Growth

It is hot here in Baltimore. How hot is it?

It’s SO hot… that my cheap ass consented to getting a window air conditioner for the bedroom, and even using the whole house A/C for a couple of days last week.

It’s SO hot… that even though the garden is not situated ideally for full sun, the peppers are growing like mad.

It’s SO hot… that I spent the entire un-airconditioned light rail ride down to Artscape getting mad at hair. See, this thing happens every time I decide to make a change to my hair. About a month and a half ago, I decided I was going to let it grow long again, but the thing about a change in hair with me is that it is never just a change in hair. It always turns into a referendum on femininity and lifestyle, and anything else I can come up with. I looked around the train at all the girls with braids and ponytails, and hair still damp wrapped up into twists, and I remembered that feeling of having so much more hair. Do I REALLY want to walk around in the summer feeling like I have a sweater on my head? Am I really OK with giving up the convenience and practicality of being able to get out of the shower and walk out the door five minutes later looking presentable, because the only thing I have to do with my hair is run my hands through it and go, and it does not take three hours to dry? Am I really ok with giving up the certainty that my hair will look good every day? Curly hair with any real length is completely unpredictable, like having a bipolar muppet on my head. Three decades of AAAANNNNNNIMAAAAAAALLLLLL! on my head was a long time. And furthermore, men who like long hair on women can suck it, unless they too have experienced at least one really hot summer with bipolar muppets on their heads. By the time I got to North Avenue, I was ready to revert to an inch-long haircut, and while I’m at it dye it purple, just because I can, because it would be gone in six weeks anyway and I AM A GROWN-UP AND I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT, INCLUDING HAVING A PUNK-ASS HAIRCUT. Suck it, middle age.*

Seriously, it’s been really hot out.

Artscape was lovely. I went early in the day before it got too crowded, and it was fun to see the work of people I know, and artists I recognize from last year.

Because Scott is sick, I was on my own, so I went on a mission to find him an extremely ridiculous t-shirt to lift his spirits. He has a cold, but he is not just sick, he is MAN sick, so he is suffering. Women get sick in a very general way. I feel terrible, leave me alone and let me sleep for two days. Men get sick in great detail. Give even the most reticent, stony man a cold, heck, give Calvin Coolidge a cold, and suddenly Silent Cal is profoundly in touch with every feeling and sensation he is experiencing, and he wants to express this to any one who will listen. Sequentially. Repeatedly. From the first little twitch. Now I understand why the age-old remedy for colds is lots of sleep and lots of fluids. Sleeping and drinking are two activities during which it is impossible to complain.**

All that aside, I was successful in my mission. At the SEIBEI booth, I found this design for Scott, which is hilarious for anyone who has a dog. Dog digestion is a wonder. Take a dog outside every hour, and every hour, that dog -regardless of what or how much he has been fed- will find something to poop. It is as if all dogs have some kind of poop reserve, the same way camels store water.

I also found a shirt for myself, buried in the bottom of the SEIBEI clearance bin.

I absolutely fucking love this shirt. I love it so much that I bought it even though it had sleeves, and came home and age-inappropriately removed the sleeves myself. I just cannot deal with sleeves. Long sleeves in cold weather are lovely, but I am an all or nothing kind of gal, and once the weather is warm enough to eschew long sleeves, there will be NO SLEEVES. Short sleeves are for wusses. Well, wusses and people who have excessively hairy armpits and use solid deodorant, because really, who wants to consider the possibility that someone else’s armpit hair / deodorant ball is going to end up in their food / face / gym equipment? Gentlemen take note.

There is another version of the shirt picture, and while I know this will be amusing only to people who were in Mrs. Bintner’s 12th grade honors English class, yes I WAS channeling Mrs. Bintner stomping around between the desks talking about Götterdämmerung.***

Also of note in this picture: no toenail polish. The polish I was using left my nails looking yucky when bare, but I have been using a base coat (and buffing and shining and smoothing) long enough now that everything is looking happy and pink again. Sadly, though, the polish must go back on tomorrow. I will not be able to go completely bare or in a very light color until the bruise grows out from one of my toenails – product of dropping a full can of bathroom cleaner right on the spot where the nail meets the skin, earlier in the year. I think this is proof that I have no business cleaning bathrooms.

One last thing: while I was out taking pictures in the rapidly growing garden this week, I thought it would be fun to follow Max around holding the camera under his face. This nifty shot was the result.

*On the other hand, it’s nice not to need an expensive haircut every five weeks. I don’t know.
**That’s right. Men do this while women do this. I “went there.”
***I also learned, in the process of taking these pictures, that if I need a full body picture and no one is around to take the picture, or my picture-taker is sleeping off the plague, I can set the camera on the corner of the piano, use the timer, and get a shot lined up nicely. Now I can give the appearance of having a good time with whomever is behind the camera participating in my jackassery, when really I am enjoying my jackassery all by myself. No one will ever know.