this goal is a little nutty for me, in part because i am an artist and i live in new york city and i’m genuinely afraid of becoming one of those new york people that falls into a rut and never leaves the five block radius around their apartment. probably because when i’m working on stuff, i become that new york person for as long as it takes me to finish whatever’s bothering me creatively. so a part of me is always looking for something new and fulfilling to do, if only to snap me out of it.
the month is hardly halfway done and as ever, i’m up to my usual hijinks.
i was hanging out with a friend the other day when all of a sudden out of nowhere we bobbed into a shop that i’d been looking at from afar for years, but for some reason never explored – apt 48 in the flatiron district. i’d read about this place and i knew all kinds of things about it. like the fact that a black man owns it. but i digress.
we wandered around amongst the beautiful items for what felt like an eternity, then i spied a beautiful girly-sized leatherbound flask. on sheer impulse, i bought it.
the truth is, i had to buy it because it was the last one that they had and i knew that i would think about it for a long time afterward, if i didn’t. it would haunt me in the strangest ways. it was like that for lots of things i found and didn’t get. i have all too fresh memories from a jillion years ago of a beautiful pencil skirt i left on a rack because i couldn’t afford it. i was being sensible. i was thinking about my budget. i was being good. what i should have thought was oh, bother – buy it already. i can’t afford anything anyway, ever. i can barely afford groceries. i should have gotten that fracking skirt.
i’ve tried on many a pencil skirt since that one. i know that something in me is still looking for the one that got away and i know i won’t find it. but seeing a pencil skirt in a window or on another woman or even on myself makes me sigh. (deeply.) at this point, the fantasy that’s locked inside my memory is much more alluring than the thing itself, probably. so i let it go. and yeah, you can apply that to just about anything else. including men. especially men. something to think about, the next time you see me in a pencil skirt.
so yeah, i was thinking about that skirt when i held that flask. it didn’t help matters that it was on sale, either. (30% off!)
this purchase, from me – The Girl That Doesn’t Drink. or at least, didn’t touch the stuff (except for that rare celebratory shot of mescal) until last summer. that’s when i lost my daddy – four days before my birthday. that’s also when i started singing in speakeasies, and drinking cocktails in them. (i never have more than two, by the way. has something to do with only having two breasts and yeah, an embarassingly low tolerance for alcohol. but that quip is associated with martinis. and i hate martinis. so there you have it.) those cocktails didn’t turn me into a raging alcoholic but they did get me out of my five block radius once a week. (thank Jesus.)
wow. what a dark strange summer that was.
it looks like my minature thermos and will fit perfectly into just about all my vintage purses. too bad i can’t show it to you. hm. tell you what. if you run into me at a gig or something, i’ll whip that bad boy out. it will be filled with – what else? – mescal. and fortunately, i will not.
yee-hah.
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