Steamy

I love very long, very hot showers. Lobster skin showers. This may be too much information but TOO BAD PEOPLE. I am a water wasting, utility raising shower fanatic. I will easily shower until the hot water runs out. I will shower until I'm late for class. I seem to get most of my epiphanies and revelations in there, with the pulsing streams of water knocking on (frying) my brain. One of the first shower epiphanies I had was about a million years ago when I was getting ready to pack my bag and head out for my grandma's 90th birthday. Right there in the shower I knew very clearly that I needed to buy a video camera. BOOM! This is before anyone had video cameras. I was very young and I had no money. I think I had one credit card which had rarely, if ever, been used. But there in that shower I realized I had to get a damn movie camera. I was meeting my parents at the birthday party. As I recall it was in a church in Hutchinson Kansas. In a long room with a long brown tables and paper table clothes. Crepe streamer decorations.

I had about 100 miles to drive with a town or two along the way. I stopped at several stores I thought might carry video cameras but couldn't find one. Sure, there were tons of cassette tape players and beta video players, but I couldn't find a video camera. I finally did, of course, (this may be where the bile problem started) and when I got to the party I told my parents I borrowed it from someone. My dad would have bust a gut if he knew I had BOUGHT one. On a credit card. For $1600. That was a CRAZY amount of money back then. That was like 5 months rent. Shit. And the camera was HUGE. Heavy and bulky. Luckily these days my epiphanies are more likely to be about what I should make for dinner or where the raised bed garden should go, although some days I do still have grand ideas like, I'm going to quit my job, or, I think I'm going to start a business. Most of my shower ideas do come to fruition, and it's usually a positive thing. At the time of the video camera splurge, everyone feigned shyness, and didn't want to be filmed. It was such a novelty then. But I was relentless and got great footage. I made people tell me stories. I filmed relatives eating cake. I got audio of myself saying "um" a LOT. But mostly, even now, a million years later, I can hear my grandma laugh. Now THAT'S worth $1600.