have the same options
I am very bad at anything involving small precise movements. I cannot thread a needle, nicely wrap gifts, or reattach all the nerves in your nearly-severed hand. I unwisely took a barre class one time. Although I hate guns, the class made me angry enough that it was a good thing I was not concealed-carrying one in my leggings because the only thing worse than tiny precise movements are repetitive and boring tiny precise movements.
I was on vacation (I will explain!) and while I was away I had forgotten that I had ordered this eyeliner stamping gadget. It stamps the eye-corner “wings” because (on the rare occasions that I wear makeup) I like the way it looks on me but no way can I do it myself—see the previous tiny-precise-movement situation.
This thing has the wing-stamp on one side and a liquid eyeliner pen on the other side. The pen side kind of sucks so I switch and use a better one to connect the wing to the line. Except that of course I had to go to an all-day professional meeting immediately after arriving back home and trying to remember how the fuck to live a non-vacation life, as well as not having worn makeup in weeks and weeks, and I ended up stamping wings on both eyes but only connecting the line on one of them, which I noticed at the first meeting-break when I was washing my hands. I am sure no senior health policy researchers were closely looking at my face or judging my makeup skills but it sure didn’t help the very painful experience of existing live and in front of other people.
The vacation piece was that last month LT and I rented an apartment in Rome and hung out there for a bit.
Things to like about Rome: Gelato, pizza, good coffee literally everywhere (we’d take a chance on some grimy convenience store on a busy morning and the cappuccino/cornetto situation would be surprisingly on point), museums, churches, more antiquity than you can shake a stick at (SHAKE THOSE STICKS). I got really into seeking out mosaics, my favorites being the mundane mosaics (no, wait: PROSAIC MOSAICS haha I’m awesome) of things like loaves of bread or bundles of asparagus. We are renovating a bathroom right now and it is very tempting to troll our contractors by showing them photos. “Hey, I know we said standard black and white hex tile but what about…asparagus?” Also the National Museum of Rome had a good and severely under visited exhibit on magic cults, including recovered wishes and curses excavated from the Fountain of Anna Perenna in 1999. I fell in love with this engraving that curses Antonius.
Please curse Antonius, that son of a bitch. He looks like this. (Not the exact words of the curse, but really close!)
Things to like a little less: A lot of trash everywhere (clean Rome up, someone!), traffic, a kind of hand-wavy attempt at a transit system, “walkable” but the walks are rather long due to the presence of those enormous antiquity sites in the middle of everything. We liked it but we are city people and have experience dealing with big overwhelming cities like London or Cairo; let’s just say that I do not blame less-traveled people for hopping on a tour bus. Navigation took some getting used to.
One thing that also sucked (but turned out much better than it could have) was the day that we took a city bus out to the Appian Way, rented bikes, and had a pleasant day until I wiped out because I got a little too casual about my cobblestone biking abilities. Tore my pants in three places, bloodied up my knee, and terrified some passing Dutchmen, but nothing orthopedic transpired so I was able to carry on. Still, I hate falling down! It’s the worst!
We went home, took a day or two to calm down and do laundry, and then went off to our college reunion, at the campus itself, which is located in a depressing Midwestern town. I had not been back since graduation and it was weird! Some people got old! (Not me, of course!) In typical GenX fashion our class fashioned itself an alternative cocktail hour, an alternative dinner, and even an alternative group photo, no sanctioned-by-administration events for us, thank you. A few people brought photos and I marveled at how gigantic all my clothes were back then. Did I think a men’s XXL flannel shirt worked on my body? Also so many combinations of short-over-long—band t-shirt over thermal undershirt, shorts over tights.
ENDLESS CYCLE
For the longest time I was confused by the “take a penny, leave a penny” trays. In my mind there was no implied “OR,” so I imagined taking a penny out of your pocket, putting it in the tray, and taking a different penny. Why are we swapping pennies? Also my life is much simpler now that I rarely use cash, given that I have never been good at the whole “make more aesthetically pleasing change on the fly” thing. (Wow, I am just admitting to all sorts of deficiencies today. Small precise movements, eyeliner application, riding a bike, simple math…) Also sometimes I think about
- the weird social contract and customs around the distribution of the penny coinage, the way we acknowledge that it is just about worthless and go ahead, take one if you need it
- the point-of-sale companies that manufacture these little penny trays, and the people who work to sell the branding and licensing of them
- will those people be out of a job with the continued decline of cash transactions, and will future generations be even more confused than I by references to “take a penny, leave a penny,” having never seen such a contraption before?
Is “take a penny, leave a penny” my Roman Empire?
—mimi smartypants was dreaming of a man with a neon pack.