Mariachi for all!
I am in a silly good mood this morning. That's usually how it goes--On sunny weekend mornings, aided by a few gallons of coffee and good music, I feel as if the world is mine...all mine.
Cleaning the house together before I came to the shop (place of employment #2--See Below), Hunter and I listened to the music of this band of his youth: Trite lyrics yet really catchy riff-y-ness that encapsulated that early-90s Neil-Young influenced alt-country-rock bidness.
As he swept and I did dishes, I felt clever for correctly guessing lyrics. Here, let's give you a try:
"I wanna be a star/
Every night down at the ____"

Smarty-you!

Now at work, I've managed to hook up my minidisc player to the receiver, freeing myself from our satellite music service and having to choose between the "Folk Rock" channel and "New Wave Flashback." My favorite is actually the Mariachi channel, but even those tunes are becoming a little too familiar. So this morning, I am Musical Dictator of the gift shop: You there, lady! The one sniffing every single incense stick! It's Calexico for you!

Alice, why the freaky dictatorial spirit today?
Glad you asked.
You know, it's a very good thing I've never experienced cocaine, because I'm certain I would never be able to give it up. I'm not kidding--I love everything about coffee: the flavor, the ceremony of brewing it and pouring it and holding the warm little ceramic cup between my hands in the wintertime--the smell sometimes takes me back to my grandmother's kitchen when I was small.
But really, it's the caffeine, mang. It electrifies me, inspires me so hard that I sometimes begin to feel hypergraphic. It's the best feeling in the world. And, compared to the energy-crash that inevitably follows, the caffeine-high seems very nearly spiritual in nature. At three or four p.m., when the very pressure of gravity has skyrocketed to the point where I can move my unwieldy limbs from the couch only with the greatest exertion, I look over the urgent spree of words I've written earlier with complete lack of recognition. What was this creature which went on at such bizarre length about...alt-country rock from the early-90s? Who cares about music? Who cares about anything, when there's sleep, glorious sleep?



Gives it to us!
I have actually stopped pimping the beeswax lotion-bar to customers I don't like. Not that we're supposed to actually sell anything in the store, but when customers come by the register and say, "Oh! Something smells good," one's natural inclination might be to tell said-customer what that something is.
But if I deem the individual to be rude, obnoxious or otherwise unworthy, I will not expose my sweet beeswax sample-bar to them. Neigh, you may not go home smelling like the very Nectar. It is not for you , Frappucino-toting loud-mouthed one.
You, nice sympathetic lady, I may invite to touch of its honeyed surface. But know: It is a rarified honor.

Part-timer
I work part-time at this store that sells clever cards, candles, jewelry, knick-knacks and the like. The owner describes it as a "gift shop," but that term makes me think of a store where tourists would end up, by choice or not, after strolling through this historic neighborhood (which this, um, ain't), at which point we would foist cheap coasters and rubber placemats with silkscreened photos of Atlanta on them.


It's not a gift shop in that sense. But it is a gift shop in that there really isn't a damn thing in here I'd feel justified in purchasing for myself. Even with my 25% discount, I don't walk out of here too many days with a $65 wind-chime crafted from a doorknob under one arm, and a $35 leather frame under the other.


The people who come here can be roughly divided into two categories: Those who've put their names on the waitlist at the restaurant across the street, and those who've come specifically to buy someone a present or a card. [Intone robot-voice: "I need a giiift. Let us now go to the giift shop."]

Some of the people in the second group are regular customers, which always surprises me. The owner of the store does have an eye for unique semi-precious jewelry and table-lamps and the rest, but frankly, this place does not seem to me to be that different from any other store of its type in this or any other town in the nation.

Still, it's quite common for people--all women, at least so far--to come in and declare, "This is my favorite store!" I always smile and murmur vague sounds of agreement to mask my complete bewilderment at such a statement.



Special Concerns
Also to mask the dread. Because these are often the very the same people who require Extreme Hands-On Assistance. These are the ones who want me to tell them where this brand of glass globes are made, because they're allergic to Indonesian glass--or simply, to compare the price of that pretty little lamp on the very top of that bookshelf with that other little lamp on the top of the shelf in the opposite corner, requiring me to go in back to get the ladder.

They're the ones who come to check out the really big-ticket items, like the jewelry I'm always paranoid to take out of the glass case for fear of shoplifters--a big problem here.


Or if not the jewelry, it's an item for display only, so I have to search under a table or in the ultra-confusing Back Room for a copy already in its box to sell them.

Yes, I know. This is my job; I realize I have very little room to complain. But I'm still new here, so this stuff makes me nervous, and I prefer the more self-sufficient customers.

