Nothing Less Will Do

I've decided to pursue one piece of perfect living room furniture this spring. My "stereo case" consists of plastic shelving, while I wait to find the right piece, because I'm a perfectionist and I'd rather have nothing than something I don't like. Today I drove to Cedar Rapids, because I have a suspicion that it will have better used furniture than Iowa City because there are fewer students to buy it. It's not that I won't buy new furniture, but I normally don't like it. I find most new furniture to be either too fussy or too clunky, and the chairs are too deep and bad for one's back. Even the ultra-expensive arty furniture just makes too much of a statement for me. I don't want to live in a gallery; I like everything cozy and inviting, or failing that, at least practical.

There was a traffic jam on the freeway, so I exited and cut through the Czech Village to the arty part of Cedar Rapids, which is a very small section of town. I drove past the Harley bar and some galleries and empty storefronts until I reached downtown, which, again, was not very far away. I've wanted to visit Jeff Jones consignment furniture store for over a year now, but I thought someone told me it was on 3rd St., where the Harley bar is, and I could not for the life of me find it. It's typical of me that it took me a year to pick up the phone book, write down the address--3rd Avenue--and drive over there. I'm not very good at keeping track of the passage of time. It's how I wound up in grad school so long. It's also why I wasn't upset when I turned 40; I had gotten upset the year before, when I turned 39 but thought I was turning 40.

Now that I finally know where Jeff Jones is, I will go there once or twice a month until I find what I'm looking for, whatever that is--unless I find it somewhere else first. I once picked out an entertainment center at a consignment store in Anamosa, but I never actually bought it, so Anamosa is my next stop.

Even so, of all the furniture stores I have ever been to, Jeff Jones is my favorite. I did not see any particle board, and nearly everything in the store had character. They have stunning furniture pieces. Even though I wasn't looking for a coffee table, I would have bought one there if it hadn't already been sold. It was perfect. It was light wood, probably a Prairie style, smaller than most coffee tables, with stained glass inset in the top, and a functional shelf under the table surface. There were outer slats that blocked anyone from having a clear view of the shelf. I saw other pieces with a similar look, and all of them had been sold. Probably I need to meet the person who bought them and just move in. Then I could stop shopping for furniture.

What You Wish For

It's a good thing I was careful what I wished for, because my company may be sending me to Tucson! I can hardly wait.

In the meantime, I'm going to go on a Sherman Alexie reading spree. I have tickets to hear Steve Earle in May, but by that time it will be spring and I'll be happy even without Steve Earle, although Steve Earle will make me deliriously happy.

Iowa Caucus

I went to my local caucus tonight. It was fun! It went on too long, because there were five times the normal number of caucus goers, but it was a great experience. We had 555 people show up. I sat with the Biden group, which only had 9 supporters, and we were all a bunch of Independents who register Democrat. I'm definitely going to support the marginal candidates first every time I go to caucuses. You get to meet your little group and hear what everybody has to say, and representatives come from every other candidate to try to get your support in the second round, after your candidate proves not to be viable. The Clinton group brought us cookies, although they were not actual Clinton Cookies.

Candidates had to have 15% of the votes in order to be viable, and all the marginal candidates added together only had about 10% of the votes, so in the second round we had to choose Obama, Clinton, or Edwards. Obama had twice as many supporters as anybody else did. I left a little early, so I didn't find out whether Edwards or Clinton came in second. There was such a large crowd that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get out of the parking lot if I didn't leave early. Next time I'll throw on a ski mask and brave the cold to walk to the caucus.

Winter Storms

We got another storm hit yesterday. We have experienced a large number of ice storms recently, and we are too far north to have so many ice storms, so last night I watched An Inconvenient Truth while the rain fell all day long. Then overnight the temperatures dropped dramatically and we got four inches of snow. The snowdrifts are very beautiful, but it's dangerously cold outside, about 10 degrees Fahrenheit with a 30 mph wind making the wind chill about 20 below.

The snow plows didn't get to work on our parking lot until around 9 a.m., and I waited patiently inside and watched my 20-something neighbors become impatient waiting for the plows to finish clearing the snow. It appears that most of my neighbors do not own snow shovels; they just drive over the snow. Unfortunately, not all of them are bright enough to figure out that you can't simply drive over a foot-high snow drift if you don't have snow tires.

