(another) woman's intuition

A couple of months ago, Isa wrote about the contents of her bag and I've been itching to do the same. I'm not as candid a storyteller as this beautiful woman (I've bookmarked some of her entries including "More than Fine", "What Real Feels Like", and "When We Talk About Real") because the stories I have to tell require a heavier, less sophisticated hand.

When one of my bestfriends went through a break-up, I immediately linked her to the same entry Isa wrote for me (guess which). 

A few days ago, I asked my mother to help me put together my first make-up kit. I did my research (I haven't finished but I successfully fought the urge to create an excel file about foundations and concealers and liquid liners and bb creams) and several friends offered to help but I staved off telling my mom about the intention to finally, finally get my act together because I knew it was something she had been waiting for since I hit adolescence and began to look (without acting) like a woman.

Have I told you about my mother? She could have birthed an alien Jesus more capable of understanding her than what she ended up with.

This is what my bag contains before I imagine having to carry a battalion's worth of tiny tools, palettes, cotton balls, and bottles of make-up remover.

I don't carry a purse; I prefer satchels or backpacks or rucksacks (the difference between them I only found out early this year). On the other hand, my mother carries several purses in several different colors and with several separate functions. One for everyday, another to hold her money, another for special occasions. She keeps them locked up like a secret.

"my rucksack turned inside out"

1. The rucksack, a striped medium-sized bag from Soul Flower. 
2. My notebook
3. The yellow coin purse
4. A slim pencil case
5. Notes
6. A wallet

The only real problem I have with this rucksack is it was made from faux leather so I have to be really careful. I'm not a careful person--In fact, I'm violent and prone to some theatrics. I also commute all over the city.

I've been looking for a durable leather satchel since high school (I actually found my dream round satchel from an amazing specialty leather store in America but it costs at least $400 and I'm only, as yet, a poor graduate student) but until I amass a small fortune which will allow me this luxury, my striped little number will do just fine.

After graduating from high school, my mother took me shopping for college and she brought me to the department store to look at purses, these leatherette things that gleamed like plastic but one look at the animal-skin rip-offs convinced me I never wanted to own anything neon.
 

The venzi notebooks are my favorite. This one is small (it fits in any kind of bag) and lined (I look for notebooks whose lines are relatively closer together because my handwriting is small and clipped and illegible) and red and costs significantly less than the moleskin its design emulates. If you find me scribbling in it, it means I'm updating either a diary entry or chasing down plot details. It contains, above all else, a ton of story ideas, character sketches, thoughts about strangers, friends, and family members. All written in an offensive, pointy scrawl.

I began hoarding venzi notebooks after I found a purple one at a local bookstore. It was perfect--it even smelled amazing--and, terrified I might never find one again, I bought five of them at once (they come in black, red, purple, green, and brown). I'm happy to report they can be found, now, in most National Bookstore branches (in several sizes!). I even found a selection of plain, unlined versions.

I used to call these my doodle books. When I was nine or ten or twelve one of my mother's friends, Lisa, wrote to me. She told me to carry a notebook everywhere I went, wherever I went, in case an idea or a phrase or an experience prompted any form of visceral reaction. She told me to document, to record, to write an account. Understand I was once a very difficult child--stubborn, angry, judgmental, and mean-spirited--and most adults ignored the temper tantrums. In any case, children's rich and largely incomprehensible emotional and psychological lives are mostly ignored; my childhood was no different. (I want to remember why I was so angry and some of my notebooks were helpful in that respect.)

I carry three essential items in the slim pencil case: pens in two colors, a highlighter, a pencil, and an eraser. 

Last and possibly most important: my aunt gave me this wallet a long time ago, when I was far too young to appreciate it. It is glossy and textured and it rasps. Against all odds it retained the smell of the box in which it was shipped (my aunt bought it in Italy when she lived and worked at the Vatican) and sometimes I count the even stitches. It fits well in my hands.

I like small, compact things (colorful and even strange). I'm not the friend with a talent for finding charming objects (that's Peep) but I have a talent for safekeeping and making things last.