Worst of all are those customers who require my opinion. This is the moment that summons up the true acting skills, because honestly, I don't care whether you buy the brass hurricane lamp or the glass ladybug-shaped one--unless I don't know where the corresponding box is to the brass one, which is likely.
Then I'll point out that ladybugs are quite the chic thing among 20-somethings such as your niece. And if it's technically ten minutes after closing time and you're clearly nowhere near making up your mind, but instead asking to see that other lamp, too, and to line the three up in a row somewhere so you can see them all lit up--Well, the truth is that I don't feel comfortable enough to do anything yet but stew inside, but I will hate you. Real hard.

I won't do anything b/c I do like the owner, my boss, and I want her small business to succeed. I like to call her at the end of the day and report to her a larger daily total than she expected. I like the simple fact that she's so engaged in the business of her store that she wants: us to call. I've worked at small businesses in that eerie stage just on the verge of collapse, when the owner's nowhere to be found. Hell, Hunter worked at a restaurant once where the owner split town one day altogether.



My love. My shame.
There's only product here that garners my lust, and that's the beeswax lotion bar. It looks like soap, but when you rub it on your hands, it transforms into this sweet, moisturizing honeyed substance. I haven't worn any sort of perfume in a few years, but I swear I want to slide this freaking stuff all over myself and then put a bar of it in a paper bag so I can carry it around and huff it periodically.

Mmmm. Honey.



There's no "-ay" in forte, and there's no wrapping in mine.
Just one other thing, and I promise I'll shut up about all this, and that thing is: wrapping. When I interviewed for this job, the owner asked if I "knew how to wrap gifts." Already envisioning the complicated organza-tying and tissue-paper-arranging-action that lay ahead, I gulped out a tentative, "Yeah."

Sure, I know how to envelop a box in wrapping paper. My father was actually Mr. Anal in making sure each of his daughters could:

Wrap presents with near corners, and

Efficiently Pack a Suitcase

But neither of these are occupations in which I naturally excel. And indeed, whenever someone approaches the counter with something she wants wrapped, the heart palpitations commence.

The gift-wrapping itself it usually a 5-10 minute process involving much suppressed cursing on my part, as neat corners fail to present themselves time and time again and raffia ribbon spontaneously rips itself apart in my agile hands. And I daren't even make mention of that mysterious realm of expertise known as "Tying a bow."


The best customers are those who wander off as I wrap, who say, "Oh--No, that's fine," when I ask them if they want ribbon. The worst are those who tilt their heads at the finished product and say,

"Do you think you could...add a little more ribbon/tissue paper?"

On woman actually said to me,

"Do you think you could make it a little more lively?"

No, I thought. No, I could not.

"It's for a gift," she added. By way of explanation.

Ah-! And here I had thought the vanilla-scented stuffed frog was simply, oh, a car-repair part or something. Even though she'd told me it was a gift when asking me to wrap it in the first place. I dunno. Sometimes I like to gift-wrap my spare car-oil bottles in polka-dotted paper and then unwrap it myself once I've opened the hood. It's just like Christmas in miniature, you see.

I like my job here. I do. I'm not dealing with food, or hungry, hung-over customers. I don't have to mop. This is perhaps the biggest plus of all.

Then, there's the beeswax lotion-bar [see above]. Of course, I'm quite happy to be sitting 5 feet from the sample bar, so I can go sniff it every 20 minutes or so. Otherwise I'd have to keep coming into the store to do so, and that might get awkward.

The sense of cognitive dissonance here comes when I'm called upon to get excited about any other item in the store. The place, while one big orgasm for the Queer Eye set, is filled with Stuff--the kind of stuff I have absolutely no interest in filling my living space with. I like some of the handmade jewelry, but I don't have $200 to spend on a necklace, nor do I really mind that I don't.


You see.
The other week, we went to visit a friend of a friend in Cabbagetown, for hotdogs and cocktails. This guy lives in a shotgun-house he bought as a burned-out shell and built back up with the aid of a Historical Preservation grant. He's filled the place with really old, solid furniture and relics from historical Cabbagetown: photos from the turn of the century, a giant old door that someone once painted with protective Bible verses. He has a theramin and a '60s silver AirStream camper which doubles as a guest room in the cooler months. I sank into this comfy old worn chair, breathing in the house's mustiness that was stirred up by the lazy old ceiling fan, awash in rare contentment.

You see, Atlanta is a town that largely goes along with: Newer and Bigger and Shinier and more Disposable = Better. There are a lot of people with a lot of money who spend it on reproduction furniture and plastic surgery. There are a lot of art deco bars and bistros with cement floors, abstract art and uncomfortable chairs.

