Skin Trade

I've been living someone else's life. I rise with the sun and sleep shortly after it sets. I haven't set foot in a professional kitchen in a few weeks, and let me tell you-I don't miss it. Not. One. Bit.

For so long I have been a night bird, a thing that flies with darkness and drunkeness; a soul with wings made out of pain and stress.

This job is a vacation. I'm a wine rep now-all care of my fabulous friend Natasha at The Lounge. She put in a good word (paragraph) for me and landed me a position that has absolutely nothing to do with me picking up a frying pan and selling my self esteem. No more burned flesh, no more nights of horror, no more crazy owners. Just me and the road, my wine, my self confidence. And fabulous outfits.

Let me tell you! The clothes I get to wear: anything I can think of. None of which invovles elasticated pants or cotton duck jackets in the heat of the Carolina summer. I dont think I could have survived another summer in the kitchen. With the temperature hovering around 110 degrees outside (hotter in a kitchen)-and all those clothes designed to keep me from burning myself? I would have absolutely gone mad. So I live in linen pants and light shirts; soft loafers that are very much not designed for traction or function. Just fashion.

This skin trade is so much more than just professional though: I have a real life now. I don't cater too the whims of the world. I set my own schedule. I go home at a decent hour. I don't have to go to an office and stay there all day, I dont really have to do anything more than drive and talk. It's grand. I was made for this job.

I have time with my boyfriend (maybe too much time?). I have evenings to garden and tend my house. I have taken up the noble art of pickling; something of a Lowcountry tradition in my family. I've canned okra and crisp, hot green beans that will speak of sunshine when at last blessed winter arrives.

How we all long for winter, or even for rain with its false promise of cooler weather. The heat bakes us from the inside out here in Carolina. It becomes more brutal every year. In this, the beginning of the dog days of summer-the world is blanched with heat. Carolina summer is like nothing you've ever known unless you've lived it. Maddening heat. Passionate heat. If you're born of this dirt like I am, you cant really hate it-just endure it. It's part of you. I am the steam on black asphalt, the undulating heat waves...so emblematic of each person's life: just flailing vapors, and then we're gone.

I'm loving this skin trade. Each day I go to a restaurant and see the chefs and line cooks, I thank my lucky stars that I don't have to do that anymore. It was a long and wonderful time, as I've said-but I am so ready, and so thankful for this change.

When I trade skin, I pick the nicest suit available.