The Things Around Me

I remember looking around at older women at my first few jobs (and back then, "older" meant "above 30" and wondering why they got so bedazzled for work.

I also remember doing some work with a high-end useless pretty things shop in Kansas City. I was in the shop when a woman came in and ordered hundreds of dollars in soon-to-die centerpieces, and my twentysomething self threw up in her mouth. Of course, at the time, I lived in a first-floor one-bedroom that butted up to an abandoned building/...