today i used sapmoss shampoo in your hair because...

Things have really gotten done today, on The Day We Get Things Done. I'm exhausted, and I still have black beans simmering, rice cooking, and cornbread in the oven. Its a lot harder running obscene amounts of errands than sitting on your bum in front of a screen. Mostly, The Day We Get Things Done was spurred on by the need to go to the travel clinic and get scared out of our wits of things like Japanese Encephalitis, Schistosomiasis, and Infectious Diarrhea. Melissa and I both left with bandaids on each arm, a stack of papers that would need their own suitcase, and that feeling of ickiness that being 'well-informed' will give you. I was tempted to dump the pile of papers into the first recycle bin I came across, but reconsidered thinking that I ought to try to soak some of the information up before I end up in Vietnam with a rash and a fever and have no clue.

I was at the hair salon (okay, beauty school) losing about a pound off my shoulders and encountered the familiar weirdness that I get when I have nothing to contribute to the conversation. How do I style my hair? Does combing it out most days count? What types of product do I use? Ah yes, proudly, shampoo and conditioner! When was my last haircut? I think it was warm out.... The girl was nice enough, and didn't preach essences of herbalness to me or take me on a tour of the product galleria, but I still felt plain and sloppy around it all. In a good way though mind you.

Halfway through my cut a woman sat down in the chair directly across from me. The mirror separated us, but I knew enough by the last 4 inches of her ankles, and her feet. She wore black fancy pants and some wooden heels with a single, wide, black leather strap across the top of her foot. The strap had rivets and a large, rectangular rhinestone buckle. Her toenails were bright pink, and just about ready to be repainted. She would turn her toes together, or lay her feet to the side as she talked about who knows what, in a girly, playful voice. I think she was talking to her girl about some sort of drying or gel methodology.

I have been reading a book and there is a person in it that is described as being able to stand for an hour over a pot of boiling beans, and feel completely content. He needs nothing except clothes, food and a relationship with God. And not in a self-edifying, presumptuous sort of way. He is described to just not be affected by America telling him to be financially secure, fit, attractive and popular with a castle of comfort built around him. He engages with people as fellow humans and sees our role in the world as more of a response to what is around us rather than a chance to establish ourselves in it. I was imagining the sparkly shoe lady, and Paul being stuck in an elevator or something. I have little tiny versions of both these people in me, and wish I could stick myself in an elevator to really figure out whats important to me.