On hair

Last night we went to the Giants game (oof.) and I spotted, two rows ahead of us, a hairstyle that both horrified and fascinated. I would have snapped a picture, but the last time I took a surreptious snap of a stranger, he caught me and it was kind of awkward.  Artist’s rendering below:

The style was quite simple — a beautifully shaped lump of teased hair smoothed over and held in place with a plastic tortoise shell barrette.  I could not stop staring at it, which says a lot. I often ignore people who talk when the ball is in play and I don’t even pretend to be listening, but I found myself distracted by this perfect hair lump at least once per inning.  I pointed it out to my boyfriend sometime during the second inning, noting that it gave her the appearance of a dinosaur, perhaps a brontosaurus (all dinosaur references on this blog are informed by my second grade curriculum and The Land Before Time). He giggled and called her the bumpasaurus, and simultaneously we both declared her the Bump-It-saurus.  It was actually kind of adorable for us.

I came up with some questions I would have liked to ask her about her lump:

- Did you create the style yourself or did you see it in a magazine? You look like a girl who doesn’t necessarily read blogs and who probably subscribes to InStyle (your Louis Vuitton bag at the ballpark gave you away).

- How long does it take and is the barrette necessary to the structural integrity of the bump?

- Your hair is really pretty and long — what shampoo do you use? Do you use leave-in conditioner or any type of serum and where can I buy it?

- Are you on a date? Because it totally looks like you’re on a date. Do you like this guy? I don’t think you do because you’re not really touching each other or smiling or really even gesturing.  Are you even talking to each other up there?  Is he your brother or something?  I’m just going to assume neither of you really enjoy baseball or understand it and that you are just on this date here because it’s something “fun” and why not go to a Giants game?  We’re the Champions!

- Can I touch it?

On foggy days

I hate days when the temperature is over 75 degrees. I get incredibly uncomfortable when hot and often dehydrate at a rapid rate. I prefer to sit in the park, with long pants and a cardigan, on a moderately sunny day. I love a good breeze if I have remembered to take my allergy medicine. Nothing makes me feel more alive than a pathetically foggy day, the kind of day where the fog cries little tiny tears because even it is sad that there is no sunshine. Your hair multiplies in volume and you arrive at work with a slight film of mist on your clothing. Perhaps because I am Irish or perhaps because I have never lived anywhere other than places where summer means fog until after lunch, a proper foggy day renders me quite content. As for warm days when the temperature is between 70 and 75 degrees, I find that they make me uncomfortably anxious. I try to spend as much time “enjoying the weather” (this is the Bay Area, you never know when you’ll get another purely sunny day), but will end up only walking to the grocery store for a bag full of snacks to array on the coffee table in front of my perch on the couch. On foggy days, I don’t feel bad staying inside and reading a book all afternoon or watching free On Demand movies. I enjoy walking around San Francisco on a foggy day far more than on a warm day. My cheeks still get pink, but I don’t get rings of sweat in the underarms of my shirt and I feel healthier, like I just improved my constitution or beat tuberculosis.

In conclusion, I find that a foggy day in San Francisco, with the proper layering and disposition, is the perfect kind of weather.

On public transportation

I have been doing something sneaky on public transportation lately. Before I became a bus-rider of dubious character, I would have never taken a seat in the front half of a bus headed downtown in the morning. Those seats are for the inevitable elders whose presence on a limited-stop morning bus is inexplicable. I would glower at anyone under fifty who took one of those forbidden seats; I’d throw in a lip-purse for obvious possession of an iPod or a smartphone. Then I put on a little weight. The women in my family tend to carry excess weight in an unfortunate and distinct shape — something we have deemed the “Hebard Basketball.” The Hebard Basketball is a taut and compact concentration of fat radiating three inches by one inch around the belly button. It has the unfortunate effect of making every one of us look pregnant, including our 89-year-old grandmother.

Last month, I was at work until midnight nearly every business day. I was exhausted constantly and experiencing flare-ups of every past sports injury. My sciatica was so bad that I walked like a duck by the end of the day. In the midst of my pain and fatigue, I took a seat in the front half of the bus one morning. I immediately felt guilty and conspicuous. I began modifying my seating age rubric and adding mitigating factors in an attempt to negate the hatred emanating from each person older than me forced to stand for the ride downtown. I then remembered a ride home on the L-Taraval when I lived in the Sunset. I was tired, grumpy and gassy. I had completely given up on trying to suck in the bloating that had inflated my Hebard Basketball into a grotesque second trimester bump. I let it all hang out and decided that everyone would just assume I was with child and continued on in relative comfort. I looked down at my belly and summoned the bravery and the lack of dignity I gave into on my gas-pregnancy streetcar ride. I uncorrected my posture and let my Hebard Basketball push against the inside of my jacket. I was now, to any stranger, fully justified in taking a seat ear-marked for potential elders.

I now board my bus each morning, fully confident that I will have a seat and won’t be bumped and jostled by other riders who aren’t aware of the rule of civil society that requires one to remove all backpacks when riding public transportation. I can read my book and drink my coffee without having to worry about falling down. I’m fake pregnant and no one is ever going to ask me about it. I breeze easily onto the streetcar at the end of the day, gently and almost imperceptibly pushing past hale and hardy riders and confidently plopping down in the first available seat, vaguely gesturing towards my four-month growth.

I continue to imagine scenarios in which I am asked by well-meaning middle aged women how far along I am or when my due date is. I calculate a vague date of conception and keep my fake due date at the tip of my brain, like a teenager with a fake ID. I am aware that no one will ever ask me when my due date is. I have seen actual pregnant women forced to stand on crowded San Francisco buses and completely ignored as if it was their fault they chose to ride a bus while gestating. But somehow I feel even more comfortable with my charade when I can call upon an elaborate backstory.

I hope that my Hebard Basketball is not long for this world. I have signed up for an intensely popular and frightening exercise class that threatens to violently transform participants’ bodies. I will go back to being an overly-obedient and needlessly considerate public transportation patron, able to withstand a jumpy and crowded bus ride standing up. Then, someday, I’ll get knocked up and I’ll probably never find an open seat on the bus ever again.