Wow. This month went by fast. I read somewhere that as you grow older, time just seems to go by faster, because you have a larger timespan as a point of reference. I guess that makes sense. But it’s scary at the same time.
Yesterday I fell into a kind of shopping binge. My mother’s not gonna’ like this one. But she’s supposed to love me no matter how many the idiotic things I do, because I’m her kid and that’s just the way it’s supposed to be. Moreover, what makes for an interesting reading other than the bad things we do? Nobody wants to read about sunshine and happiness every day.
As I was saying. After a quick trip to Ikea with Brandon, where I didn’t buy anything because I don’t need anything other than a rack to dry my clothes, I told myself I’m just going to pop by the 2nd hand store to see what’s new. I ended up trying about 10 dresses and only got one of them. So far so good. The day was still young, so I decided to take a stroll around the larger store I have pretty close to my place, a mini mall, let’s say. Since I’ve been living on what was left of my Romanian money plus what my parents generously lended me, I can’t say I’ve been throwing money around these last couple of weeks. And it’s difficult. I’m used to buying something every once in a while, even if it’s just a pair of earrings. It’s not my fault, it’s society’s. They’ve made us into consumerist monsters, who get are never happy with what they have and always want more, just because there’s so much more to want out there!
So I walked around H&M and after having only bought thrifted items, everything seemed strangely expensive to me. Maybe I was also comparing it to what money I had in my pocket. A skirt from H&M would have been the end of me. Thinking about what I was going to wear that night to go out, I was looking at some necklaces which would have went well with the outfit.
Next door to H&M, there was an accessory store. And they had A LOT of nice stuff. I immediately started to put outfits together to go with them. I selected a pair of feathered earrings, because I never had one of those, and then I discovered a sales rack. Another pair of earrings, a headband and a ring popped up on my wish list. Ok. ENOUGH! I said to myself as I was paying for them.
Next to the accessory store, a HUGE drugstore. Ah, how I’ve missed walking around those and smelling the perfumes. Hei, you know what would go well with my outfit and the feather earrings? A red lipstick. That’s what I was thinking. So I got one. And with the emerald stone ring? An emerald coloured nailpolish. Cha ching! Went the cashier, and I gave her an amount of my petty cash.
That’s it! I’m going home! That’s what I was thinking. But it was still early and there was nothing for me to do at my apartment, so I strolled around the neighborhood for a while. I still felt incomplete. Once I start, it’s hard for me to stop. Soon enough I found myself staring inside a hairdressers, thinking how badly I need a cut and a die. But that was really too expensive for me. So I ended up just getting a manicure. Because I haven’t had one done since I moved here. Now not to sound snobbish, but it’s hard to cut your damn cuticules with your left hand. So when I do my own manicure, my left hand ends up looking perfect and the right one is just a mess.
Sitting there and watching Kata the Hungarian do my manicure, I started missing home again. Manicurists, hairdressers and the cosmetic women who work on your eyebrows and stuff, these are for talking. They’re like therapists to me. The first meeting is introductory, where I tell them what I do for a living and in this case, how I ended up moving to Budapest. And then when we get to know each other a little better, I can tell them all of my life’s sorrows, boyfriend troubles, things about parents and animals and all of that. But here, I just stood there quitely waiting for her to get done. What was I supposed to do? Talk about myself in a language she didn’t understand? That was just depressing. It felt like I got half a manicure.
Anyway, after I spent a small fortune, I felt better. I got dressed and went out and had fun. I can’t say the same thing about today, when I spent the first 8 hours after I woke up in bed. I’m too old to go out two nights in a row. I don’t know how other people still do that. No more. I’m sticking to retiree activities.
So that’s that :).
S.
OZOSEP 