baggage

D: THIS. IS. RIDIC.

A Lady: WTF. Seriously. I take a big purse, and that’s it. Fin. (I mean, hell, I take a big purse and a small duffel for a WEEK. IN THE WINTER.)

D: AMEN. I mean, Jesus Christ on toast, I am in the midst of the travel marathon for work at the moment, and this is absurd. WHO CHECKS LUGGAGE FOR A THREE-DAY TRIP? I had to do slightly more than a big purse (although heeeey, that leather bag you made me is so best for work travel needs) since this is a Professional Fancy Times travel itinerary, but for REAL.

A Lady: Do we even have to get into why this is absurd? DO NOT CHECK LUGGAGE. Wear the big things, pack the small ones. Wear: jeans, tank, cardi, sandals. Pack: shorts, tank, dress, swimsuit, heels, underthings. Pack makeup, one hair product, travel brush. Jesus. Or leave Jesus, because then you might have to check.

D: Plus, if we're 90% water or whatever, Jesus will probably violate the 3 oz. or less of liquids rule.

And if you're traveling anywhere citified, you know that you're probably going to end up buying a significant amount of clothes there, which means you’ll pack for like 2-3 days less than the duration of the trip. And NO ONE needs to bring the entire makeup bag, c'mon. Especially if the vacation is beachy. You're going to end up wearing waterproof mascara, sunscreen, maaaaaaaaaybe powder for non-swimming times, and some sort of tinted lip balm with SPF. Maybe lipstick for evening.

I mean, I packed for 10 days in Peru in a single carry-on. And I didn't end up wearing half of what I brought, either. (Sum total of makeup packed for Peru: mascara, powder, tinted lip balm. I ended up wearing only the tinted lip balm. Shoulda thrown in another tube of sunscreen, though.)

A Lady: And’s let’s not even get into when you’re going home/the S.O.’s home and you’ll have easy washing machine access. In those cases, it’s entirely appropriate to take a week’s worth of clothes—again, a small duffel—and know that you’ll have the ability to wash all your basics. Also, no one at home will care if you wear the same thing three days in a row. (Or at least, they might care, but they definitely won’t comment.) Long weekends, I seriously just take a big purse/small overnight bag and fill it. Oh, also: roll your clothes! Fewer wrinkles, less space. Oh, and a foldable (!) lint brush is good. Or one of those mini travel rollers.

D: Ok, current contents of my work-travel bag. This is for three days, and I really should’ve pared it down better (the flats were unnecessary. Shoulda just done heels + sandals), but I did have to be ready for a fancy work thing (hence the lint roller).

Shift dress (nonwrinkle!), tank top (didn’t even wear this), multivitamins, stripey shirt, cutoffs, iPod, laptop + sleeve, professional-like black dress, book, business cards, work documents, huge tangle of cords and makeup bag. All inside the leather duffel. The purse got folded up and put inside the duffel and held travel docs, phones, wallet, sunglasses, etc. Shoes: black heels for work, flats worn on plane, sandals worn everywhere else. One bag to schlep. And this felt like WAY too much for three days, honestly. God, wish I’d taken a photo of my carry-on for Peru. I brought three swimsuits (because I like options?) and ended up wearing only about 80% of what I packed. For ten days. In a carry-on.

A Lady: Oh, def. When I went to Mexico, ditto the three swimsuits—and that was just for five nights—two sundresses, two shorts, wore jeans and a sweater, a couple light linen beach shirts and tanks, flat sandals, and a pair of heels for dinner. Wham, bam, you’re welcome. I seriously think my makeup bag was as big as the rest of the stuff I packed. And amen to slipping the purse into your bigger bag. That’s also a way to get around the one carryon/one personal item role: take a carryon, a big purse/small duffel, and put your regular purse in the latter. Take THAT, airlines.

baggage

I am sitting in my apartment, looking over my "things to spend money on while in New York" spreadsheet, and avoiding making eye contact with the pile of clothing I have considered and rejected packing.
(Is this pile as tall as my bed? Yes, perhaps, it may be.)

What does one weaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar for a long weekend with one's most sartorially splendid friends? I chafe at the idea of not having my full closet full of Options for outfit re-thinking and re-tooling. (We will ignore the fact that I am very likely to buy a whole bunch of clothes in NYC, which could solve the wardrobe dilemma right there, but one can never count on this. I mean, what if the only clothing I buy ends up being, like, two pairs of boots and seven sweaters and no pants?)

BAH. This is sending me into a spiral of "I have nothing to wear, and I hate all my clothes, and I should just wear a bathrobe and never leave the house again because hey that worked for J.D. Salinger, right?". Which is objectively silly, considering I have two closets full of lovely clothing, but THERE IS NO REASONING WITH CLOTHING PANIC.

Truly, what does one wear? Because I am staring at one black knit dress, one pair of black boots, and one black cardigan, and I feel this is somehow inadequate for four and a half days.

career counselor

In which we plan completely plausible and responsible changes of career! And by “career,” we mostly mean “ways to somehow acquire loads of money without doing much in the way of actual work.”

A Lady: Okay, let’s dream up alternative career plans: run away to England, star in a hilarious Beeb sitcom about two American grad students at the University of Edinburgh. Go!

D: YES.
Alternatively: I move to NYC, and we are scouted by a fabulous-but-not-obnoxious gallery + bar to program their events and create custom drinks. And there is a clothing budget in addition to salary, as our appearance reflects on the gallery/bar's success, naturally.

A Lady: We move to Tuscany, where your inability to speak Italian and my inability to do anything service-related wreak comic havoc on our social lives and ability to run a B&B.
OR we are anonymously nominated to be anonymous members of the anonymous board of nominators for the MacArthur grants. Which, amazingly/conveniently, is actually a high-paying gig!

