She had to have it, you know? That was kind of her thing, real grabby-like.
But she was good at things that didn’t rely on others. She was good at things for a little while and then moved on. She was good at things like mixing drinks and cooking; like making jewelry; arranging patio furniture under the setting Texan sun; gardening, tomatoes mainly; and playing video games. It’s not like she was neat or whatever. But she liked things a certain way in a certain place and organized her CDs, rearranged the inside furniture, too. Alphabetized books on shelves. Stuff like that, you know. What else? Oh. She was really good at picking songs and burning homemade compilations for friends. Crafts, too. She made envelopes, you know. Herself. By hand. Same with cigarettes and decoupage collages.
Yeah. I can tell you more. There’s always more.
Mixing drinks: In a glass vase on the counter behind the sink she kept long glass swizzle sticks with bright ornamental figures on the tops. Blown glass, you know? A monkey. A parrot. A palm tree. And a bright umbrella. They were a set. An expensive set of art glass swizzle sticks. Kitschy but beautifully rendered. She was careful with them and for fun screamed at her friends to be careful with them too. It was like a joke, but super mean. She made the drinks in the kitchen. Stirred them with the handle end of a knife, then served them on the patio wearing their swizzle sticks, expecting comment. Tom Collins. Mint Julep. Gimlet. Clamato and Spicy Tequila with Lime Juice.
Cooking: She always used the right implement or pot for its express purpose. And she didn’t mind the cleanup that this involved. She didn’t mind at all. I know because she always told me, “I don’t mind.”
Making jewelry: She had a red Sears Craftsman toolbox where she kept all her jewelry-making supplies. The burliness was explained away. It was a really satisfying toolbox. In the top she kept all the beads in a carefully-organized removable tray. Underneath there were different wires and clasps and pairs of needle-nose pliers and graduated sizes of similar-looking tools. In the bottom of her butch jewelry-making box she also kept a paring knife. It had belonged to her great-grandfather who had come to America from Sweden via Ellis Island. She said he carved his initials in a lot of walls with that knife. She told the story saying she didn’t approve of graffiti.
Gardening: Her garden was a tribute to her favorite architects. Bamboo structures were everywhere. She grew tomatoes on all of them except for the ones where peppers and sweet sugar snap peas with their Awwww-look-aren’t-they-sweet? blossoms grew. But like Monet with his haystacks she had a focus and was mainly interested in the best structure to support tomatoes. Tried different things. Pyramids. Towers. Conical funnels. And round cages. She built whimsical bent-bamboo tomato trellis forts. After trying everything she found that an igloo-type structure provided the best support and ease of harvest for the tomatoes. It optimized the exposed surface area of the leaves to bright midday sunlight.
Video Games: She was very good at video games that involved racing. She could even race the game itself on the most difficult and trying courses. She was, however, not so good at the video games that involved the martial arts. Her roundhouse kick was a personal embarrassment.
Organizing CDs: If a friend were depressed and there seemed no way to contribute, she would show up on a breezy Saturday and organize the CDs as if of course that would help. She put them in genres—not in alphabetical order like the books. And once finished she put the DVDs and videotapes away. And she would look under the sink and put order there. Then she would make sure that the clothes in closets were not chaotic but pleasantly satisfying, orderly. She’d make a joke from a movie about wire hangers. After that, she would link her arm in her friend’s arm and they would find a place to eat tamales and chicken wings outside in the afternoon. “You’ll love it. Their cheladas are great.”
Arranging the Furniture: The furniture in her living room was always a little discordant. She liked to have the bright yellow chaise next to her black metal apothecary chest right in front of the door as one walked in. It had an interesting effect. Not exactly feng shui. Coming into the room one was accosted by the fortress of furniture. But she had it that way for a reason. The person lying on the chaise could reach over and open the door without getting up. If the cops came, well, it bought time.
Burning Songs: She was a fanatic with the CD burner. But she made it a moral point to buy exactly one quarter of the downloaded artists’ songs.
Making envelopes: The artisan envelope was her signature. When she sent invitations for her cocktail parties, which she had on the patio with citronella torchlight, low funky music, and those fancy blown-glass swizzle sticks that she yelled at her friends to use with care, she made the invitation envelopes herself out of old wrapping paper or wallpaper samples. But the effort was so great that the guest lists stayed short.
Rolling Cigarettes: She was very good at rolling cigarettes. She could do it in her hands. Or she could do it on her little cigarette-rolling machine that she took with her to diners late at night. Mostly it was tobacco.
Collages and Decoupage: She collected pieces of wood. Mainly small, really quite useless cutting boards. She never used wooden cutting boards in her kitchen. Didn’t like bacteria to breed at an uncontrollable rate. But they were such beautiful pieces of wood, those little cutting boards. So she bought them, the smallest ones, the most useless ones, whenever she got the chance. She cut pictures of thin-armed girls in well-suited homes from magazines. Dwell. Better Homes & Gardens. National Geographic. And Surf Digest. She made collages on the cutting boards with decoupage glue and a pair of really sharp haircutting scissors from the beauty supply shop.
Planting terrariums in perfume bottles: Though short-lived, for a time she made a hobby of planting terrariums in tiny perfume bottles. She made a great terrarium and gave it to her elderly neighbor whose children had decided to sell the old woman’s house and move her into an assisted living community. Who could blame them for the market? Houses just wouldn’t ever get these kinds of prices again. But still. It didn’t seem right to sell an old lady’s house out from under her without her consent. So my friend with the jewelry-making toolbox and the art glass swizzle sticks and the optimal bamboo structure for growing tomatoes stayed up all night and planted a teeny tiny terrarium for her neighbor to take with her to her last new life.
Humming: But. You know how things go. There are ups and downs. Not everything is the way you might hope. My friend was just like anyone that way. She panicked. She threw things. She shoved people. She held close friends in vicious contempt. She was paranoid. She didn’t care. She was defensive. She was wounded. She was on drugs but not like they teach you in school. She was above all that and did drugs for fun, for freedom, for something to do with her disposable income, for the hell of it, for the experience, for enough quality bonding time, for better sex, for enlightened transcendence and Whip-it! laughs. Sometimes she cried and screamed with an infantile sense of injustice. But. Whenever she was driving alone she was happy. And she hummed.