Most recently, I watched a little car get stuck in the snow with the parents and baby inside; the man of the house emerged from the vehicle with a window ice scraper in his hand, and he stamped through the snow and surveyed the area trying to figure out how to get the car loose. I envisioned him digging his car out with the ice scraper, but he didn't try it. They sat there until the snowplow came.

I find it difficult to imagine not owning a snow shovel at this latitude. My dad is a farmer and insists upon proper winter safety precautions. In my car I keep a blanket, a small snow shovel, a 60-pound bag of sand, and a spare pair of ski gloves.

It used to be that Iowans knew how to drive on ice and snow, but nowadays the ditches fill up with cars every time there's bad weather. After storms I pass an average of one stranded vehicle every other mile on my way to and from work. We are all becoming so urban.

Home Internet At Last

I hardly know where to begin. I've let the blog slide for nearly a year, but I finally bought a home computer and internet access. It's pretty thrilling.

My aunt died last summer, and I dropped most of my usual activities.

I didn't take my camping trip last summer. I went to Hawaii by myself instead and visited my old friend Charlotte. I figured that since I planned to buy a condo, I'd take a rather expensive vacation while I could still afford it. We went to the Big Island, saw Kilauea erupting at night, played on a black sand beach while staying 15 feet away from the sea turtle, hiked in a caldera, and visited the Ka'u desert. On Oahu I spent a day at the Bishop Museum, saw Halona Cove and Sandy Beach, circumnavigated the island, ate a magnificent meal with Charlotte's parents, and played with Charlotte's cat so much that the cat and I were both bummed out after I left.

Char and I went snorkeling in Hanauma Bay twice. It was one of the most fascinating experiences I ever had. I loved having my head underwater and still being able to breathe, and watching the fish. I loved seeing a sea turtle. There were these crazy deepwater fish that kept coming after all the humans to scare us, and they were grinning. I'd never seen a fish grin before. I loved wearing prescription goggles so, for the first time since I was very little, I could see clearly while swimming. It was incredible.

When I returned to Iowa, I devoted myself to my house hunt, and in December I closed on a small condo. I now have a bathtub, a big garage, a washer/dryer, and an office that's separate from my bedroom: just what I always wanted. I'm relaxing and feeling more like myself, although I still get very uptight rather often. After all that time not finishing my Ph.D., then not being able to get hired for anything but part-time jobs, and unsuccessful dating,... It's been tough for me to not feel like I have to struggle all the time, but instead to relax and enjoy myself.

I'm trying to accept that things are okay and will be okay, and there's no wolf at my door.

The Wrong Way

One thing I learned this spring about backpacking was that packs were supposed to be loaded with lighter items at the bottom and heavier items on top. I never knew this, so a few years ago I simply tested my pack with heavy items at both top and bottom, concluded that having heavy items at the top made the pack pull away from my shoulders and sit funny, and henceforth always loaded my packs with the heavy items at the bottom.

Fortunately, today I read a more extensive and up-to-date guide to backpacking, and I learned that my way is the right way for my body type. Men should put lighter items in the bottom of their packs, but women tend to have longer legs and shorter torsos, which changes their center of gravity. Women should therefore experiment with where they want the heaviest items in their packs. For women like me whose legs require trousers for tall people but who can wear petite shirts, it is preferable to put the heavy items right above the sleeping bag at the bottom of the pack.

This discovery perfectly fits my philosophy that if somebody tells me there's only one way to do something, I should try another way.

Last summer a friend and I rented bicycles in Boulder. My friend is very tall, and the store gave her a big men's bike and insisted she ride it with the seat up so that she could scarcely graze the ground with her toes. She was uncomfortable at that height and said so, but they would not change the seat height, because it would compromise her pedaling efficiency and it would not be the proper height for her. On the other hand, they gave me a women's bike with a wide seat. I hate wide seats, I'm a regular bicyclist, and I ride a men's bike. I wasn't pleased with the bike, and I expressed my preference for a men's bike and a narrow seat, but I did not insist on a different bike.

We rode a block and a half, and I turned around, went back, and insisted they give me a men's bike. They didn't want to, but I was absolutely adamant. I hate wide seats, and I'm a regular bicyclist and I ride a men's model. The guy actually thought I would be awkward and uncomfortable, and he seemed to think it was ridiculous for a woman to be riding a men's bike.

As soon as I got back to my friend, we lowered her seat and had ourselves a very pleasant bicycle ride, the wrong way.

