That check out clerk

[pegkerr]

I stopped at Walgreen's today to buy some Benadryl, since I'm going to be spending the next several days with Kij, and she has pets and I'm allergic to both cats and dogs. By the time the line had inched up to the counter, I was staring at the clerk in covert fascination. Wow.

It was difficult to say how old she was. Maybe fifty. I'd guess from the lines around her eyes and the really terrible condition of her teeth that she was a smoker. Her hair was dyed an unconvincing garish shade of orangish-red, was ratted and teased within an inch of its life, and held back from her face with some gaudy rhinestone clips. Aside from the caked-on foundation, she had thick blue eye shadow on and her eyebrows . . . well, I couldn't tell if she had just laid the blue eye shadow right over her eyebrows or had actually used a blue pencil to draw them in. She was wearing a maroon top (with a couple of kitschy-looking rhinestone pins on the lapel), but her lipstick was arrest-me red, which certainly clashed. But the strangest thing was that she also had on . . . well, it wasn't exactly a feather boa. It was a dingy whitesh-gray, as if she had taken a feather boa and wet it down and let it sit in an attic for fifty years and then put it on this morning. Maybe it was supposed to be some sort of funky scarf? Her fingernail polish was glitter silver.

I could not help but feel a strange sense of awe, at how hard she had worked--and probably how much money she had spent--to make herself look . . . well, so awful. Wouldn't that money have been better spent fixing her teeth?

I see people like that sometimes, people that dress in such a way that makes me think: Lord, please strike me dead with a bolt of lightening before I ever go out in public like that. Often it's older people, who are doing something ridiculous because they think it will make them look younger. Like old guys who try combing over ridiculously long lank wisps of hair to cover a bald spot. I wonder: does their taste deteriorate as they age? Can they not really see themselves clearly in the mirror any more? Or did they never have any taste to begin with?

I'll be getting on a plane at an ungodly hour tomorrow to go see Kij. Will update from Kansas.

My right hand (my dominant one, annoyingly) is in a brace because I'm suddenly having trouble with my ligaments again. I had injured this hand about three years ago, and it took about three months for it to heal. Now, suddenly, the problem has reappeared--I can hear my wrist bones grate against each other when I turn my wrist. Ouch! Ick! So I've put this carpal tunnel brace on to keep myself from turning it. Unfortunately, it's not as restrictive as the ligament brace I used three years ago, but that got lost in the vicissitudes of my life. If it's not better by the time I get back from Kansas, I'll have to go back to the Sports Medicine Clinic. I can still type and use my mouse, albeit clumsily.

Peg

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I have a 6:30 AM flight tomorrow, so maybe I'll see you at the airport. I'm on American Airlines, so I'll be leaving out of something like gate E14.

B

Maybe!

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I'll be Northwest at gate F14, leaving at 7:18. Have a good flight!

Re: Maybe!

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I'll be long gone by the time you get there, unless you arrive at the airport real early. I generally arrive at the airport half an hour before my flight, but I cut things closer than you're likely to be comfortable with.

B

[ase.livejournal.com]

Hope you have a good trip, even with the hand issue.

[princesstisha.livejournal.com]

Peg, I saw almost the same woman working at CVS the other night. She had on sparkaly purple eyeshadow instead of blue. Ugh. I just want to go up to people like that and say "Dear, that's the wrong colour for you."

Hope your wrist is better!

Mantha

[skg.livejournal.com]

The saddest thing about that, IMHO, is that there is no one who will tell her that the look really isn't working.
Everyone needs someone close to them to say, "You're not going out like that, right?"

Hope your hand is better soon.

[philonightmare.livejournal.com]

I hope the wrist gets healed quickly this time, wouldn't want you to endure anymore pain!

--Eram

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

She likely spent the money that decorates her face a little bit at a time - money for the dentist comes in bigger clumps. And she likely thinks she doesn't have enough for that - not to mention not having dental insurance.

The thing that bothers me is women (and men) running around to stores wearing either curlers or plastic caps (for straigtener) in their hair. Why not just wait until everything is done, and then go shopping?

But they likely complain that I don't wear any makeup to improve my face, ...

Fair trade, no?

[penmage.livejournal.com]

:perks up:

Kij? Kij Johnson, who wrote The Fox Woman? :smiles: If it is one and the same, please pass on my thanks - I just finished The Fox Woman, and loved it. Erm. I actually have a question or few about the book - does she have email that she gives out?

(I don't want to be irritant or such. I just finished it last night, and it's still very much on my mind. The name grabbed my eye, and I had to ask.)

Yes indeed!

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

The Kij that I talk about all the time, my best friend for the past twenty plus years, is indeed Kij Johnson and is on LiveJournal too at kijjohnson. Her e-mail address is listed on her profile page, and as she's right here at my elbow (I'm checking my LiveJournal account from her laptop), she assures me that she'd love to hear from you. Believe me, writers are happy to hear from people who love their books. I critiqued The Fox Woman in manuscript, and if you go back in my journal a little bit, you'll see where I talk about critiquing the book she's just turned into Tor, Fudoki, which will be out next October. This weekend we're going to be discussing her plans for her planned third book in the series, the "Monkey Book."

Cheers,

Peg

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

I hope your wrist gets better. That sounds rather painful.

Corinne

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

It is. I've worn the wrist brace all day, and I keep wondering "Did I imagine that pain or something? And then I do something like pick up my purse or reach for a seatbelt without thinking about it, and OW! OW! OW!

P.