D: While we are en route to a symposium on Best Practices in Shoe-Blogging, our plane is forced to make an unscheduled landing in Paris. There is a mysterious car waiting to pick us up at the baggage claim, and it whisks us to a Left Bank apartment, where Daphne Guinness announces that she is adopting us! It's France, I'm sure their adoption laws are flexible like that.

A Lady: Oh god, can she? Because then we would be heiresses and Without A Care In The World.

D: OR it turns out that my scathing grad-school takedown of Robert Brustein has attracted the attention of conservative arts lobbyists (a shadowy evil group, obvs) and I am forced to flee the country!; due to the volume of email correspondence exchanged between us, the Evil Conservative Arts Lobbyists or sundry assorted literary critics begin threatening you as well, and you, too, must make your escape! But thankfully, there is a safe haven in Monaco for persecuted brains, funded by the Princess Grace Foundation!

A Lady: I think all this grant-writing has given you a delusional complex about the availability of funds for entirely Unworthy activities.

D: Hush, let's work on getting the MacArthur Genius Grants. That's a life plan, right?

A Lady: Bugger, bugger, bugger. I have been reading all about the MacArthur fellows, little things like “Richard Powers trained in music and got his degree in physics, got bored and quit with his MS. One day he saw a picture and then wrote a novel about the people in it. Then he was a genius.”

D: Let's see... MacArthur likes people who are crafty! Check.
MacArthur likes minorities! Check. (Well, we count for like 3 minority points, anyway.)
MacArthur likes collaborations! Check.
Somehow we can work biking into this, and perhaps facilitate a tiny bit of bribery into the process by making MacArthur people a custom eponymous cocktail buffet. Or we could write a middling-but-Oprah-approved novel and just sell the movie rights, perhaps?

A Lady: Really, I think that’s all we need: a mediocre novel with a heart of gold. The Jean Harlow of novels. Based on pictures like this one!


D: "Consumptives dining on ferry boat" leads to a novel titled...
Um...
"Appetite Adrift"?
"Deadly, Hungry, and Unwanted"?

A Lady: “Paddling Toward the Sanatorium”?
“Wasting Away”?
“The Scarlet Dinner Napkin”?

D: Ooh, "Wasting Away" ftw! And then we will get critical acclaim because people will say "oh my god, women were able to write a novel with these fully-realized and compelling male characters, amazing!"
...oh wait, no, that only works in reverse.

peer pressure

In which A Lady bosses me into not cutting my hair before I see her in November. (I am not cutting it in preparation for a truly kick-ass Halloween costume, at the moment.)

D: So: Theda Bara! I am growing my hair out, doing loads of research, and planning the Theda-as-Cleopatra costume. This might be the thing that spurs me to buy a sewing machine.

A Lady: Oooh.

D: IT INVOLVES A HEADPIECE. You know I am a sucker for headpieces.

A Lady: YES. Dude, come here for Halloween, and I'll be Louise Brooks.

D: OOH, YES. Louise Brooks is my idol. And my haircut inspiration, obvs.

A Lady: …Though I am excited to see you with a longer 'do.

D: I might cut it post- Halloween though; it tends to get stringy when longer. But! there will be Halloween photos.

A Lady: Nooooooooo.

D: Striiiiiiiiingy, L.

A Lady: I wanna see it longer. In person.

D: Bossy, bossy.

A Lady: Duh. Also, that's what dry shampoo is for.

D: You will not see it longer in person if it's all lank and gross.

A Lady: Hmph

D: …But if it's behaving, I'll leave it. We'll see.

A Lady: Pah.

Let it be known that if I am sporting unflattering hair around on my vacation this November, it is totally A Lady's fault.

meeting of the minds

I bought myself a little present: a plane ticket for an east coast vacation this fall.

A Lady is east-coasterly.

I believe the formal statement we both issued regarding this event was "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!", accompanied by jazz hands.

act 1, scene 1

Setting: Miami International Airport. Terminal D, Gate 28. International Departures.


A Lady: Heheheh white people who are Lima-bound have a uniform

Hiking shoes/Tevas

Cargo/ripstop pants

D: North Face jacketsPolo shirts/Greenpeace tshirts

A Lady: Hair that screams "Greenpeace"

D: (Jinx)

A Lady: Backpacks

Indian-print tees

Like, for serious. And they wear this stuff around Lima.

It's a metropole.

There are casinos and (cheap!) five-star restaurants.

Don't be a colonialist fuck.

D: Oooh, I bet there are ankle bracelets made of hemp, too

A Lady: Also: pith helmet. Gah.

I need to take a pic of this dude sitting across from me

D: PITH HELMET?

sweet baby jesus on toast
Sidenote: whyyyy are my lips so chapped?

A Lady: Because you have been making out too much with unsavory characters?

D: Nah, sadly. have not made out in LIKE A WEEK

A Lady: Womp womp

D: Ooh maybe sunburned from this weekend

A Lady: Too many ginsicles?

D: (No such thing as too many ginsicles.)
A Lady:

D: OH GOD THAT PHOTOA Lady: Are you impressed? Am v. undercover

D: Ninja-worthy photo skillz

You KNOW that dude eschews Christmas presents every year and just asks for a donation to the World Wildlife Fund.

A Lady: In Ling-Ling, his panda adoptee's, name.

D: YES. And it's not a Christmas gift, it's a "winter holiday donation"
A Lady: God am being catty D: It is too, too easy to be catty in an airport. All those people lined up, just ASKING for snark.

A Lady: Ugh, weather is awful, wish you were here.