Trip Planning Continues

My new backpack turns out to be something that gearheads call a "load monster," in other words too big unless I intend to be out for a week. Sigh. Well, I won't be hiking very far with it.

My new strategy is to try to win some gear from Backpacker magazine, which is sponsoring a contest. It's a long shot, but I might as well try, as I have no difficulty in presenting myself as pathetic, after ruining a nerve ending in my pinky on my first solo CAR CAMPING expedition, in freaking NEBRASKA. I'm going to get a friend to take a picture of me with my load monster and the offending padlock, the one I crushed the nerve with.

Anyway, I'm leaning toward purchasing a Jetboil camp stove. It's rather expensive, but it's so fuel efficient that if I use it for a few years, it will pay for itself. And when you're boiling water for 20 minutes to kill tapeworm larvae, fuel efficiency is a nice feature.

Respite

In case you couldn't tell, I find Midwestern winters somewhat confining and distressing. There are ways that I used to feel when I was a teenager, like my heart was clenched in a fist and I was fighting down mounting panic, and when I grew up those feelings went away so I thought they were teenage anxieties, when in fact I felt that way because it was winter in Iowa. It turns out that I still feel like that as an adult when I don't get out of the house enough.

Today we are having warm and sunny weather that for me is exceptionally well timed. I am out on a bicycle ride and am thoroughly pleased. I found out that the nice thing about exercise in winter is that I can allow myself to become quite winded; I have no allergies and am in no danger of an asthma attack.

However, I am taking steps to make it through the rest of the winter when it gets cold again. I have several possibilities: skiing in Galena, joining a gym in Iowa City, taking up aikido again in Cedar Rapids, learning to dance. I obviously have to decide. Giving up aikido due to injuries was so heartbreaking for me that it took me two years to settle on some new physical activity other than walking. I finally chose bicycling, but now I need something for the winter, as well. Winter. I'm glad that we are past the solstice, and the days are lengthening.

Next winter I will try to live near a path where I can cross country ski.

Living Creatures, For Now

Normally I treat living creatures with care. For example, just two weeks ago I found a stray kitten in my parking lot, scooped her up in a soft towel, and paid for her veterinary care. I have two spiders thriving in my bathroom. However, when insects or arachnids harass me, I take them out.

One day I was buying a fly swatter and tactlessly remarked that there was gonna be a fly killing spree at my place. The saleslady blanched: "I don't kill anything. I figure they have as much right to be here as I do." I redeemed myself from my discourteousness by not pointing out that flies vomit on her food. You see, normally I am quite tactful.

However, if I would definitely hurt a fly, then you can only imagine what sort of rampage I might undertake to eradicate, say, a cicada in my bedroom ceiling. For the past eight days, about the average cicada lifespan, I have been tormented by cicada mating calls. My entire hit list consists of one item:

1) cicada.

First I sprayed the eaves with insecticide. That didn't work. My landlady was unable to get access to the attic crawlspace, so she bought me earplugs and called an exterminator. The exterminators were booked solid, so she drilled two holes in my ceiling and sprayed insecticide through them before resealing the holes, but there was a thick layer of insulation that she couldn't penetrate very well, and this attack strategy had no effect.

The earplugs prevented me from hearing my alarm clock so I overslept and was almost late to work, but I could still hear the cicada right above my head. My landlady cut a hole in my closet ceiling, threw up a bug bomb or two, and resealed the hole. The cicada moved to the exterior wall of my bathroom. It was quieter at first, but then another cicada moved into the living room ceiling, and at 4 a.m. the two of them began a serenade at full volume in nearly perfect unison. I put the earplugs back in.

This morning I sprayed insecticide on the back eaves and through the holes in my siding. Tonight the saga continues.

Well, All Right

This week I walked into a music store wearing a linen shirt and generally looking sleek, well-fed, and as they say, respectable, a look that I have cultivated for the past ten years or so and am finally getting right. A salesman immediately asked if he could help me, and not in a way that meant he wanted me to leave the store, which was nice. I inquired politely, "I have heard something about a new Iggy Pop compilation. You wouldn't happen to know if that's available yet, would you?"

To his credit, he didn't bat an eye. He took me directly to the Iggy Pop c.d., which I happily purchased using some of the proceeds from my respectable employment. I can become a regular middle class American, but I can't forego my superior taste in music.

