I always pack with fiendish precision and take more stuff than anyone could possibly need – and always find myself stranded without something necessary to deal with the weather.
Ayun advised me to bring my fuzzy hat (she says that it looks like a knitted toilet seat cover) but I couldn’t find it.
The wind kept picking up my crispy hair and whipping it straight up and across my head, where it decided to stick to my lips and then drag bright red lipstick lines across my face.
So: most important stop of the day – buying a black hat and gloves at Filene’s Basement, which is actually upstairs in a mall sort of building and looks nothing like my 1964 era daydreams. Anne claimed that my new hat was cute but it gave me a sort of exiled-to-Siberia look for the rest of the trip.
The Utne showed up on newsstands and I opened it to see a picture of myself. Then I spent the better part of a day fighting off a panic attack that was hard to trace in origin but has to do with the notion of identity.
I grew up mutilated, ugly. The fact that I have learned to manipulate my public image is a political choice. I’m not attractive by mainstream standards, but I photograph well – and it seems important to cultivate that dichotomy.
Though I could be wrong.