AT THE MERCY OF CONDITIONS

Weird. I find getting a pedicure or a manicure weird. In some parts of the world, not having a pedicure is déclassé. You can feel a little naked without one, almost unfeminine. An outcast. The whole culture of those salons, though. Most of the nail salons I have been to have Asian workers and most all of the recipients are white women. I really dislike having my nails done, even when I am with a friend and can focus on her. Having someone touch you while you ignore them feels like a loss in the struggle for equality. And then they try to trick you into services you don't really want like a full leg massage or other niceties. (Doesn't Nicety sound like a 19th century British name for someone trying to rise above being a governess? Or a Hawthorne character?) I feel resented and maybe that is deserved? Or hostility for being one of the pampered? I appreciate their service as I have no skill in the female grooming arts. Janet frequently asks me if I have combed my hair. I suppose she doesn't like the bed-tousled look. Then again, her hair is so thick on top she often sports a Woody Woodpecker air.

Manicures are wasted on me unless I am really trying to impress someone. For many weeks of the year, there is telltale garden dirt here and there in the crevices of my hands, notwithstanding my scrubbing. Being in the pool helps float it all out.

Much later. And time for bed, even if I leave with no substantial thinking. 

Fortune smiles upon us a bit in cooler weather for the next few days. It was silly hot all over California, best I could tell. 

COMING AND GOING

There is a 
recently discovered
order, neither
sponges nor fishes, 
which is never
at the mercy
of conditions.
If currents shift,
these fleshy zeppelins
can reverse directions
from inside—
their guts are
so easily modified.
Coming versus going
is therefore
not the crisis
it is for people,
who have to scramble
to keep anything
from showing
when we see
what we can't see
coming, going.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, New York, 2010