But this guy's coffee table was overflowing with historical picture books and dusty Lps. If I worked somewhere that sold stuff like that, my paycheck would be shot--but the thing is, at the risk of injecting Great Cheese, here, I don't know of any stores around here that've put a price-tag on the kind of atmosphere I like. It's more than the objects; more than the theramin and the collection of old globes. It's the implicit point that it's not the things. It's the freaking hotdogs and schlepped-together cocktails and funny stories and the music. That's everything, really.

Enough already.


All right; enough of this laff-fest; it’s time to get serious.


No, really, but I do mean to apologize to my tens of thousands of readers if the last few posts have been not only few and far between, but also…a total freaking bummer.


Hardly the light-hearted romp I originally intended, and so, today, we’ll move on, to a subject on the minds of all at this juncture in world events:



My tattoo.

No, wait—Come back! I admit, I feel weird and self-absorbed bringing it up, even when people ask me about it. Like, the other day, a regular customer of the coffeeshop where I work intermittently, asked me about it.

Nice lady:“Oh, you have a tattoo! Is that new?”

Alice: “Yeah. It’s my first one.” [Elaborate shrug accompanied by grin and eye-roll—to illustrate that I am not Wacky Tattoo Girl who will proceed to trap listener with a Multitude of Stories about her various tattoo experiences like she’s the First Person on the Planet Ever to Get Tattooed.]

Nice lady: “Wow. It’s really big. Did it hurt?”

Alice [still grinning in a calculated self-deprecating manner]: “Yeah. It…yeah, it hurt!”

Nice Lady: “I could never do that. It’s pretty. It’s your first one??”

Alice: “Yeah…[Torrent o’ words:] It is. And it hurt like hell! I mean, it really hurt. But I’d been wanting one—just like this—for a few years and everyone, I guess, was just sick of my talking about it and so I finally, I just did it! And all the guys at Liberty [the tattoo place] were like, totally impressed that it was my first one, so that was cool. But—yeah. Yeah.”



In reality, I am obsessed with this tattoo. I just got it colored in on Sunday. This is a euphemism. I didn’t look too hard at the needles the guy used, but they didn’t feel like Crayolas. My friend Rita was there, though, to hold my hand and she and her son brought me falafel and lemonade to consume during a break and I leaned waay over to drink the lemonade because the tattoo is on my chest and I was fixated on not spilling the lemonade on my open-wound-in-progress.


And that night I came home and Hunter said I smelled like a Post Office, and it was true: the ink was totally smelly, and I felt loopy and stoned all night.


And yes, I want to talk about it to everyone. Right now, it’s peeling like a really bad sunburn of many colors. Soon, it will be totally healed and I will go days without really giving it a thought.


As recently as a few years ago, I thought I’d never get a tattoo: I just didn’t want anything marked on my body forever; I was fine just as I was, thank you.


But there’s another part of me left over from my childhood when I thought I’d do everything you can possibly do in life. Like, when I was 5, I was pretty much sure I would experience being a fireman and a rock star and giving birth.


So now, I get to experience the rock star bit, if only in my own, small way.

My boyfriend, Hunter, came by on Sunday afternoon and insisted we open up the expensive cheese and fine wafer-thin crackers, insisted on eating their frozen pizza--Not that I really resisted, but he tried hard to make a party: "Look--When you house-sit for the rich, you have to take advantage of it. That's the whole point."

He enjoyed watching the NCAA basketball playoff prediction-or-something-or-other talk show-thing on the cable as we ate our pizza, but later his stomach hurt, and he admitted to feeling uneasy in this house. He agreed when I said, "I feel like we're at Pottery Barn."

Strangely enough, the house belongs to my boss, the owner of a small gift shop. She has a flair for picking out and displaying creatively the jewelry and Soy Candles and lip balm and pet accessories and nightlights and handmade wooden boxes at the store, but when I come to her house from the store, it's like I'm still there.


The clock chimes every quarter hour. The way it echoes through the house, I thought its chiming was the church down the road, my entire first day here.

Ghost house

I'm house-sitting this week.

People have told me I need to enjoy the spectacle of wealth that is this giant, rather fancily-accoutre'd house (in-wall espresso machine as well as open access to space-age washing machine and wine cooler: Not as in Bartles & James, but rather a full-length refrigerator-type unit built for storing--and chock full of--wines kept at just such a temperature.)

Instead I feel uneasy. For life is not made good through the magic of an accomodating kitchen, no.

The house is undergoing renovation; it smells new--Or, like nothing, really. The ceilings are very high; the walls are shaded in hues of eggplant and pine green. There's little furniture on the pristine hardwood and clay-tile floors (cold)--and nothing lying out on the quartz kitchen counter. All is track mood-lighting--on the dimmest setting when I arrived until I figured out how to turn all the lights up to their very highest. The house echoes. It's like a house waiting to happen.

