The Earring Was Always Going to Be a Whole Thing

September twenty-first. I want to be clear that I was not the one who made us late.

Simone texted around ten to say she was coming by to grab something small, I assumed she meant the book she'd left on my counter three Tuesdays ago. She did not mean the book. She meant one earring, specifically one of a pair she'd left in my bathroom after a shift last month, and she had been thinking about this earring, apparently, for a while. I knew none of this when I opened the door. I was still in my leggings and the cream sweater I have been wearing in some form or another every weekend since approximately 2018, hair back, no agenda. She walked in, said hi, walked directly past me to the bathroom, and I stood in the kitchen for a moment trying to understand what I had missed.

The earring was located within thirty seconds. The problem, and I say problem very generously, was that she'd put it in and then wanted to see how it sat with the t-shirt she was wearing, and then the t-shirt needed to be evaluated against the jeans, and then the whole situation needed a second look from a slightly different angle, and somehow fifteen minutes passed while I stood in the hallway doorway with my coffee watching a woman conduct a very thorough personal audit using my mirror.

The international hand signal for 'give it to me right now'

I grabbed my phone at some point because her face in the mirror was genuinely extraordinary. The expression of a person solving a problem they created themselves and are taking completely seriously.

She did eventually declare the outfit resolved. She took the book too, on her way out, which I appreciated. I made more coffee, sat down, and thought about the last time I'd given my own getting-ready process that level of attention, as opposed to the version I usually do, which is: does this work, yes, done. I did not come to any conclusions. Gerald's trailing vine caught some of the Saturday light coming through the kitchen window and I watched that for a while instead, which felt more productive.

Two women, one earring, forty minutes. Totally normal Saturday.

Some mornings are just earrings and good light and no particular insight, and that is a fine way to spend a September.