The rag doll who lives above me has turned her apartment into what she calls a "sacred space," which as far as I can see is a sort of holistic romper room for crystal gazing, constructing indoor waterfalls and pretending that she's an Apache medicine person.
I should have known something was up when I observed her skipping in the stairwell without any pants on: "I've been teaching my vagina to dance with the moon," she explained. "What a coincidence," I told her. "I do the same thing with my penis when I get caught short coming back from O'Malley's Bar." But she just scowled and pushed past me, her bare feet and bells slapping and tinkling on the steps. I was only trying to be pleasant.
Last night I was forced to purify my own feet and get my forehead anointed when I knocked on her door to borrow a cup of sugar. She wouldn't allow me to cross the threshold into her dominion otherwise. This whole cleansing process took over an hour, and involved a good deal of strenuous tribal chanting, which was really infuriating because afterwards she told me that she didn't actually have any sugar. Apparently it's a forbidden substance in her sacred space these days. "I have a couple of organic figs," she said, "If they are sweet enough for you." But since I didn't fancy submerging figs in my coffee I left empty-handed, reeking of exotic potions.
This morning I noticed that she'd changed her name on the lobby mailboxes from Kim McAlpine to Isis Dandelion-of-the-Womb, which maybe more in tune with nature but will probably cause a great deal of confusion at the Post Office.
In fact, there was an article addressed to her bundled up with my mail. It was an over-sized postcard from Disneyland. The front featured a picture of the Little Mermaid dwarfing a little princess whose face was partially obscured by chocolate ice cream. Not an image, I thought, that would find acceptance with the idols of the Sacred Space. The back was a barely readable scrawl outlining details of the various theme park rides the writer had recently enjoyed.
Kim sighed and rolled her eyes when I gave it to her. "My sister's kid," she remarked resignedly, as if her sister's family were a notorious troupe of buffoons whose numbskull episodes were a long-standing source of embarrassment.
"Sounds like she's having a good time." I said, receiving a grunt in reply as the herb decorated door slowly shut in my face.
Walking back down to my apartment I reflected that there are supposedly three aspects of the Goddess: maiden, mother and crone, and despite their desperate efforts to impersonate the first of these, some new-agey women just can't seem to conceal their inner crone.
