Narcissus

Today, a bird (I don't know kinds of birds--red breast, but not a robin) flung itself at its own reflection for a solid hour, so enfatuated with itself that he almost gave himself a concussion. It seemed fitting that while he was going through this masochistic mating dance, some friends and I were watching _Capote_. If Narcissus had had a blog instead of a pool of water, perhaps someone could have intervened.

I am With Dog this weekend, which means we've spent a lot of time on campus having squirrel chases. Spring is amazing and everything--the flowers, the trees, the smell--but college students in love are in bloom, which is just annoying. I'm glad they're young and thrilled to be with each other, but their rolling around together on the springtime grass just makes me feel old. Really, really old. And like maybe I should have studied less when I was in college and done more campus canoodling.

Yes, I hate college students in love today. And possibly tomorrow.

Thursday I tore my office apart looking for a mug to pour my can of Coke into so I'd look more appropriate at the department meeting. I felt like a heroin addict kicking telltale needles under a sofa when the doorbell rings. An Indiana-sized woman shouldn't be slurping down 12 ounces of high fructose corn syrup and I'm self-centered enough to think my co-workers would actually notice. (Never mind one of my fellow teachers is hyperactive and drinks espresso by the gallon.) Viva la insulated mug with sippy top.

Late Friday night the friends and I were at Meijer. In my mind, I'm still 20, so this is acceptable behavior. But I ran into a couple of students--twentysomethings themselves, though one has a child and divorce papers and is in a relationship with the other one, a boy who I visited in the hospital the day he was born because his aunt was my best friend in high school--and the student shrieked across the fruit bins, "WHATAREYOUDOINGHERE?IT'SMIDNIGHT!" Which I can only assume means she thinks someone of my advanced years should be home filing her corns at such a late hour on a Saturday night. And maybe I should be because I buy stupid things at midnight. Like hot pink nail polish and coin purses with Scottie dogs on them. Two items every almost forty year old needs. And when I left? Two bobble head Justice League figurines from the bubble gum machine. There's a dollar well spent. My friends with husbands and children and mortgages? They buy more practical things like 1200 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and patio furniture.

Add to this that I discovered I was misguided when told that DHC Deep Cleansing Oil was just olive oil, so for a month I've been 'washing' my face by rubbing Bertolli's $5.99 olive oil all over it, sure that I had beaten the system, figured out a cheap way to have the gorgeous skin of a Mediterranean goddess. Well, it isn't. A moisturizer, sure, but there is no cleansing going on. So the whole 'with age comes wisdom' thing? Not true. We aren't even guaranteed that.