I got one of the coolest compliments yesterday. I bumped into the always lovely Carissa in the cafeteria and told her how hot she looked. And she said ‘Well, not as hot as Saturday night.’ To which I said ‘Do tell!’ and she said ‘Sit down! I will!’ and then we made excited girly noises, because we knew that there would be some extraordinary bonding happening.
So she told me about her great date that she had on Saturday night, with a hottie boy who was a good kisser. She was at a bar in the sticks and another woman was telling her that she was too pretty for that town, too pretty to even be in that town. Carissa, having been actually born and raised in that very town, explained that she was indeed a country girl, but she works in the city. However, she viewed this conversation as a testament to just how well she has done by listening to my fashion pointers. And then we discussed how in the last year, she went from dressing older than she is to wearing proper support garments, having her hair streaked, cute glasses, hottie clothes and cute shoes. And Penny has also been testing the fashion waters, having abandoned her 80’s hair for cute perky hair, now wears leather pants on occasion, and even wears lipstick. And now both of them have positive outside affirmation that I have their best interest in mind and that even though it might be painful and somewhat outside of their comfort zone, it will help them to become better people. Or very at least, embrace their inner hotness.
‘And,’ Carissa said, ‘we have you to thank for it. I will never doubt you again.’
I feel like a Fashion Yoda. Seriously, they shouldn’t be feeding my already too-large ego. I might just forget that my best work is with the details and start thinking I can talk someone out of their plastic jogging suit and mullet. The mark of a true artiste is in knowing their limitations. And yes, I’ve begun to think of myself as an artiste, but instead of oils and canvas, I work in Lanc’me and Victoria’s Secret. With a touch of Hootchie Mama.
Speaking of that, one of my friends has got some horrible undereye wrinklies happening. Every time I see them, I want to spackle on some Clinique Moisture Surge eye stuff. It’s painful. It really is. I’m about to have an eye intervention. Because seriously, people, don’t mess with your skin. And if you’re reading this and are wondering if I’m possibly referring to you, then yes, it’s you. If you have to wonder, then it’s you. Get yourself some eye cream and wrinkle no more.
In other news, Esteban came to bed last night and said ‘I used your crappy expensive soap.’
‘My Soap!? You used my Soap? You are not allowed to use The Soap! No using The Soap!’
‘It doesn’t lather worth a damn and the lather is gray. Also, I smell like wet laundry that’s been left in the washer on a hot summer day.’
‘That’s right! It sucks! Don’t be using my Soap!’
Because Fashion Yoda gets to keep some Jedi beauty secrets to herself.
It’s cold here.
I know, I know, oxymoron. You’re screaming at me: It’s Wisconsin, you idiot, what do you expect? But even still’ sometimes, it’s so cold that it’s shocking.
I haven’t been wearing my jacket, because winter has been but a joke up until this point. Seriously, aside from shivering in a pre-cemetary on Saturday (later at the post-funeral lunch, Mo was walking behind me up to the dessert bar and said ‘Have you dropped some weight? Your ass looks smaller.’ And I had to stop myself from saying ‘Yeah, I think it froze off back at the cemetery.’ I am much less funny in real life.) I haven’t really been cold yet this winter. The weather has been fiddling around in the mid twenties and even upper thirties. One day last week, it was almost 50. That’s insanity, right there. I was walking around outside in a t-shirt and a hoodie and not even batting an eye. That’s crazy Californian logic.
But now’ shit. Or as we would say in Wisconsin, shee-it, as though that word encompassed so much that it needs two syllables and is indeed all you need to know about everything.
Through some bit of divine intervention, I decided to wear my jacket this morning. Yesterday, it was in the teens, and that is a little too cold for even me to bear in just a turtleneck and fleece pullover. Thus, I put on my jacket, ran out to the car, cursing myself for not starting it early, and plunked down shivering in the driver’s seat, and started the car. I pulled halfway down the driveway before realizing that I couldn’t see out the windshield and my lazy trick of shooting windshield wiper fluid on the frost wasn’t working because the fluid was going syrupy and then wiping into this frozen schmear, obliterating everything. So instead, I sat there, waiting for the seat heater to thaw my hind quarters and the windows to clear. Then the fog on my rearview mirror froze and I checked the electronic thermometer.
5.
Huh, I thought. That’s pretty cold.
Then I blinked and looked at it again.
-5.
Shee-it.
It was then that I sucked it up and put on gloves. It took 25 minutes for the car to warm up enough to drive it. The roads are frozen. My cell phone is very possibly broken. You turn it on and then it sluggishly displays every graphic all at once in slow motion. I think I actually felt it shiver. On my drive in, the radio told me that with the wind chill, it feels like ’37.
I don’t know if the rest of the country knows what that kind of cold feels like. It’s almost unbelievable. You can feel your boogers because they are little diamonds inside your nose. If you’re wearing earrings, your body temperature can’t compete with the heat loss and the metal quickly goes frigid. If you spit, it freezes and cracks when it hits the pavement. Your hands don’t exist. Your feet are a memory. You feel like you’re never going to get warm again for the rest of your life.
Once upon a time on a January 6th, I was landing in Key West International Airport, which smelled like coconut oil and tourists. On this day one year ago, I was landing in New Orleans International Airport, which smelled like red beans and rice and voodoo. And on this January 6th, I get in a car and it smells like nothing because smells fall from the air like ice cubes when it’s 37 degrees below with the wind chill.
Right now, as I’m writing this three and a half hours later. The sun is up and it’s 2 degrees. Two tiny degrees that you can rub together like sticks, trying to start a fire. Put those two degrees in your pocket and save them for nightfall because baby, it’s cold outside.
Dear Ofelia Higgins,
Much to our shared dismay, I do not in fact have a penis and therefore cannot take advantage of your offer to enlarge it. However, should the need ever, er, arise, I will certainly let you know. Also, I feel for your unfortunate moniker, but take heart, as when I was growing up, one of my great aunts knew of a girl named Ofelia Bumps, which seems a little indecorous to say the least. Was that you? Did you get married? Did you enlarge his penis? Perhaps I’ve been too personal, but then, it could be argued that your assumption of my small penis was as well, so I guess we’re even.
Ksielja,
Weetabix
