. They make a lot of products I love — and my mother is such a huge fan she should be making a commission at this point for all the people she’s turned onto the brand — but the shampoo? Poo. At least for me. I kept using it though, because it seemed a shame to throw it out at that price and the bottle was gorgeous. So I kept washing my hair with the poo-shamp. But it finally had to stop. My hair is wimpy.
So to Walgreen’s I went the next day, determined to offset the high price I paid for the poo-shamp by getting some Pert this time around. I figured Pert has been on the market so long (28 years!) there’s gotta be something to it. But when I got to the drugstore and stood in the shampoo section, my soul cried. I hate, hate, hate a big plastic bottle of drugstore shampoo in my shower. Why?
Subliminally, every time I see a big drugstore bottle of shampoo, I envision myself as a freshman in my college dorm, walking to the showers with my ugly plastic bucket of toiletries: pink Bic razor; over-perfumed shower gel from Bath & Body Works; a gummy bar of soap; a toothbrush and near-gone toothpaste tube…and a big bottle of, for example, Garnier Fructis. That bilious green. That ridiculous copy on the back about silk and strength. The enormous bottle itself, enormous because Proctor & Gamble has to get the cost of the bottle up to $6.99 and the stuff only costs $.06 to make, so hey, give ’em a gallon.
But standing there, dreading making my purchase, it hit me: it’s not the product I hate. It’s the container. So… Pour the expensive poo-shamp out of the gorgeous bottle. Fill the gorgeous bottle with Pert. I could consciously fake myself out and be so happy.
And this is just what I did. I went home and did the shampoo shuffle and it totally works. Even though I know the fancy bottle does not contain $20 shampoo, it feels like $20 shampoo because of the bottle. My life has totally changed. Do I need expensive shampoo? No. Do I need to feel happy and fancy in my shower? Yes, because I just do. But I can have both.
Also, Pert is not necessarily a product you need to run out and get.
Trader Joe’s. This one is in Connecticut; I was in the one in Charlottesville but they look exactly the same. Dissociated, yet? Photo: Wikipedia
Poking Gala apples in the Charlottesville, VA Trader Joe’s this afternoon, I heard an astonished voice say, “Mary??” And so it was that a wildly unexpected reunion began. This story is not going where you think it’s going. Stay with me.
I turned to see a man from my past (not that kind of man, not that kind of past) approaching me from the bulk nuts. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“It’s Jeff!” the man said, and so it was.
Jeff. Jeff from Milwaukee. My sweet friend Jeff who I met fresh off bus in Chicago in 2001. Jeff, who I haven’t seen in years. Jeff, who is married to Karen, whom I also love and haven’t seen in years because Jeff and Karen, married with children now, have always been connected at the hip and now live in Milwaukee. Here was Jeff, standing in front of me in a Trader Joe’s in Charlottesville, Virginia. Incredible. I gasped like I’d seen a ghost — not incorrect — and I body-slammed him, bubbling over with with joy and surprise. My eyes stung and we hugged hard.
We pulled back to get a good look at each other, smiling like crazy and laughing. Jeff! God, that bushy beard. Those twinkling eyes. The smart glasses. The sort of face, now with a fatherly tone to it, that says, “I own a lot of books” and “I know what good beer tastes like.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, breathless.
“I live here!” Jeff said.
This is when things took a hard left turn into a parallel universe where reality meant nothing and I wanted to crawl into a hole. See, Jeff didn’t say, “We live here.” He said, “I live here.” But remember, Jeff and his now-wife Karen are basically two halves of one person and I hadn’t heard anything had changed. Since Jeff didn’t say, “We live here,” it could be that Jeff and Karen were no longer together and Jeff moved to Charlottesville as a bachelor. Surely I didn’t hear him right.
“Wow! Okay … So … Karen and… You guys live here now, then?”
Jeff corrected me. “Karen? No, Jody.”
Jody. The spinning wheel of death appeared in my head. Jody. No. So did they? But… What? Karen. Jeff. Who is Jody? Hang on: Jeff. Bushy beard Jeff who I haven’t seen in… Wait. Is this… Oh, god.
My friend gave me a very strange look. “It’s Jeff. From Iowa City.”