Food from the Recent Past

Growing up, I wasn't much of a cook. I had no real interest in anything that smacked of domesticity. I preferred to solve a math problem, write a poem, read a book, or stroll purposefully through the woods pretending I was Clark, my best friend was Lewis, and my faithful dog was Seaman.

In college I learned to microwave cheese tortillas, and that was about it. Even after college my kitchen creations tended to revolve around cheese, except for curried eggs with avocadoes. I still miss those heady times when avocadoes were five for a dollar.

The longer I stayed in graduate school, the more obsessive I became about saving money and finishing without debt, which meant I had to cook. I went through enough times eating lentils and rice that I also was determined to eat not merely cheaply, but well.

Now I am earning money and gradually letting go of my obsessively skinflint ways, but I am still cooking, as I have developed a taste for eating very well. This week a coworker asked for a curry recipe, and while I searched for that recipe, I uncovered a treasure trove of recipes from people I have known over the years.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I collect people. They live their own lives, and they don't take up any space, but I know a few of their stories, and I keep a few recipes from some of them. I have a pickled garlic recipe accompanied by a soundplay poem from a dear friend who shares my passionate love of Moscow. There's the Zen noodle recipe from my geologist friend with the "four-dimensional mind," a divine diablo sauce that I used to make once a week with vegetables from my garden. There are shark recipes that I'm going to try this summer, sent along by a Floridian who knows what's good to make in hot weather.

Most importantly at the moment, I found, misfiled, the wonderful chicken salad recipe that I begged one friend to send to me. A year ago this month, she killed herself. She had already taken pills but had been found before the pills could finish her off, so being a thorough academician, the second time around she took pills and drowned herself. I have her letters, and she published articles, but her chicken salad with sundried tomatoes and pasta seems to me to reflect the way she lived--a shy, invariably kind tenured college professor whom I had known since our own college years, with a bright, airy, lovely home, a sweet husband, and two dynamic dogs. She seemed happy. She had the kind of life I wished I had. And now she doesn't.

Academe has killed or driven mad a smattering of my friends and acquaintances, and I've suffered a couple stinging betrayals. In some ways it's odd that I'm not now a Ph.D., and I still find that many of the most magnificent people I know are in universities, but I love, love, love having an hourly job. I work 8-10 hours a day, and that's all. I finally have an apartment to myself, with my desk in a different room than my bedroom. It's heavenly. Why did my other interviewers ever not hire me? I'm the happiest employee ever.

This summer I plan to have the most fun I've had since 1995 in Moscow. I will attend concerts, I will ride my bicycle, and I will cook delicious meals and remember my friends.

Back Roads and New Neighbors, Part 2

I got a day off this week and decided to find Sugar Bottom Recreational Area, site of the only mountain bike trails I know of around here. I knew the directions I had were inadequate, and the park was not marked on my map. First I found the wrong recreational area, stopped, and acquired directions and a map, so after that I went straight to Sugar Bottom. Of course when I arrived, I didn't know where the bike trails were. I stopped at the campground to ask, and they didn't know either. They had a map of the bike trails, and I had that too, but we couldn't tell what part of the park the trails were in.

However, the signs seemed to be pointing me to the beach, so I went there. At first I only found the frisbee golf course, the picnic shelter, and the bathrooms, but then I spotted a dilapidated sign at the far end of the parking lot. There it was: the access road to the bike trails.

I was glad to visit Sugar Bottom on a weekday morning when there was no one else around. I knew I was clueless, and I didn't want to be a rolling roadblock slowing down all the other riders. On that weekday morning I was alone. The only sounds in the woods were the cries of the birds, the whirr of my bicycle tires, and my muffled shrieks and curses.

The trails are rated "easier," "more difficult," and "most difficult." Some of the "most difficult" ones have colorful names like Hell Trail. I only briefly attempted a "more difficult" trail, but it seemed to have the same obstacles as "easier," just more of them. I suspect there is a substantial jump between "more difficult" and "most difficult."

Frequently on the "easier" trails I couldn't make it up a hill, either because it was too steep for me, or more often because I couldn't navigate the tree roots. I would get my rear wheel caught on a root and come to a dead stop, and then I couldn't get started again because of the uphill path choked with tree roots. Twice I simply carried my bike up a hill because the tree roots were so huge. Once my chain came off its track when I shifted down while ascending a steep hill. I took some skin off my thumb from gripping my handlebars too tightly.

I'm proud of my bicycle for managing all the bumps and abrupt changes of direction. My spokes are all intact.