Late this afternoon, a Fed-Ex guy came by with a package for the owners. As I opened the tall (creaky, somehow) door to greet him, some man looking through the pile of renovation debris in the torn-up front yard (A very well-dressed man: This is a part of town where trash-picking is a profitable sport for all) looked up and said to the Fed-Ex man, as I stood in the doorway, "Nobody lives there."

I laughed as I signed the Fed-Ex clipboard, thinking the man was some jokey neighbor and friend of my absent hosts. He didn't smile back, only motioned to the rattan chair in the garbage pile and said, "What's wrong with this?"

"I don't know. I'm house-sitting."

I thanked Mr. Fed-Ex and closed the door, scuttled back through the chilly, utterly bare front room and set the package squarely in the center of the otherwise naked 10-foot dining room table.

No one lives here. The owners' greyhound skitters insubstantially about me as I cook, do free laundry and generally try hard not to sit still and feel the complete silence, the complete lack of smell or texture. There is no radio in this house--not one.

Right now, I am unhappy. This is not the place to find peace, only more solitude. No one lives here. I am not living here. If I holed up here until the owners got back, who would notice? Who would know, at all? That man on the sunny street outside did not see me. Maybe I am a ghost, too.

Organize your life in 520 easy steps

As long as we're being completely honest here, I'm a rotten personal planner. I like to imagine a life lived with the decent organization that precludes the popping-up of fires that Must be Dealt with Now lest they grow to forest-size and devastate my humble abode: A long-term retirement plan, a system where my tax info is filed neatly away by year, a typed list of my staple groceries on the refrigerator - with a check-mark next to the items that need replenishing--(This suggestion I actually found in last month's issue of Real Simple-the Ultimate Organized and Stress-Free Women magazine that's become my dirty secret, my source of desire and loathing: the latter emotion directed alternately at the magazine for its prissy claim that Total Control is just a closet-organizer away, and yes, at myself for failing, again and again, to be even a quarter as well thought-out and fancy-free as the neutral-toned-clothing-clad, blemish-free women who grace its pages.)


At work, or at freelance jobs, I'm good at organization; a tad obsessed, because it Really reflects on me in an obvious way if I'm not. The work I'm doing there is never just for me, and I hate letting others down. Ask me where a hard copy of this or that spreadsheet is, and I'll have it for you in seconds. My desk at home, meanwhile--here--is a friggin' mess, and I feel actual shame over this, because it symbolizes the way that my actual own personal goals are in kind of a shambles.

Boring paragraph:
What it looks like: My desk is housed in a closet sans door in our spare room. The hanger-bar is strung with western-themed Christmas lights and multi-colored miniature paper fans hang from the bottom of the highest shelf. A painting my friend made for my birthday last year hangs on the wall, along with postcards and photos and drawings my nieces have made. On the shelf right above my desk, there's collection of small Virgin Mary statues that belonged to my deceased grandmother. More framed photos. And there, the impressively-personalized details morph into Just Plain Mess. Beside the Mary statues: binders, notebooks, folders, burned cds of audio stories I've put together, all leaning onto one-another and overhanging the shelf itself. Next to those, a box of envelopes, all warped from moisture and being shoved over by the pile of falling binders. There's a clay pot I painted at one of them Only-$25-bucks-an-hour--oh-boy!-Paint-it-yerself places, filled with pens, markers, sunglasses, let's see--a glue stick, an old undeveloped roll of film, spare change, lip-balm and a keychain. Next to that: A box of minidiscs, a matchbox car, a pile of printer paper topped with various cords and a blank-cd tower. And, for the grande finale, the desk itself: God. No. Well, unless you're a pantheist, in which case, yes. Everywhere. Um, papers. Bills. Cds. Scissors. Car repair bills. More random cords to things that I use sometimes. My printer. Speakers. This book from my Dad: 97 Ways to Make a Dog Smile. Embroidery materials. Unopened bank statements. A computer keyboard to connect to this laptop because laptop keyboards are so irritating and small. That I got for Christmas. Still in its box.


Better paragraph/end to rant
If you've actually read this far, wow--and, I apologize. Here is the fear: When I was little, I was a Brownie and had a meeting every Thursday afternoon after school - after which, my mother was supposed to pick me up.
My older sisters and I have discussed this: It's a phenomenon we have in common; it links the multitude of years that separates our disparate childhoods. All of us recall afternoons of sitting on the wall outside school a half hour after the Scout meeting ended, troop leader in her station wagon or van, waiting for my mom to show up.


My mother was not a neglectful person, or really forgetful in other ways; but I've come to associate her brain-block about picking us up after Girl Scouts with some dreaded Curse of Disorganization that perhaps I will never shake. Never will I get what I want out of life because the want ad for All-Expenses-Paid Travel Writer to New Zealand position is wadded up, unnoticed somehow, beneath my month-old energy bills and car registration papers.