Then, because I was surely looking a shade too neanderthal to not treat with kindness and caution, he gave me more information in a gentle tone. “The Motley Cow? Restaurant? Iowa City?”
I had the wrong Jeff. I had mistaken a very special, dear Jeff from my past for another very special, dear Jeff from my past. I wouldn’t believe this story if I heard it.
This Jeff and I worked at the same restaurant together for years in Iowa City. Jeff bartended. I waited tables. We were good friends. We didn’t drive each other to the airport, but we solved all the world’s problems many times over, late into the night with the rest of the gang. This Jeff gave me my first lessons in wine and shared music with me that was way, way better than the stuff I was listening to. Music and booze and making good money over a packed Friday night dinner shift — this is the stuff bonds are made of. So seeing This Jeff and understanding him to be Iowa City Jeff would have elicited the exact same response from me. But I had the wrong guy.
Please, please try to understand and take mercy on me: Iowa City Jeff now looks identical to Milwaukee Jeff did when I saw him last: same build, same eyes, same glasses, same smile, same cheeks, same (face obscuring!!!!!) beard, same haircut, same height. I’m telling you. I’m telling you. But I was so horribly embarrassed. There was this effusive, insanely happy reunion moment shared with a real friend who then realized he was mistaken for someone else. If that had happened to me, at best it would have been awkward; at worst, it would’ve been offensive and reason to feel pretty lousy. Who doesn’t remember friends? (Don’t answer that.)
We were laughing about it by the end of the (great) conversation. I saw pictures of Jeff’s son and wife, Jody. We caught up on a few people from the restaurant. Jeff told me he knows what I’ve been up to because he reads PaperGirl regularly; thanks, buddy. He actually said, “I’m going to be a blog post tonight, I think.” I told him he thought correctly.
My friend Claus saw all of this happen from the other side of the apple stand, by the way. After Jeff went his way, we went ours and my friend, who had witnessed the entire thing from the other side of the apple stand, told me it was the best theater he had ever seen. I don’t know if it was the best theater I’ve ever seen, but it was certainly the truest comedy of errors I have ever experienced.
It was good to see you today, Jeff. So very good to see you.
Lady in White, 2015. Navy Yard Plaza, Washington, DC. Photo: Me
My friend takes a lot of pictures. No, like, really a lot.
He’s a tourist, so that explains some of it. But he’s also a foreign tourist, which means there are even more photos taken every time we walk out the door. I know from personal experience that when in a foreign country, the number of pictures taken grows exponentially. “Hey, look at that bird on the piazza!” Click. “Hey, look at that other bird on the piazza!” Click. “Is that a cool pizza in the window of that bakery or what!” Click.
As a result of being around all this photography, I’m taking more pictures than I usually do. I have a beautiful Leica camera that I’ve taken with me on some of the day trips, but most of the time I just use my phone’s camera like everyone else. I’m reminded how enjoyable it is to take pictures. It’s like a treasure hunt. I love to find alternative perspectives and unexpected frames. I like seeing things that we might miss and giving them the spotlight. The photo above is from a series (fancy!) that I took while sitting on the low perimeter of the big fountain in the Navy Yard Plaza the other day. I have two dozen pictures like this, all of different people who passed smack in the middle of my view. No heads, just bodies. It’s incredible, the diversity I captured. East Indian, black, white, short, large, two people holding hands, a child, a shopping bag, a disabled person, etc. It was so fun, so interesting to me.
But I can’t take up photography in any serious way. Not now. I’ve got room for one go-to for life interp and it’s writing. I can’t process anything without writing it down and though it’s just chicken scratches that result in me being only dimly aware of what I experience, I can’t leave it for pictures. A picture tells a thousand words so I’d save time, but I like a thousand words. I like two thousand words twice as much.
It must be really fun to be subsidized by a rich uncle (he could be dead or alive, doesn’t matter.) You could interpret life all day long in using any number of mediums: you could look at pictures and write words and compose music all examining what life means while you take a bath in gold coins.
