Oh, hello there. Is it fall? I had no idea. You see, where I am, it is sweltering. Now, I should be fair, it is getting slightly better, but still, I cannot step several feet out of the door of my apartment into the hallway without getting a sickly sheen of sweat on my forehead. Yuck. I despise sweating, but –lucky me- I sweat more than the average person, let alone female person. It is decidedly not attractive. It’s a shame, really. I have this closet (organized by color like the rainbow, all hanging on white hangers) full of cute clothes.
I have cute cardigans and tops from Anthropologie and sweaters and bejeweled t-shirts from J-Crew. (I could wear the t-shirts, but I don’t want to sweat in them.) In Wisconsin, I lived by the Fashion Code of the Layer. Camisole or tank top? Check. Adorable adorned t-shirt or top? Check. Cardigan? Check. I never went a day without a cardigan from September to May. Now I spend most of my days in pajamas or other pajama-like items, because, what’s the point? I’m just going to sweat in it while sitting on my couch anyways. A good friend of mine’s mom once asked, “Did you just get up? Or have you given up?,” upon seeing her in PJs in the middle of the day. That story still makes me laugh, but don’t worry- I haven’t given up on life. I’ve just given up on staying dry and smelling sweet. (Reading back on that line makes me gag and crinkle my nose. I’m not quite that bad.)
I also have NO clue what to do with my hair. I can only braid it so many ways. And I braid it because that CONTAINS the wild beast on top of my head. It’s starting to give me a headache. I have to wear headbands to keep the frizz down, and I have to tie it up all tight, and the sheer weight of it doesn’t help either. Thank goodness my hair isn’t that thick. Adding to the dilemma: I can’t cut it short. If I do, I will have a head that is shaped like a triangle. No good. My curls don’t even do pretty curl-like things here. They just go all wonky.
Sometimes I feel like I live in a jungle! With all of the heat and humidity and random rain storms…
And my downstairs neighbors have birds. Not nice little song birds. Squawking, horrible, pterodactyl sounding creatures that like to make noises at seven in the morning, one in the afternoon, and eleven at night... Anytime one of their owners leaves, they screech. Anytime one of their owners comes back, they screech. Anytime anyone comes near or walks past our building… you get the picture. So, they add the soundtrack to my jungle-like life.
And there are the little lizards! They dart to and fro really quickly, which bothers me because I am worried that I will 1) step on them and harm/kill them [I don’t even squash bugs, I capture them in a cup and sent them free] or 2) they will shoot up my leg and into my shorts. J and I found one in the apartment building today. We were bringing in groceries and there it was, on our neighbor’s door. He tried to catch it, but it darted between the door and the floor. (Side note, all of the doors here have like a good half inch of space between the door and the floor. What a waste of energy!) So then the little lizard darted back out and J was able to coral it out the front door. There are some around without their tails or with them, like, half hanging off. Eeeehh.
I wonder if the cat from next door makes meals out of them? The cat- at least I think it is from next door- has no qualms with marching straight up to you and opening its mouth to yowl for food. He has an ear that is bent backwards and smooshed to his head. If I didn’t have two of my own yowling cats, I wouldn’t be so hard-hearted about it, but my mom told me about a lady she worked with who got Cat-Scratch Fever for realz and now I walk brusquely away from that mangy little thing. (I thought I would be avoiding alligators and large snakes, not mini-lizards and the neighborhood tabby…)
Also, I have been avoiding doing my (mostly PJ) laundry. Our laundry machines are outside, shoved into this little closet in the back of our building. J once found a cockroach in our machine in Madison, so I am super nervous to find one of those lizards all crusty and bent in my newly dried clothes. And laundry is so expensive ($2 to wash, $2 to dry) that I would be angry if I had to wash it again because I found a carcass in my clothes. The last time I did laundry the skies decided to open up and flood me, complete with lightning. I had to cover up all my clothes with a garbage bag… and it was two loads, in the dark. And flashlights attract moths. (Sigh. I have at least two loads to do…)
I laugh about all of these bizarre things in my life, because if I don’t laugh, I will cry… And a girl who is sitting in PJs, sweaty, with snot running down her nose is not a pretty sight.
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