I had to stop from time to time to admire the scenery, which was quite varied and nice. There was no time to look while I was riding! I was always either pedaling hard to get uphill, or holding the brakes like a total sissy on the downhill. I did improve over the course of my ride, and one time the cackling birds were briefly silenced by my raucous whooping and hollering after I made it up a root-choked hill without stopping.

I enjoy birds. I enjoy birds except . . . except when they take up residence in my air conditioner. Last week a pair of sparrows did just that. They would flap their wings against the grate of my A/C at 5:45 a.m. sharp, waking me up. Although it was 40 degrees outside, I ran my A/C fan in an attempt to frighten the birds away, but I was the only one frightened by the clanking, sickly churning of my A/C. The sparrows were unphased.

My A/C is well out of reach of a broom handle, so I called my landlady. She promised to come out the next day, but she didn't make it, and these birds were making a very large nest, so at 8:15 p.m. I took action. I laid my yoga mat out and wrapped it around the tip of a dowel to make a long pole, and when that wasn't quite long enough, I clipped my dust pan to the other end of the dowel. I was on a mission, and I didn't care how much of a crackpot the neighbors thought I was.

I knocked down about half the nest, with the sparrow couple watching me in dismay from a nearby phone line. "The crazy predator is after our humble home! Have we offended? Edna, what can have gotten into that monkey with the stick? I've never seen anything like it!" They were so sure I must have had a bout with temporary insanity, that they came back and rebuilt the next day. Equally obstinate, I gave the nest a quick knock in the morning, and my landlady got the rest down in the afternoon. The sparrows decided that since there were multiple monkeys with sticks, appearing at irregular but frequent intervals, maybe this wasn't such a great place to start a family after all, and they moved on to a quieter spot with saner neighbors.

How to Describe Women's Shape

Plain and simple: I don't like the terms "pear shape" and "apple shape." Although descriptive, they are pedestrian, completely suburban and domesticated. I say "apple shape" would be better called "Diana shape," because I for one far more closely resemble a huntress than an apple. The other shape could be "Hera," except that the powerful queen of the gods has something of a bad rep. However, I bet Aphrodite was pleasantly rounded in the hips, and the men were absolutely wild for it, so I'll propose "Aphrodite shape."

A number of women prefer one shape or the other--either they say wide hips are more womanly, or they groan to think of all the months they would have to spend at the gym to acquire a narrow build. I think both shapes are pretty awesome and ought to get a lot more respect. Fruit bowls, indeed.

I got to thinking about shapes because Elantu just sent me copies of the Celtic warrior women sketches she drew from poses I did for her. She took some artistic license, but parts of the warriors look like my parts. She obligingly tells me what people say to her about the drawings, and we laugh. "Are her shoulders really that broad?" (Yes.) "Hmph."

But no, my fingers are not that long, and my calves are longer. Also, when I swing a sword, I appear calm and happy and fierce, but not, I think, aggressive. I'm not really a warrior in real life; I'm a huntress. Even my warrior friends say so.

But although I eat apples, especially with bleu cheese on them, nevertheless, I am not what I eat.

Aging Gracefully?

My age is between 30 and 40 years old, and my face has not yet given itself over to being a particular age on a consistent basis. It swings back and forth between 30 and 40, based on how much stress I am experiencing. Last weekend I appeared to be 40; this weekend I appear to be 30. Some day my face will switch over to the older appearance and stay there, but for now it wavers uncertainly.

Last weekend was, at long last, the final weekend of my community theatre play. Again I lied and lied and lied: "Yes, it's been fun." Okay, it was fun to enhance my nun costume with a temporary forearm tattoo of a skull with the words "BORN BAD." That part was fun. Plus, we provided large crowds of people with some really good laughs, which is one of my favorite kinds of public service.

By day, my new job was exhausting, and I needed to boost my performance; by night I tried to be cheerful and gracious about a play that I disliked from day one and had since endured for 3-7 days per week. I am not complaining; I love my job, and I was fortunate to have a small commitment like a community theater play, instead of a large commitment like another job or a family. I am only trying to emphasize how delighted I am that the play is over.

I get to keep my job for a while, and I am thrilled about that too. Given all the good news, and a four-day weekend, I'm looking 30 today.

