I think I should be packing right now. I know I should be packing right now and I am going to start packing in just a few minutes, but you know first I came home and had to sort through the mail and then I had to make a quick dinner (which I accomplished by sliding some frozen hors d’oeuvres into the toaster oven, et voila!) and then I had to get my laundry out of the dryer and then I had to pet the cat and then I realized I hadn’t updated for several days and I am going to start packing in a couple of minutes, right after I go to this store which I was going to go to last night but there was a horrible accident on the Ballard Bridge and so I ended up staying home and eating cookies and drinking hot apple cider instead.
Anyway, here are some nice things that have occurred this week. I was going to put “exciting things” but you know I so rarely do exciting things. Normally the things I do can be handily subcategorized into Neglible and Sadly Ridiculous, And Not In A Fun Way.
First! First I got my hair cut the other day and also Zan finally made me a woman by waxing my eyebrows for me. I appreciate her zeal (Zan, if you’re reading this, love you, and love that cute shirt you had on!) and her devotion to convincing me that my entire life would change, were she given permission to apply hot wax to my face with what looked like a rolly-glue tube, but all those people who were like, “Ooh, Chiara, be careful, you’ll be a SLAVE to eyebrow waxing your entire life if you get it done even once” were clearly insane. I sat there with the tears rolling down my face (Zan: “Is this painful for you?”) wishing I were giving blood at the moment with a huge needle stuck in my arm because at least you get cookies after. My eyebrows puffed up entertainingly while I was having a soulful discussion about layers with Zan and that was pretty cool, but I’m sorry to report that having having hot wax rollered onto your face and then yanked off and then having the nice lady with the cute shirt pull more hair out of your face with sharp tweezy pincers of pain has done absolutely nothing for my appearance. I look just as I always do. As far as I know the general populace remains as immune to my charms as it always does and there is no way I’m investing in one of those crazy expensive tweezers that everyone seems to love. Lest anyone think that I am a complete troglodyte in terms of my beauty regime…well, actually, you’d be pretty correct about that. Anyway, I just want to assure anyone who may be in my company at a social event in Miami that I will be mowing my winter legs for the occasion. And maybe while I’m at it I will shave off my new eyebrows and start afresh.
Okay, and second, Erin mentioned on her site that I’m one of the contributors to her book that’s coming out in May and that was very exciting news indeed. I knew about it earlier, of course, but I wasn’t sure when it was okay to make such a thing public. I’m super excited to be a part of this book even though I just looked at the two-page thing I wrote and was summarily horrified by it. I’m sure it will all work together somehow but I can see the reviews now: “Tales From The Scale is an incisive and hard hitting look at various body image issues women face and the myriad ramifications thereof manifested in all areas of the self. Except for Chiara’s bit, which, seriously, is so dumb. The rest of the contributors are by turns elegiac, celebratory, and defiant in their depiction of the ever-shifting realities of owning a female body. A must-read.”
This will be the second piece I’ve ever had published. I was recently reminded of the first one a couple of months ago, when I got an email from someone at YouthWorker magazine. It seems that a piece I wrote smack in the middle of my Teen Evangelist years, about my church youth group’s work with homeless folks in downtown Miami, is going to be reprinted in some sort of twenty-year retrospective. I find this deeply and indelibly hilarious for a multitude of reasons, the first being that I cannot remember what I wrote about. I know it was about this transvestite dude named Tyrone who lived in this makeshift village underneath a highway overpass, and how I got to know him and was going to do an interview with him and attempt to submit said interview to the Miami Herald or something, and then I got a tape recorder and everything but that very night he disappeared and I never saw him again. I think it appeared as a sidebar in the magazine or something. I think I was sixteen or so when I submitted it. At the time I thought it would be the first in many many published works and that soon I would get used to having submissions published and that one day I’d support myself through writing. Hmm. Yes. Okay.
Multitudinous regrets about my life’s path aside, how great is it that I got paid money to write about trannies in a Christian magazine?
The last great thing about my week has been that I have been greatly enjoying this excellent box of cookies from Trader Joe’s called Passport To Cookies. If you live near a Trader Joe’s then you must immediately avail yourself of the Passport To Cookies, and you must always refer to it by its full title of Passport To Cookies. Also, you must memorize the various lands to which various cookies magically transport you (you will find this information on the back of the box) and you must refer to the various individual cookies by their native lands. None of this “Dudes, who ate the last one of the ones with the cappuccino sprinkles?” You have to go “Hey! Someone has been EATING ALL OF BELGIUM UP IN HERE! How’s about a Passport To My Fist?”
And now it is getting time to put some more laundry in and actually pack up everything I need to get packed up and then get immediately into the bathtub so I can watch a movie before going to bed at 8:00 so that I can get up at 2:30 to catch my 3:15 airport shuttle. Next time you hear from me, babies, I will be kicking it freestyle in the UK.