Detail, Pueblo Indian garment, National Museum of the American Indian. Photo: Me
To the number of friends I need to return calls and texts from: forgive me. Feeling poorly then mustering the will to still get out and do things with my friend before he leaves has me stretched a thin. I will repay you in cups of coffee shared in an air-conditioned cafe. It is so blinkin’ hot and humid here everyone is constantly wet and warm to the touch. It’s sexy, really.
Yesterday, I spent time at the National Museum of the American Indian. Between that visit and the visit a few days ago to the Museum of American History, my patriotism looks like it’s been taken into a back alley and been given a lesson with a baseball bat.
Here’s a definition for you:
patriot (n.) A person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors
I’m on board with the “prepared to defend it against enemies” part. If Country X tried to invade my hometown of Winterset, IA., I’m on the next plane to Des Moines and I’ll be taking that baseball bat with me, thank you very much. I could not understand how someone would choose not to defend their home against someone who wanted to take it. There’s pacifism and there’s pacifism.
But Dictionary, you usually solve all my problems and this time you have not. This is not helpful, Dictionary: “a person who vigorously supports their country.” Dictionary, either you’re being vague or the word “patriot” (and “patriotism”) is problematic. I think it’s the latter, Dictionary, but don’t go anywhere, yet.
I support democracy as a concept. I support the idea of state’s rights and federal rights. I vigorously support freedom of speech, the freedom to assemble, definitely a free press, etc. But to “support [my] country” is impossible. Straight up, no chaser, support my country? No way. That would imply blind faith. It would imply the end of inquiry. It would imply I’m not reading the news. It would imply that everything I saw yesterday at the American Indian Museum about white settlers’ merciless cruelty toward and ungodly ruin of the people living peacefully in what is now Winterset, IA (for example) was justified and played out just the way it should’ve played out. I don’t support that. I reject that and need to excuse myself to go vomit. Am I still a patriot?
Perhaps being a patriot means questioning all of this, being an active participant in the discussion of one’s national culture or national identify. But that’s not what you said it means, Dictionary, and in a few days I’ll be at Monitcello and there are slave’s quarters there, so.
She’s asking for her laptop and headphones. Image: A woman in bed in a sick-room, attended by a physician, receiving the blessing of the Madonna del Parto, 1872.
A couple days ago I fell sick. I’ve been feeling well for a good stretch, so this was a drag on a number of levels. Living alone, such spells — when not hospital-bad — come and go and I do what I do to get well and that’s basically that. But my German friend is visiting and I am therefore not just sick but being observed being sick and I’ve been considering how this alters the sick one’s experience. I want to work in that quantum-physics phenomenon about how the behavior of something will change when being observed, but all I could find were five different names for it and something about a cat, so I’d better leave it alone.
There are three problems with having someone around when you’re ill. The first problem is that you need help but you also feel like going into a dark corner and snarling when anyone gets close, wounded animal-style. This is a conflict. The second problem is the mirror problem. When a little kid turfs out on her tricycle, it’s not the skinned knee that makes her wail; it’s the look on her parents’ faces. They panic or look really concerned and bam: the fall is now a Huge Deal, cue sobs. Being sick and observed is a little like that. Yes, my guts are mutinying; yes, I’m walking around like a ninety-year-old. But if I were alone, I’d probably just feel crappy, frustrated, and seventy-years-old. The look on my friend’s face when I shudder and sink into my easy chair makes my state way worse.
The third problem is the fixer-upper problem. Like any caring person, my friend wants very much to fix me, to fix the situation; I’ve dealt with this kind of beautiful, valued concern for years and you mustn’t think I resent it. But idea after idea (e.g., “What if you ate more yogurt?”), suggestion after suggestion (e.g., “You need to sleep eight hours; no less”), and indeed remonstration after remonstration, (e.g., “You put so much pressure on yourself, Mary” and “You travel too much,” etc.) serves to make a person feel guilty and that her behavior is the problem. If only I could find the perfect food formula, if only I would change one thing about my lifestyle, if only I would be someone else, then I would be okay — and be okay forever. Talk about pressure.
Should I live alone forever? Am I less ill if I am alone? Is any person with chronic illness or even a bad cold less ill when in solitude? This is a worthy question to consider and I’m sure I’m not the first to consider it.
It’s also true that I do not notice the gallons of tea I drink every day until someone points it out.
