This morning I went to a vintage store — one of several in my neighborhood. I was searching for the perfect pants, without knowing what they were. Something colorful that would look nice and make me feel like part of the art when I stop by Salvation Mountain in a few weeks. What I found was a pair of royal blue, high-water sailor pants from the 1960s or 1970s, and a muumuu that’s flowy and light and floral. I made my purchases and came home.
Later, I was on the phone with my mom and mentioned my tiny shopping spree.
“Oh, I love that store,” she said. “That’s where we got your prom dress when you went with that one kid — what was his name?”
“Ben,” I said.
“Ben! That’s right. And the man who worked at the store, he just loved you and Sonja.”
My mom thinks that literally everyone loves me especially. It’s sort of adorable (and not true).
I like that I got my prom dress from a vintage shop, and that my mom was generally up for a 1-2 hour trip to stop by said store. Back then, such an outing seemed curious and satisfyingly unorthodox. When the man who worked there invited us to some kind of fancy shindig downtown, it felt like living.
All I remember from the party was dressing up with Sonja, and feeling as though we were in a place far from the boring boundaries of my school life. We had a good time, Ben took me to prom in my vintage dress, and that was that.
Ten years later, I had just moved a few blocks away from the location of the party, and was walking downtown with Jake. I was only 100 miles from where I grew up, but still, entering a new urban and social setting is a little daunting. I was trying to score all of the credit I could get with my relatively new love interest. As we walked by a vaguely familiar building with large glass doors, I waved at it nonchalantly and dropped a clue to my mysterious past.
“Oh, I’ve spent some time in this building,” I said, looking for his intrigued response out of the corner of my eye. “I went to this fabulous party here, once. Exclusive invite.”
Jake stopped for a second and look the building up and down. “At the Kroger building?” he asked.
“Gosh, all these big city buildings look the same don’t they!”
Actually it was in the lobby of the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati. Thirty seconds of research shows me that it was a $20 after party for some gala they’d hosted. It’s the type of event that happens pretty regularly in Cincinnati outside of a pandemic, but I’d never go now. Was I more fun when I was 17, or was I just easily intrigued? Or is it simply easier to go out when your mom drives you and picks up the tab?
Yeah, definitely all three.
You're weird, I’m hyper
There was a day this week when my energy was so off from everyone else’s. I could only describe it as “hyper,” à la Y2K sleepover energy. My body was bopping around like a pinball. My brain was scheming “what if” scenarios for my bright future, scenarios I couldn’t not help but share every few minutes, either by interrupting Jake’s day with announcements shouted across the apartment, or by sending off audio messages to friends who were not expecting such jittery messages on a February morning.
Whatever brought this on, the experience reminded me of my tween years, that frustrating and uncomfortable window of time when you and your peers are transitioning into self-consciousness at slightly different rates, so while one person may be ready to carry on with old and goofy traditions, another may have grown out of it overnight and will not be allowing such immature gestures into their space any longer. They get this point across by telling you “you’re weird,” in place of whatever affirmative response you might have gotten the week before.
Perhaps not every single kid had this experience. I and my unbridled energy were en route to becoming something of a weird girl trope, where I strived to be the nonconformist of my Christian classroom setting. Although we all had uniforms, I used things like black jelly bracelets and shoelaces printed with hot pink stars to indicate that I was a student of counterculture. Did I try to stand out because I already didn’t fit in, or was I destined for hyper-weirdness from the beginning?
At some point, one starts responding to “You’re weird” with something snarky, like, “I take that as a compliment,” which isn’t sincere at first, but hopefully becomes true later.
For your comfort
I think we can all agree that February is the worst month. I’m seeking all the comforts I can get right now, both for my belly and my heart. I took my taste buds and my pressure cooker on a journey with this coconut curry chicken. The spices, they tango; and the chicken is so tender after cooking in a hot spring of coconut milk and tomatoes.
There’s definitely nothing wrong with rewatching a favorite movie with dinner for some extra cozy escapism. One of my desert island picks is Jurassic Park, obviously, and I also find it soothing to internet stalk the original cast. The best piece of JP-adjacent social media is possibly Sam Neill’s twitter. Expect earnest videos of him singing to his cattle, clips of him harmonizing with Jeff Goldblum, and endearingly poetic posts like this one:
Enjoy browsing Sam’s tweets,
Katya