Short Skirt / Long Jacket
This song (by the band Cake) came on my 00s Garage Rock Spotify playlist in the car today and I believe it is about a woman who works in municipal government. Hear me out.
Here, listen to the song, I’ll wait.
The full lyrics, for reference:
I want a girl with a mind like a diamond
I want a girl who knows what's best
I want a girl with shoes that cut
And eyes that burn like cigarettes
I want a girl with the right allocations
Who's fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack
She's playing with her jewelry
She's putting up her hair
She's touring the facility
And picking up slack
I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket
I want a girl who gets up early
I want a girl who stays up late
I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity
Who uses a machete to cut through red tape
With fingernails that shine like justice
And a voice that is dark like tinted glass
She is fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack
She's touring the facility
And picking up slack
I want a girl with a short skirt and a long... long jacket
I want a girl with a smooth liquidation
I want a girl with good dividends
At Citibank we will meet accidentally
We'll start to talk when she borrows my pen
She wants a car with a cupholder armrest
She wants a car that will get her there
She's changing her name from Kitty to Karen
She's trading her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron
I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket
***
When this song came out, it was the summer before my sophomore year of high school. When my friends and I got our drivers’ licenses, we would put this song on mix tapes and play it in our cars, driving around, singing at the top of our lungs. This is a good song about a girl, and we wanted to be her. Some of us became her.
I’m not saying it’s about me, but I have been known to wear too-short skirts. I also wear my nails too long and they shine like justice. I try to cut through red tape with a machete, but sometimes it’s harder than I’d like it to be. Sometimes you have to use tiny little scissors and it takes years.
***
This year I’m volunteering in a regular weekly shift late in the evening at the warming center. The past two years I was there half the nights doing check in, but I took a step back this year from the day-to-day responsibilities. I ended up taking on more responsibility for policy and fundraising because that’s how I live my life, but don’t worry about that. Point is, I was there Monday night and it was very cold.
We’ve been in a cold snap for a few days. One of our guests is a very sweet man who was trailing a significant odor on Monday. One of our staff members from the City of Malden compelled him to change his clothes and clean up. The staff member told me that this guest has traumatic brain injury and doesn’t notice when he has had an accident and can’t tell he needs to get clean. This guest also has money in his bank account, retirement savings and social security, enough to get an apartment, but no ID and no debit card to access the funds. After the guest was clean and back asleep, the staff member and I discussed the systemic issues that had led to people like him, our kind and gentle guest, being in our care, sleeping on chairs in a church multipurpose room instead of in his own home, unable to access his own money, and how we could help him.
At 9:45pm, the staff members left because their shift was over. The volunteers stayed. We had one spot open for another guest and the doorbell rang. It was Lawrence*, a guest I knew well from previous years at the center. He used to be a regular, but on this night he didn’t want to stay. He was just popping in to see if he could grab some food. I didn’t ask, but I hope he has an apartment or is staying with family. Last year, he told me he sometimes stays with his brother, but that it’s hard because his brother doesn’t always agree with his lifestyle. Lawrence wears glittery eyeshadow and always has his nails painted. When he came in on Monday, he asked to see my nails. Mine are currently long and red for Christmas (they shine like justice). Lawrence’s are red, too. We held our hands out to each other to compare.
Lawrence asked for Cinnamon Toast Crunch and chips and I dug around in the donation room and filled a grocery bag for him. He left to catch the train.
***
We get more donations to the warming center when it’s very cold out. I don’t like asking for money, it goes against my immigrant great grandparents and the morals they instilled in my grandparents and parents and me, by extension. But I ask anyway, so when the grants manager and the assistant director and I talked about the cold snap and how we can raise more money if we do a fundraising push when temperatures are low, we decided to go for it. Funds are funds, and we use money to help people, and it’s not wrong to ask for what we need. We are sending an email appeal today. Right now it’s 24 degrees out, but it feels like 9.
***
In Medford, there is a building in a neighborhood that is zoned for single family homes. It used to be a convent and has been empty for at least ten years. A developer bought the building and is working with a nonprofit organization to turn the space into a shelter for unhoused survivors of domestic violence, women and children. I have been trying to help them along. The cost of housing is very high and I see the rising need for shelter due to my work with the warming center. The zoning is posing a problem, though. The neighbors have hired a lawyer to fight the proposed shelter and that lawyer has suggested that the shelter cannot open because it doesn’t qualify to supersede the city’s zoning regulations.
The group trying to open the shelter has been through two contentious Community Development Board hearings so far, with one more slated for this month. I hope the shelter is able to proceed. I think it could do a lot of good. I know the need is there and I wish there was more I could do.
I don’t, however, have a machete.
***
In 2001, I didn’t imagine I would be the kind of woman who would tour facilities, but that is what I am now. I tour many facilities. I met with Medford’s economic development director yesterday. I am working on making our streets safer, our squares more vibrant, and our community more business friendly. I want to expand the services we provide our residents, especially our residents who are most vulnerable, and businesses bring in tax revenue, which the city can use to bolster the services it provides.
It’s not very sexy to a 15-year-old, but it is actually a little sexy. It was to the band Cake, anyway.
***
What is my point? I’m not sure, beyond this: January is hard. The holidays are over, which is a relief honestly, but the joy and the celebrations are over, too. The parents are suddenly scrambling to make all the kids summer camp plans, because registration opens next week, which is extremely stressful, and really hammers home how cold and desolate it is outside. I’m getting emails from lawyers saying that shelters can’t open because the neighbors don’t want sweethearts coming into their neighborhood and I want to say: meet them! They are good and you might like them. They need help. It feels like 9 degrees when the wind blows.
It’s dark and it’s cold and I’m trying, I guess is my point. We are doing our best.
*Name has been changed
Cake
