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July 21, 2007
Saturday in Introversiana
The Schedule:
Southern Women's Show:
This is a fund raiser I feel compelled to attend, not because I consider myself a "Southern Woman" in any sense, but because it's a cause I firmly believe in. I cajole myself out of the car, promising to spend the absolute minimum time possible. In and out.
Well, almost. The first table was actually interesting, I gained some information which may be useful in the future. I signed up for their door prize, a gym bag, and since there were only two names entered in the drawing before me, an entire hour into the show, I may have a pretty good chance. Second table, a mine field, I never saw it coming.
She put my head in a machine where the black light and magnifying mirror revealed all, sun damage, pores clogged by oil, huge pieces of fluff from drying my face on a towel this morning, suddenly I felt like Quasimodo. Two other women braved looking into the viewing side of the machine, then ran screaming from the room. Throngs of onlookers listened to the microdermabrasion lady lecture on the benefits of using the contents of the small but expensively priced jar in her hand. Heads nodded in blind agreement as she applied small samples to the backs of their hands with a tongue depressor. I slipped from the crowd and moved on, superficially browsing the arrays of jewelry and quilted handbags, fingering the spray nozzle of my pepper spray for security.
A few tables later a group of women sat around admiring their freshly manicured and pedicured nails. I passed by, the fingernails I'd bitten off just two days ago tucked behind my back in shame. Makeup, facials, definitely against my religion, just the smell of them reminds me of old church ladies. I'm spotted from across the room by one of the two women I happen to know. She introduces me to her daughter who quietly confided in me a few minutes later she'd been dragged there against her will, and was looking for an opportunity to escape. I wished her good luck over a plate of tiny hors d’oeuvres, while fending off suggestions I can't possibly do housework without exotic lingerie, and badly need to have a glamour shot made. Finally the door cleared and I slipped out unseen, rushing to my car I knew just the place I needed to be to restore my dignity.
Tanning Salon:
Adorable Young Attendent: "Do you want a 10 minute bed or a 20 minute bed?"
Me: "I doesn't matter to me, you know that."
A: "Well, are you in a relaxing mood today?"
M: "I'm in a procrastinating mood today."
A: "20 minute bed."
For 20 minutes I laid under the UV lights, the face of the microdermabrasion lady swimming in my head, her nasally accent taunting me. "Sun damage.... sun damage.... SUUUUUUUN DAMMMMMAGGGGGE". Just when I thought I couldn't possibly take another second the bed snapped and the lights went off. Relieved I put my clothes back on, returned the pair of goggles and walked out the door, the grocery store came next.
Kroger:
What could be more vanilla than Kroger on a Saturday? I feel at home here, wandering well stocked aisles of merchandise, returning the smile of the guy behind the flower counter, exchanging how-do-you-do's with the produce stocker, here I am loved. Basket slung over my arm I follow the open path around the store, feeling un-inspired, nothing is appetizing to me today.
A faint memory of a dream from last night edges into my consciousness, a dream about food, maybe my body was trying to tell me something. Spaghetti. In the dream, but that wasn't the only dream I had, what was the one that awoke me, the one I laid motionless on the bed staring into the darkness, glad it was only a dream. Fire. I remember fire, then the dream floods back, the house was on fire, not my house, a different house, and four of the people in it were sleeping.
I remember racing through the house trying to wake people, one woke up and grabbed one of the sleeping children, another ran into a room where my sister was sleeping. I grabbed the smallest child sleeping by the door and raced through it, our clothes catching fire in the process. Stop. Drop. Roll. Roll, roll I yelled at the child I was holding as my body rolled over the top of hers. We were out. Safe. No, my sister was missing, and it was too late, did she wake up? Where was she? Then I woke up. Darkness, it was just a dream, a really bad dream, relief. I walked past the jars of spaghetti sauce, disinterested.
I made my way to the skin care aisle and took the last package of facial wipes from the shelf, you know, the ones that keep your pores open, contain UV protection and take 30 years off. I check out and take my bags, stop to put my sunglasses on before I walk through the automatic doors. Library, dammit, it's too late now, I've got dairy products in my bag, and it's 300 degrees outside.
Library:
The forgotten stop.
Not that I really want to go to the library today, but I have to. Thanks to the immigration witch hunt I have to supply a birth certificate to renew my driver's license set to expire next week. And I didn't notice that in the fine print until yesterday. I haven't seen my birth certificate in over 15 years, so I called the county recorder in the county I was born in. Half a world away.
Not so easy, you have to mail in a form. A form you print off the internet. On a printer which ran out of ink several months ago using an incredibly expensive ink cartridge. The library, on the other hand, charges 15 cents per page. You do the math. Like I said, I'm in a procrastinating mood today.
What I want to know is this. I need to get a form, off the internet, fill it out, take it to a notary public, who will use my driver's license to verify my identity, so I can get a copy of my birth certificate mailed to me in 4 to 6 weeks, while I drive on an expired license, so I can go to the driver's licensing station and prove to them I am a legal US resident, and be given a driver's license.
Who designed this freaking headache? And for what purpose? Did they not realize I had to produce a birth certificate to prove I was old enough to get my first driver's license? Or that I had to produce a birth certificate to prove I was who I said I was when I got my social security card, which I had to produce in order to prove my identity when I changed my driver's license from a Minnesota license to a Tennessee license?
The library visit has been moved to tomorrow, until then I'll be hiding under my bed.
Posted by Anna at July 21, 2007 1:09 PM