Second Hand, Second Thoughts

The anxiety had been building for three days. It crept up like the crap that piles up around the dining room-- just want to clear the table for dinner, dammit! Stick it over here and we'll sort it out later!  But week or so of that--suddenly, as if through some dark magic, there's this teetering, veritable  wall of crap: unopened mail, catalogs, schoolbooks, papers and forms to sign, school neckties and sweaters, shoe polish tins and stain removers and rope and violin rosin and first aid kits and dirty napkins and old cookie boxes. Eating a meal becomes like living in some crumbling, filthy crevice of the San Andreas fault. It's getting to you, little by little... That's IT, you think.  I'm gonna clean that shit up. And so I did--an entire Monday morning sifting through the detritus like some slacker archaeology dig--sedimentary layers of papers, last Monday's mail, and used Band-Aids, a lunch box with slimy half-eaten peach inside, 63 open safety pins, a...

Several of the catalogs I love to order from are now promoting the fact that they no will not Photoshop or retouch the images of their models. While I should be all, " yay for natural beauty !" I am, in point of fact, thoroughly bummed. This means that the dewy-faced girls with all the golden freckles and tousled locks in those sports bras are, I am to believe, actually that gorgeous. Whereas before, I could plausibly believe that those six pack abs had been digitally re-mastered, cellulite smoothed with the Bandage tool, and lanky shins artificially un-scarred. No more! Usually, when you meet someone model-gorgeous in person, you can pick out their flaws to see that they, too are human: they're an ugly crier, or their penmanship is horrible, or they're a low-information voter, or their cuticles are in terrible condition. But, caught in a moment of sheer, well-lit photography, all you can see is: God just wanted to make sure you know that life is just that dam...

So, I'm trying to hire some help with my eBay store and to get my Etsy store up and running. I thought I was offering a kind of nifty deal: you get to work at home, when you want. Decent hourly pay with a percentage of profits. It's not really difficult work. I mean, after all, I do it. And I've done most of the tedious work of photographing, weighing and measuring. It just needs to be listed and shipped. But good help seems to be very hard to find.

It's kind of funny to get messages from eBay buyers about how they feel "deceived" because the item I sold them said it was in "excellent condition," or "3/4 sleeves" and they thought it was "poo-poo condition," with "long sleeves," and now the entire experience has become a "complete nightmare" and their faith in humanity is pretty much lost. Kinda funny, but also not. Let's think about this, now: I'm this one, weird-looking, slightly ditzy person in Naples, Florida, selling used clothes on eBay. Oh, yeah--I'm here, rubbing my hands together like some evil villainess, plotting to "deceive" you into paying 15 bucks for a pair of vintage Lilly Pulitzer capris pants. So I could enjoy hearing how I've ruined your life with an ancient rust stain that I missed? Because I secretly need a pen pal so we can send skirts back and forth and debate if the elastic is brittle? If I was truly clever enough at...

Solitude      I used to think it was a personal, moral failing that, after about three to five days of being around people, I turn into this irritable, snappy, fitful, horrible creature.      I was told that I was "difficult," "unpredictable," "arrogant," not a "team player." These are nice ways of saying "snappy, fitful, horrible creature."      I have since been told this is typical, introverted behavior.      But frankly, I still think of it as a failing.      Because I've been running my little gallery in Louisville for over a month, now, and I'm truly understanding that regular shop-keepers' hours are not my strong suit. But I somehow think that shouldn't matter. I should do it because other people do it. What's wrong with me that I just can't do it?      Outwardly, I am boisterous and outgoing; I have made a sort of burlesque art of talking to strangers ...

I do know how to take a compliment. But it still kinda-sorta bugs me when people say anything about my thrifting habits. "You find the most amazing stuff! You must have some sort of Midas touch when it comes to the junk stores!" "I just can't go to thrift stores--not like you do. I never find anything good." "You must really love your stores." Admittedly, I am showing them Chanel shoes and Tod's purses and Bally briefcases, which is amazing stuff, to be sure--that's why I'm showing it to them. But if I had a true 'Midas Touch,' I sure as hell wouldn't be using it trying to remove set-in wine stains and sweater pills. I'd be raking in money investing in real estate and have someone else shop at Saks for me so that I could donate amazing stuff for some alternate universe version of me to find. As for the second comment, it's true: You can't find anything good in thrift stores if you don't go to thrift stor...

The joke goes: Two circus laborers were shoveling piles of elephant shit. It was a hot day, the flies were awful and one of the elephants had diarrhea.  A gorgeous woman walked by on the arm of a well-dressed, obviously successful man.  "Ya know, if we got office jobs, we could afford a dame like that," said the first guy, pitching an enormous, soupy elephant turd onto the pile. "What?" said the other guy, aghast. "And give up showbiz?" There are jobs that everyone wants to do because they sound cool and interesting:  writer, actor or theater designer, architect, artist, fashion designer, bar owner. But most people realize that you really should only pursue those careers if you absolutely, positively can not do anything else. Those are jobs that actually require a lot of much of the time very, very dull, tedious work with huge possibilities of ridiculed obscurity, thankless poverty and heartbreaking failure. Most of us who labor in these creative sal...