Next Phase of My Life

Today is the last day of my community theatre play! I am very glad. I enjoy my new job, and I often have to be there early in the morning, so the play is wiping me out. It has been a big success, though. We sold out 2/3 of our shows the first two weekends, and now we are in a larger venue in another town. Today we will probably sell out, which is wonderful because it will help pay for the renovations of the town's historic opera house.

Two weeks from now, I will finally host the champagne party that I promised my friends, celebrating my new job. I'm going to try making deviled eggs with caviar, coconut chicken pieces, and fried plantains. The deviled eggs may be odd with the chicken and plantains, but they'll be tasty anyway. I'll give them a test run for Easter, but without the caviar. Fish eggs? My little niecies would be appalled.

Killing Bikinis in Winter

Today is my second-to-last weekday of unemployment, and it is 50 degrees out, so I went for a bike ride. I anticipated that the trail might be too snowy and I would not get my ride, and it was, and it was much muddier than I expected, but I rode a little anyway. I rode for 20 minutes, and I spent another 10 minutes brushing the worst of the sand and limestone off my bicycle. I would have gone longer, but the snowy parts were extremely bumpy, and I didn't want to trash my little hybrid bike, which is not the sturdiest thing in the world. I can't keep the front wheel tuned to save my life. At least the guy who sold it to me occasionally tunes the wheel for free, which makes me like him even though I told him I wanted a mountain bike, and he talked me into a hybrid bike instead.

When I can afford it, I will probably order my mountain bike through him, explaining to him in detail why it is that my fancypants shoes, which I insist on wearing when I am not riding or hiking, do not mean that I need a wimpy bicycle.

I am thrilled with my new job. I signed the contract yesterday. It is customary to celebrate these sorts of events with champagne, but I have recently been dumped and am still in the phase of listening to too much Bikini Kill. (I'd offer illustrative lyrics, but this is a polite blog.) Therefore, I bought something that is at once celebratory, consoling, and somewhat badly needed: a new pair of black leather shoes with silver metal buckles. My ideal shoe is a steel-toed black leather motorcycle boot covered in superfluous buckles, but I realize that it would create the wrong impression, so I content myself with snazzy women's low-heeled dress shoes accented with buckles.

I will be apartment hunting tomorrow, but I hope to find time to describe how Magdalena gets her own job.

Distractions

I got out of the house Monday to audition for a community theatre play, and I won the largest female part! The play is "Bless Me, Father," and I play a disapproving nun. I get a bucket of water dumped on my head, something many people from my home town should pay good money to see. My father seems even more dismayed about me pretending to be a nun than about me appearing in my friend Elantu's artwork as a sword-wielding, tattooed Celtic warrior woman. Well, I have to do something to keep myself busy until somebody finally caves in and hires me.

Whiter Shade

I never try to intimidate anybody, I don't bite, and I am genuinely friendly, but let's face it: Nobody wants to hire a clerical worker who can read Greek, Old Church Slavonic, and Hittite. For the most part, nobody even wants to know what Old Church Slavonic and Hittite are.

I clearly need to come up with a new answer to the job interview question that asks me what problems I have solved during my work experience. During a recent interview, I knew better than to tell them about my work addressing the problems inherent in teaching ancient languages in a way that actively involves the students, but I couldn't think of another good problem that I had solved outside of academia, other than routine everyday problems like software glitches, copy machine meltdown, filing systems that needed serious overhaul... So there I was, telling them about working with ancient language teachers, when I went from bad to worse: I referred to the teachers of ancient languages as "we." One of my interviewers visibly turned pale.

I definitely feel like the freak of the week.

Obsessive

I have been actively seeking work for over three months now. It is discouraging, and occasionally I allow myself a day to sink into despair and make no attempts to look for a job, or a day to do volunteer work and amuse myself and make no attempts to look for a job. This week I left a rejection letter on the floor for two days so I could step on it a few times. Still, for the most part I keep on plugging.

As a person who likes to remain very active and busy, I have a minimalist beauty regimen. It involves cutting and filing my nails every week or so, shaving my legs from time to time, remembering to moisturize and floss, and other similar grooming activities that many women, swimmers, and bicyclists engage in. However, now that I am unemployed and full of angst, I feel completely licensed to obsess over any body part I choose. In making this choice, I have left my skin and hair to their usual haphazard maintenance and focused my nagging anxiety on my face.

My chin, neck, and upper lip have never been so clear of stray hairs; the blackheads on my nose have never been so small. My eyebrows are so perfectly sculpted that even other people comment on them, and not just people who saw them when they were bushy, either. They require touch-ups twice a week.

