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This afternoon I cut my own hair, washed and conditioned it.
Doctors say a hospital patient is "Revlon Positive" when she is well enough to put on make up. I put on lipstick and a dark metal necklace. Normally I feel that metal on my body interferes with my chi, but today I was stronger than the metal. For once I wore a short-sleeved T-shirt. I didn't care what my arms looked like. I wore my new Ralph Lauren jeans. I skipped the sunblock. I found a new driving route that hardly had any sun. I drove East as much as possible. I got to a supermarket about 5:00 p.m. on Friday, also a local holiday for some. People coming out of here and there; precious cargo. I found a space right outside the store. I popped inside out of the sun. Right to the good papayas, which came in that morning. None are ripe now, but I got some. I'm told I was lucky they didn't sell out in five hours. I loaded my groceries in my car and went back for round two. This time the stakes were higher: Guava sauce ribs and barbecue chicken. The area where they cook them in the parking lot was ominously empty. I was glad to see that there were ribs and chicken in the store's hot bar. I asked to taste the chicken. A skinny elderly man wearing old clothes and missing his dentures came up behind me. I told him to go ahead of me. How much could he eat? To my surprise, he ordered three portions of ribs and some rice. Simultaneously, I learned that the ribs on display were the last of them. I began to regret my generosity. Thankfully I did get two portions of ribs, chicken and rice. It seemed like it took forever for the man ahead of me to get his order done. Somehow, the help found the addition of the rice to be very complicated.
I drove to a mall, and snagged a parking space next to a purple motorcycle. I brought my precious ribs and some veggies to a table and dug in. It was open air seating. People around me were ordering gourmet beers and eating appetizers from a bar. They were o.k. One seemed to be a retired law professor and another seemed to be a beer expert. The beers smelled delicious. My body seems to require me to live like a six year old; no caffeine, no chocolate, very little sugar and no alcohol, especially cold alcohol. For these and other reasons, I often don't feel like an adult. I'm fifty three. I watched the last rays of the sun disappear behind a building, black rays interspersed with the light ones.
I had already checked; there are no good movies. Love and Mercy about Brian Wilson seemed well-made, but I don't want to watch a movie about an evil psychiatrist. if you are a celebrity and you meet a doctor with no office and no other patients, run. I sat outside with the civilized beer people and read tabloids, ate a Peppermint Patty and drank grapefruit Perrier.
I went to an upscale health food store at the mall and bought baby greens, a pound of mini sweet peppers, a red bell pepper, a mango and candied ginger for later. I am buying what my body needs. At the cash register, I decided not to sweat the finances. Somehow, it came out to twelve dollars. A message? That's awesome.
Now I'm here.
