— पञ्च सहस्राणि षट् शतं एकम् —
I had an unexpected $22 expense yesterday. I had to buy a new pair of earrings.
I was drying myself off in the shower yesterday morning, and suddenly discovered my right earring was gone. What the hell? I can only assume it fell off somewhere in the bathroom, because otherwise I would have noticed it missing when I shifted my AirPod slightly out of the way when I was shaving. So, it had to have been there then. But, I could not find it. For all I know, it went down a drain.
So. It may be true that I now have quite a few pairs of earrings. But, most of them are themed by month or holiday and therefore not much conducive to frequent wear. My default, what I wear most days, is the small silver hoop earrings I had on until yesterday morning. These close with clasps, because the previous pair I had on were too hard to reinsert into their little holes with my long fingernails in the way.
Thus, this was my dillemma: what pair of earrings to wear? Going through the day with only one earring in, or with no earrings at all, were simply not an option. Okay, if you want to get literally, these
were options—but they weren't options I could live with. You might as well tell me I have to leave home without makeup on. It's not going to happen.
I looked through the stash of earrings I have in my drawer in the master bathroom. When I came upon my
cat earrings, and considered that I was wearing a long sleeve red T-shirt, it occurred to me that those perfectly coordinated.
And? Goddammit, why didn't I think to look through my earrings when Jennifer was visiting over the weekend? I should have been wearing those to Neko Cat Cafe!
Anyway. Wearing one of my "fun" pairs of earrings had not initially been the plan yesterday, but it was forced by the tragic loss of one of my silver hoop earrings. Justine commented on them very early in the day, at first saying, "What's going on here?" And then when she looked more closely and saw that they were cats, she declared them "very on brand." Indeed.
I looked on Amazon for affordably priced, silver hoop earrings while I was at work. But I was really uncomfortable with buying earrings I did not see in person first, not having a complete sense of the exact measuremeant of the earrings I would be replacing. So, I finally gave up on Amazon, and decided I would stop at Pike Place Market on my way home. I'm pretty sure I've bought one or two pairs of earrings there before—possibly the very earring I lost yesterday.
Knowing that Pike Place's posted hours of operation end at 5:00, I left work fifteen minutes early, at 4:15, so I'd get there around 4:30, giving me some time to walk around the Market. Several of the shops turned out to be closed on Mondays, but I don't think any of them were critical to my purpose there. I actually found only one jewelry shop with anything even remotely close to what I was looking for. The problem was, the one pair with clasps and the thickness I would have preferred were too small; the one pair that were the size I wanted were the kind that loop into a hole. They were both $24, I think the attendant said. Too much for any pair of earrings that were not exactly what I wanted.
I walked the length of Pike Place Market, on every level, and through to 1st Avenue. Once Target was in my sights, I thought: I bet they have earrings! I looked on their website to confirm. Then I walked in there, unsure of where to look. I finally found an employee to ask, and she took me two three revolving stands and said that would be the only place what I was looking for even might be. I had even already looked there, and was disappointed to find way too many stylized pairs of earrings I would never wear.
And then! A miracle! I found not only exactly what I was looking for, but a sale item of
two pairs of
clasped, silver hoop earrings, one comparable in size to the one I lost yesterday, one maybe 1.5 times the size. And I thought: why not? The pair together cost $23, so per pair about half the cost of what I had looked at in the Market and neither of which had been what I wanted anyway.
So, I bought them, and the larger pair is what I am wearing today. When I got to work, Frank, the new Grocery Merchandiser to my left who took Shelley's place and whose first day was yesterday, said, "What happened to the cats?" I suppose it makes sense he might have expected I wear those earrings a lot. I then went through the whole story with him. He wears studs, which I might have gone for a bit more myself, except, again: long fingernails. This was how I lost one of my beloved tulip earrings when I made the mistake of taking one out in Danielle's van a few years ago and then dropping it, never to be found again.
All that said, I am starting to think I may start switching up the earrings a bit more often going forward. I have collected too many pairs, actually, and their disorganization in that bathroom drawer has gotten a bit unruly. I really need to buy some kind of stand or container for them all. In the meantime, yesterday evening I did the next best thing I could do: I took two weekly pill planner boxes, and organized what I could fit into those compartments. I only had a few pair that were too big to fit, and this allowed me to throw away all but one of the earring baggies, boxes, etc I had in that drawer. This freed up space in there
and made the earrings more organized.
I also, for the first time, actually counted how many pairs of earrings I now have. There were 27! Well, I suppose 29, with the two new pairs I just bought. But that does
not count the two pairs with half of them lost (the tulips, and my beloved orca dangles I got in Victoria in June 2022, only to lose one at Pacific Place the following December). And, the vast majority of these are themed by holiday or month, although some of the "months" could still be worn any time: Space Needles; Washington State earrings; bicycles. The two months for which I have extras are June (for Pride) and especially December (for Christmas).
I do love my earrings collection though. I should tell people who ever buy me gifts that they should just get me fun earrings. Tracy understood the assignment when she got me triceratops earrings once for my birthday, even though I rarely wear them. But, there are others I do wear semi-occasionally. I have four or five pair that were never bought (or given) with any holiday or theme in mind.
— पञ्च सहस्राणि षट् शतं एकम् —
— पञ्च सहस्राणि षट् शतं एकम् —
There's not much else for me to report on last night. From Pike Place, I rode over to the Central Library to pick up a DVD. I rode home, made myself some chai, heated up leftover ravioli (made for Jennifer and Matthew last Friday) for dinner. I sat down to watch a great comedy special on HBO: Alex Edelman,
Just for Us. I only know about it because he was a guest on the
WTF with Marc Maron podcast a few weeks ago. And it was excellent.
It's unusually long, too: about ninety minutes. And it took me at least two hours to finish it, because I had to pause and/or rewind it several times, as I was trying to get logged into Threads on both my phone app and online on my desktop, but starting yesterday whenever I try to make this happen, their algorithm thinks the other device is a suspicious login and forces me to change the password. I have done this no fewer than ten times. It's truly driving me bonkers.
I finally managed to get logged into Threads on both my phone and my desktop at work this morning, but only after changing the password yet again. As long as I don't try to login to Instagram on my desktop again (and I rarely need to do that), I should be fine. The problem will then be needing to login with the new password on my desktop at home, which I will bet money will force me to change the fucking thing again!
I guess I won't worry about it for now. I have to get back to work. I don't want to jinx myself or anything but I'm kind of surprised by how manageable my work load seems to be. Granted, I still have 260 unattended emails in my inbox after the days off I took the week before last, but you know, whatever.
— पञ्च सहस्राणि षट् शतं एकम् —
[posted 12:30 pm]