I realize that some people spend real time on their appearance and even hire professionals to perform facials and manicures and pedicures and waxes, but for me, plucking stray hairs from my eyebrows is a sure sign of obsession and angst. I need a job soon, before I start buying lip liner.

Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?

When I get to know new people, I tell them stories, not surprisingly. However, the nature of the stories can be surprising because I do not look like a person who would have very many wild stories, and yet, somehow, I do. Sometimes I start with stories from more than ten years ago, because they are by far the oddest, and if I can get through them without causing people to run for the door, I am probably home free. However, even now, when I am cautious and respectable, odd events happen around me, and I plunge right in and do nothing to make the world more normal.

My mother claims that I am the reason why my parents have gray hair. Apparently it has nothing to do with being 60 years old. 95% of the gray hairs came from me, and 5% from my brother when he was 16 and 17.

Here is a story from long after I became a respectable model citizen. I was living in Providence, Rhode Island, and my friends Lara and Steve came to visit me from Washington, D.C. I picked them up at the airport and took them to meet a mutual friend for a drink, but we arrived early and did not immediately find parking, so we swung around through India Point Park, my intent being to turn around and come back to find a parking place.

India Point Park is not a place where one wants to get out of the car after dark, but it is generally safe enough to drive through. However, we ended up getting out of the car. Steve spotted a shape in the darkness, and it proved to be a man dragging a woman by her feet. When he pointed this out to me, I stopped the car. Lara and I got out, and I told Steve to watch the car.

It appeared to me that the woman was unconscious, and the man had chosen an extremely awkward method of transporting her, so, not wanting to be confrontational, I asked him if he needed any help. Lara smiled her utterly irresistible smile of pure, unadulterated charm, and the two of us tried to look as innocuous as possible. The man said he did not need help, but Lara worked her way over to the woman, who was in fact conscious and resisting. The man offered us a brief profane tirade concerning certain women (not us in particular) bearing the same title as female dogs.

I rather stupidly asked the woman directly if she wanted us to call 911, and she said “YES!” which made the man panic. Steve came running over. Luckily, the man did nothing violent, only berated the woman for trying to get him in trouble with the cops, and he drove away in his van.

Meanwhile, I was on the phone with the 911 operator, who did not want to send over a car. I said that the woman needed an ambulance, or at the very least a ride home. The operator said they don’t give rides home. I said okay, in that case she needs an ambulance. The operator wanted to know if she had ASKED me to call 911, as if I was meddling where I did not belong and I had no right to call 911 unless the victim requested it. However, I said yes, she had asked me to call.

The operator asked where I was, and I said India Point Park. The operator said they could not send a car without a street address. I said India Point Park was a major city park. In desperation, I gave street directions for getting there: Go down Gano Street to the very end, then turn left. Okay, the operator accepted this as a street address. Then the operator wanted to know if there was a fire. No, I said, there was a medical problem and possible crime.

Finally we settled it that someone would be sent to the park, and I turned my attention back to the scene. Lara was comforting the woman and finding out her name and other important information. The woman was dirty from head to toe and wearing no shoes or socks. She did have on a pair of bunched-up black underpants under a white dress. Her hair was a mess, and she was crying and shaking. After 10 minutes or so she started to convulse.

After about another 5 minutes a fire truck arrived, but it turned right at the end of the road and vanished. A couple minutes later a police car arrived, making the correct left turn, and soon after that an ambulance, then the fire truck. The police officer questioned Lara and the woman. The woman was able to tell him the name of the man. Let’s say it was Beetle Bailey, because that’s a pretty far cry from his real name, but his real name also belonged to a fictional character. “Oh, I know him," said the officer. "His whole family’s f---ed up.” We confirmed that there was no clear evidence that any crime had been committed, but that this woman obviously needed a doctor.

As the paramedics wrapped the woman on a stretcher and carried her away, another police car arrived. “It was Beetle Bailey,” said the first officer. “Oh, I know him,” quipped the second, “he wears a lot of olive drab...”

Our mystery woman received her medical care, none of us was hurt, we all downed a couple of beers by the hurricane barrier, and we never saw any of our India Point Park acquaintance again. Steve decided that I am the best tour guide ever: “I’m in town for 30 minutes, and already I’m fighting crime! What’s next, a trip to the Margo cave?”