Friday 21 September 2001

Pic of the day: Me in my new clothes. "I'm standing by the window, where the light is strong ..." (Obscure Leonard Cohen reference.)

Day w/ SuperWoman

I woke up slowly and didn't feel too good, so I delayed going to work for a couple hours. Meanwhile, my best friend called and said she had come to Kristiansand, and we agreed she'd pick me up after work at 18 (6PM).

I showered all over using my new Boucheron pour Homme hair & body fragrant shower gel. Here's how it works: You set the water to comfortably warm (not scalding) while you soap in. That way the pores in the skin open, and the fragrant oils seep in and blend with the melting natural skin oil. Then you rinse off thoroughly with chilly water, which makes your pores close. And the fragrant oils are trapped within! Cool, huh? So later in the day, whenever you heat up, and the pores in your skin open up, some of the beautiful fragrance leaks out all over your mortal coils! Yay!

I shaved a wet shave, because they are simply closer. Especially with the Mach 3 razor from Gillette, the best a man can get. (Well, in terms of shaving, that is. I think we can agree that there are other parts of life in which a man can get something better than Gillette. Registered trademark or no.) Then I applied my Boucheron pour Homme soothing after shave balm. After drying off but before dressing I also used my Boucheron pour Homme deodorant stick. (Seeing a pattern yet?) The girl at the perfumery said that deodorant sticks were mostly a Scandinavian thing, and that the fragrance makers didn't make them at all unless they planned to have a big presence here. That's why Guerlain only offers a spray-on deodorant in their Habit Rouge series. But I think that was her donkey talking, because I had just the other day seen an ad in an American comic for a deodorant stick. And there are a lot of Americans. It's probably just the French or other Latin Europeans who use spray-on, because then they can use the same deo instead of buying one each. We in the rich world don't need that.

I dressed in the new trousers that I bought yesterday, the light gray cord floyd, and a coal gray shirt with a similar texture. Over it I put on the new outdoors jacket that I bought yesterday. I don't usually buy clothes anymore, but I bought those two because there will probably be years till something comes along that suits me so well. The jacket is in exactly the same textile as the trousers, but it's slightly too relaxed to give a "uniform" impression. And then I went to town.

Before work, I had my hair cut. I had like totally fluffed it up after showering and washing it, so it was rather big. The cheap but good hairdressers in Tollbodgata cut it down to size and shape. (The moustache I reduced myself with a pair of scissors at another time. It was growing a bit bushy lately.) Finally, I am presentable!

I shall skip over the workday, such as it was. A quarter to 6, I applied my Boucheron pour Homme Eau de Toilette at a couple of pulse points (where the blood flows close to the skin) - these places are preferred because of the constant body heat. The first few minutes after applying an Eau de toilette or perfume, the smell is often too strong. Also it smells slightly different from the main part of the fragrance, because the first few minutes you smell those components that evaporate along with the alcohol. So I put it on 10-15 minutes before the actual event. Yes, I carry a bottle of this stuff with me. It smells great, and why shouldn't I?

I slipped out and bought a box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses. Yellow roses. You have to face facts, and yellow roses it is. And then it was 6 o'clock in the evening. With a little luck she would be there in time ...

***

She was 3 minutes late and had two nephews in the car. I was still happy to see her. She drove back to where her sister lives. My old friend the sister looks pretty much like she did 10 years ago, even though she has two small children and a husband now. The husband, incidentally, went to a party with his workplace. I barely met him. He seemed happy enough to see me. I suppose the reason why we haven't got together is that they both work to pay for the fairly large house, plus they're still shaping it up (they bought it used) and they have two toddlers who both demand full attention at all times. Luckily, the toddlers eventually trailed off to bed and didn't come back that evening.

It was good to talk with my best friend again. It was good to see her smile. It was good to see her face even when she didn't smile, like when she talked about the oral exam, which she considered very unfair. (Evidently oral exam is like finals where you have to answer verbally, not that they check out your mouth.) She talked a lot about the orals, even though she passed and no one is likely to ever ask about them again. And I took off my glasses because I did not want to have anything between our eyes and besides we were close enough that I did not need them. (I am near-sighted, as behooves a true geek.) Oh yes, her eyes are like an echo of heaven. But enough of that.

So we had a good time, doing friends thing. Nothing like they do in Margit Sandemo's novels. No running my hands along the sleek curvature of her body or burying my face in her hair and stuff, that they do after gazing into each other's eyes. I guess their eyes are different from ours. I remember the eyes of a woman who wanted to kiss and stuff once. Those eyes were kinda hungry, and much more like an animal. They were more taking instead of giving. I think our eyes have a different polarity than that. Or something.

Anyway, she's going to Sweden to work in ten days time. Not much of a vacation. And she needs to buy lots of stuff. A new car, first and foremost. She got a job near the Norwegian border, so she only has two and a half hours to drive home to her parents. That's much closer than here, but she intends to come here once more before christmas. Her sister hinted that we could meet in Oslo, but I don't think SuperWoman wants that. Perhaps because it's a pretty long way for me. Or perhaps because she wants some quality time with her family. Or perhaps because she'll be dating like mad - she's like 24 and unattached - and she feels my presence wouldn't exactly help. She's got a point there.

She needs a new computer, though. Her father threw away the old one she got from me. It was rather big, admittedly. (He probably also threw away the modem, even though it was small.) It was a good computer, ideal for playing Daggerfall. I feel sad for it. Anyway, I guess I shall let her have this computer (the Toshiba). Right now, it's my only Internet computer; I simply don't get the North to work with modems. I shall have to either take the North computer to town and have them fix it, or buy a new portable. Actually, a new portable is not scheduled until next year. (Last year was the Year of the Pocket PC, this is the Year of the Desktop PC, and then next year the cycle comes around with Year of the Portable. Each computer lasts approximately 3 years.)

She also needs new autumn clothes, but she intends to buy them herself. She will earn approximately the same as I, from next month and a year onward. Then much more, I suppose. Evidently they also threw away a bit of clothes because her father could only bring along so much stuff in his car. Besides, she never had all that much fall clothes. Plenty of summer clothes, but not fall.

She complimented my clothes, too. But not a word about my exclusive Boucheron pour Homme fragrance. Then again, I didn't sniff her either, so I guess that's par for the course. Whatever that really means.