Have you ever just stared into Walmart’s crafting section and become possessed by the ghost of a retired 60 year-old woman who spends the majority of her time on Pinterest and inside Hobby Lobby? And then, the fog is only lifted after you find yourself in the front seat of your car with two bags full of fabric, needles, stuffing, and thread. It doesn’t even matter that you don’t know how to sew, or that you pulled off the tags of your shiny, new things with no hesitance. This couldn’t possibly go wrong and you’re for sure going to move onto dresses and pants and leather work after you get these pillows done. 

This happened to be me a few days ago, where I found myself trapped in a decision: Should I buy a $60 dollar sewing machine, or just go for the $1 on-the-go hand needles? For once, I realized this would not be a good decision, and bought the $1 needles, which are a pain and I quickly quit after exactly two stitches. I’ll wait until my mom can remind me how to use a machine again.

But, I spent the majority of my day in Walmart, staring blankly at fabric in the crafting section because my sister’s Buick had a “may-pop” tire, which would better be described as: Yo-if-you-want-to-live-you-should-probably-invest-in-a-tire-right-now-bc-you-are-going-to-literally-die-the-moment-you-leave-this-parking-lot.

My ultimate-super-best-friend-since-third-grade, Baley, happened to be spending the day with me. And she decided to make an apron, but it isn’t pathetic because she actually knows how to sew and crochet and other seriously useful things we should all know how to do by the time we are ten. The likelihood of her completing this project is much greater than me ever actually getting around to making one successful pillow, much less the eight I have enough fabric to create. In fact, as I am writing this, she’s literally on my bedroom floor making herself a pair of high-waisted shorts with hems, real hems!

The real fun began after we left Walmart, where we wasted energy chasing convenient corners and looking down at our hands whenever we saw friends from high school we didn’t feel particularly inclined to talk to.

We travelled far, a whole thirty minutes, to walk main street a few towns over. We slipped in and out of antique stores that held strange knick-knacks and overpriced hand-me-downs, and settled into our natural habitat, the thrift store. There, I managed to find a maroon spaghetti-strap dress and a western belt (which will look incredibly hot wrapped around my future ol’ Levi’s handmade shorts, when I get to them) all for the cheap price of $6.50. Baley found herself the hottest pair of mom jeans this side of the Mississippi has seen, and a strange, tight, greeeenish? dress that reminds me of a 70s high-class spy.

Running off of this high, it’s only natural that we end the day with a makeshift photoshoot in a nature walk. Baley already has the face of a model, of course she also has the gift of being able to work with lighting and angles.

I blindly pointed her towards places to stand, bullying Baley into branches, thornbushes, and canopies made out of foliage. Eventually, the rhythm became natural. The awkwardness of a camera separating two people was forgotten after seeing a few lucky shots affirmed that neither one of us were doing too awfully. My aesthetic eventually took over; my affinity for flowers, the color green, and the way shadows look on Baley’s face, I found myself telling her to pull down the straps of her romper to show off her collarbones. I awkwardly leaned over her as she laid beneath me, staring up, with a flower between her teeth, trying not to smile as I swore about the summer heat.

We marched through the thickness of a muggy forest; although the sun was waning,  we were both becoming sticky from sweat and irritable by the warmth. It helps that we heard creepy noises, which drove us back towards the beginning of the trail faster.

The two of us eventually decided we were happy with the shoot, and then I (idiotically) suggested we take a cute picture of each other doing a cute pose I saw on IG. It’s like I hadn’t paid attention to how my day was going. 

It was (supposed to be) simple: both hands pinch a flower by the stem and place it in front of each eye, the model in question smiles– maybe even laughs, and an adorable selfie is born.

Baley went first, and yes, hers came out gorgeous. I even did some impromptu pictures on my iPhone of her giving me the ultimate blue steel.

It was now my turn. I plopped myself down on the same plot of flowers she had been sitting in, unbuckled my belt because GOOD LORD, was it cutting into my food baby, and took the flowers gingerly between my fingers. As I was just about to get comfortable enough, my arm began to throb, and then– an even more intense feeling, like a sting, sparked all the way up to my shoulder and down to my wrist.

I only move fast on few occasions: A. I’m being chased down by some sort of wildlife, B. I’m dumpster-diving after nine o’clock behind the mall and a security guard is making his rounds, or C. Some kind of pain is forcing me to run, because obviously, only frantic movements and a string of curses can soothe the hurt.

This particular moment in time was C, obviously. I stood straight up, yelped, and then ran back to the car while exclaiming to Baley, “I’ve sat in poison ivy! I’ve sat in poison iv– oh, heck, where is my camera? Oh thank you, Baley. You’ve got the keys? What do you mean the keys don’t work on the exterior doors we idiotically locked because we were paranoid someone would steal all of our fabric and thread from Walmart!”

So, there we were. Standing in hundred degree weather, my shirt is long off, Baley is looking quite defeated as she frantically tried every door again with the key, and yellow blisters are forming up and down my arm. It didn’t help that we were both starving and dehydrated– our iced drinks tucked safely inside of a car we could not get into, laughing at us.

I finally called defeat, and lifted up my cellphone to tell my sister we had locked ourselves out of the car. And then, my finger midway to the “call” button, Baley has an idea. If lightbulbs were capable of floating, one would be above her head.

The Buick, as you have probably already discovered for yourself, is quite the abused vehicle. The AC switches on and off with every pot-hole I hit, the glove compartment only stays closed if duck-tape is wrapped around it, and the window in the back refuses to stay up. 

Baley shimmies down the window and flings herself into the back of the car, on top of all of our precious Walmart purchases, and crawls over to unlock the front doors. Because of her quick thinking, we managed to make it to the store quick enough to purchase calamine for my rash, and within hours, it was gone.

Overall, the photography went well for an Oh-My-God-I’m-Such-An-Amateur photographer like myself. It’s something Baley and I are planning to do much more of, considering I have a decent camera, and Baley is decent looking (Kidding, she’s incredibly decent looking) (Kidding again, she’s hot). There will be more, and by more I mean, more collarbones, lips, dark eyebrows, probably fake blood, and lots of flowers.

See y’all around,

Syd

P.S. Poison ivy looks like this, in case you didn’t know… because we didn’t.