“Hey, how long do I have to know you before I can ask you to smell my armpits?”
“Five years.”
“What? No, really!”
He leans in, sniffs my armpits.
“I don’t smell anything. But this is me we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, I think I need to find a woman to do this…someone with a sense of smell.”
Pit Putty is an organic, aluminum-free, chemical-free deodorant that can be found at Bubble and Bee for a heck of a lot more money than your regular deodorant/antiperspirant. Comes in Geranium Lime (which is what I used) and original. As far as I can tell, it worked fine on me and the geranium lime smell isn’t really noticeable or overpowering. I like it. And my body isn’t suffering for it — just my wallet.
Why would the Globe post a story about a starving chihuahua thrown out like trash? And then include a picture of him? Don’t they know I’m now going to have to fight the urge to adopt him and/or cry????
Here’s the link to adopt him and an updated photo. He looks pretty darned good for 12.
Currently I am eating whole wheat bread from Hi-Rise Bakery, slathered in baba ganoush from Samira’s Homemade, topped with some kind of super-curly lettuce from the Hmong farmers at Flats Mentor Farm, and garnished with slices from a yellow tomato grown by Busa Farm.
And as soon as it cools sufficiently for me to drink, I’ll be having a cup of dragonflower tea from Notting Hall.
I’m going to miss the farmer’s markets when fall comes around.
…that there is no Comments Policy.
In other words, I’ve decided to continue as I have in the past: comments occasionally but rarely turned on.
The issue I have with comments is that I am a sensitive, delicate flower of a person. Admittedly, I’m a sensitive, delicate flower of a person who climbs fake rocks, but so far that hasn’t done anything to thicken up my skin although it has certainly made said skin turn some really interesting shades of purple.
You see, I get mad when too many people comment (“Why do people think they have a right to judge me?”) and mad when too few people comment (“Doesn’t anyone care my dog DIED?”). There’s no happy medium for me, and although I like hearing from people who regularly read my website (Hello, Museum Geek! Still gonna show up at the Smithsonian one of these days and scare the crap out of you — “Please tell her that SUPERSONIC JANE IS IN THE HOUSE”) I have no need to solicit opinions.
I write mostly because I have to do it. Writing is a way for me to figure out what I think about things. So by the time something gets posted, it’s usually a topic I’ve already beaten to death in my head, and people wanting discussion are shit out of luck.
Cousin J had some interesting things to say about comments:
Each of your posts is complete and whole and jewel-like. Having comments attached makes blogs seem unfinished somehow, as if they just drool on indefinitely. I like how each of your posts has a beginning and an end, and that’s that. No need to look beyond it.
You’re not doing the typical dance with your readers, but instead creating a much more pure object. The image that comes to mind is that of a tree–your blog is a beautiful tree, uncrowded and growing strongly towards the sun. Adding comments feels like letting life-sucking choking vines wrap up your trunk. Of course, if I liked people more, maybe I’d view allowing comments as allowing birds to nest in your branches, etc., etc. But I am what I am; i.e., a bit of a misanthrope.
Given that I am also a bit of a misanthrope (ok, completely a misanthrope), I tend to agree that this tree ain’t got no room for the birds.
Besides, people can always reach me via my email address over there. To the right. No, down a little more. Oops, a little higher. Yes, right there!
Don’t write simply for the sake of sending me email because I already have about 5 other email addresses I should be checking right now, but if you have a burning desire to tell me something, that’s how you reach me.
Since I changed my website email address, the only person who’s contacted me through it is Guido, and I see Guido nearly every Saturday when I go to work at Job #1. Of course, email may be easier to use with Guido, because our conversations typically go like this:
“(Mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble)”
“Who did what now?”
“(Mumble, mumble, MUMBLE, mumble, mumble)”
“No way!”
“(Mumble, mumble, mumble, chuckle, mumble, mumble)”
“Dude, I gotta be honest with you — I have no idea if we’re talking about something funny the kids did, or if you’re pissed at the way I parked today.”
“I have four grandchildren.”
“Four? But…”
“I’m in my 50s.”
“Wow, you really don’t look it at all!”
“I know, we Asian women look so young.”
“Yeah, I’ll be 37 in a few months.”
“I thought you were in college!”
We high-fived.
I usually don’t post about work, but today was my first day in my new job. I was so anxious about it that even though I mentioned to Susie on two separate occasions over the weekend that I needed to fill out my HR paperwork by the end of Sunday, I still forgot to do it.
Luckily, I remembered the paperwork at about 7:45 this morning, but I was so horrified I’d forgotten that this just made me more stressed about starting the job.
The only other thing I’ll say about my first day is that THERE WAS A DOG!
A cute, nonshedding, live-stuffed-animal of a puppy who was visiting for the day. She climbed happily into my lap, tried to lick my face a few times, wriggled around in ecstatic happiness, and then settled down to try to nap on my knees. But being a puppy, she was off and running somewhere else within two minutes.
My last first day on a new job was about five years ago, and it was nothing like this because all I had to do was go to my friend’s house in my regular clothes and start working at her dining table. It was awesome and stress-free. And they had a dog then, too, and not long after they didn’t have a dog anymore (RIP Sebastian), they had a BABY!
All new jobs should come with a puppy or baby. And the baby, of course, would be returnable as soon as the diaper needed changing. There are some things I don’t do, even for money.
“We saw some friends in NY. I couldn’t remember their names. And they all looked so old! And short!”
My sister has just emailed me a picture of P.T., beaming at the camera and furiously waving.
The email is accompanied by a note that P.T. “wants to say hi to you and says I love you. And he says m and m roller coaster and toys r us and toy story (he is looking at his picture* with you).”
Interestingly, in the photo my sister sent, P.T.’s non-waving hand is holding a gigantic (seriously, the size of his entire head) lollipop up to his mouth, leading me to believe that the “I love you” might not be so much intended for Auntie Jane as it is for the lollipop. But that’s OK; I’ll take what I can get.
*I had taken P.T. to Toys ‘R Us in New York earlier this year and we had ridden in the M & M’s® car on the ferris wheel. Then I purchased a commemorative photo of the two of us on the ride. The photo cost 6.67 times the price of one ride on the ferris wheel. Now I understand why the ticket prices were so low — Toys ‘R Us takes you for a ride AFTER the ride.