Dear World: I Have Been Baptized in Glitter and Bacon Grease

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

Yesterday, I went to breakfast. And, it has shifted an opinion I’ve had for a very, very long time.

Not about lobster (still gross).

Not about mullets (only cool in Chile).

And not about dirty toilets (there is no greater sin).

But about the way we show up in the world.

This place I went?

Had never been there before.

Had always seen it, but from the outside it’s one of those places that you fear sells lottery tickets and gumbo. And we all know that “gumbo” is one of life’s real crap shoots.

Had I seen the wooden crosses standing up in the window on my way in? I probably would have surely walked into traffic instead.

But, I didn’t. Instead, I went inside.

And what I found there was gobsmacking.

The first thing I see is the giant wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a quiet wooded creek that runs right underneath the building. IT WAS SPECTACULAR. It was like going to the zoo, except no animals, just fresh air. And trees. And nature. And the kind of babbling brook that makes you think that maybe you could be healthy again. Maybe you could be a runner.

I know, delusional!

But, these are the side effects of this nature stuff: it makes you have hope for yourself again. Maybe that is reason alone to buy a farmhouse in the middle of the Pennsylvania countryside without so much as knowing how to mow a lawn: you will wake the fuck up.

So I’m at this questionable-but-also-maybe-magnificent??? diner and I’m walking in all sheepishly, because who ever knows what face to make when you walk into a new place? You can either try to pretend like you know exactly where you’re going and you look indifferently onward, not making any eye contact with anyone because you can’t let them know that YOU DON’T KNOW! (so you make a beeline for a table and then accidentally trip on someone’s dog), orrrrrrrrr, you can do what I did:

You can shriek like a little girl.

I am so not cool in these situations. I am the most expressive person in every room, because I am constantly in awe of the surprising new things this world has to show me. You could go everywhere and see everything, and then walk into a diner in your hometown, and it will still shake you. I love this about life, its inability to get stale. The only thing that gets stale is your perspective on it all.

It wasn’t just the windows and the creek and the expansiveness of the space that I did not expect, but the booths. (Did not say “boobs,” though I didn’t expect those either. PLEASE HOLD.) The booths were painted in a bright, cheery, green-grass paint (Farrow & Ball’s “Danish Green” is spot on) with more muted pistachio green tufted leather backs and then one thick stripe of hot orange running across the top.

It was vintage. Yet it was fresh. It was both. It was everything, because you know why it worked?

It’s what we all secretly want.

When I go into a diner, I want it to feel like a diner.

When I go into a wine bar, I want it to feel like a wine bar.

When I go into a sports bar, I want it to feel like a sports bar.

Most places don’t do a good enough job of being the kind of place we’re craving when we walk into that place. Instead, they try to ‘modernize.’ And ‘fuze.’ And be ‘a new concept.’ And ‘appeal to the majority.’

Nobody wants that. Nobody wants your beigey, mushy horsenugggets. They want special. They want made for them. They want to feel like they’ve stumbled into a world that knows exactly what it is and has the confidence to stay that way. And, they want what they came for:

They do not want to walk into a sushi bar hoping for some bombass eel eggs, only to have you try to sell them a pepperoni pizza.

Violation! Expectations! Eetttttt! Ettttttttt! Etttttttttttttttttt!

This is why so many people have trouble marketing themselves: they’re trying to be a sushi bar AND a pizza place. (And also a Polish sausage place, just in case anybody happens to want some Polish sausage.)

So! We’ve got the windows—and the creek—and the booths—and an ubiquitous formica counter with tiny little chrome stools.

And then—Chrissy.

I know her name was Chrissy because it’s what she signed on the back of my check at the end, but before the end?

There was the beginning.

And in the beginning?

Seeing Chrissy was like seeing a shooting star.

It’s 9am. On a Saturday morning. And usually 9am on a Saturday morning dictates a certain…wardrobe. There’s an unspoken code about the kinds of things you wear on a Saturday morning. It’s the land of casual. Of regret. Of whatever didn’t smell too weird on the floor.

But not for Chrissy.

Chrissy arrived looking like Dolly Parton’s younger cousin who’d just inherited the glitter gene but none of the restraint.

Hot pink lips. Hotter pink eyeshadow. Rhinestones everywhere—on her hoops, her choker, even racing down the side of her tights like NASCAR for glitter enthusiasts. Blonde permed ponytail bouncing like it had a personal soundtrack. Silver chain belt. Black leather boots that could absolutely kick open the gates of hell.

She slides by the grass-green booths and the woman at the next table squinted, impressed: “You look like you should be in a roller derby or something!”

Ten minutes later, when Chrissy walks by again, she corrects herself:
“I didn’t mean roller derby. I meant roller disco!”

Chrissy just smirked. “Disco’s good!”

I’ll admit: at first I was startled when I saw the rhinestone outfit, too. Later, I was converted.

I flashed back to a lifetime of trying to figure out WHAT TO WEAR WHILE TRYING TO BE CASUAL. I am not very casual. I always wanted to wear pearls, and blazers, and heels to places where one does NOT wear pearls, and blazers, and heels. Other girls? They look great in T-shirts and sweatshirts. They can pull those off.

Me?

I look like a 3rd string quarterback.

Unless—unlesssssss—I dress for my body type. Which, for clarification, is somewhere between “retired linebacker” and “bouncer with feelings.”

There is no universe in which I can “just throw on a t-shirt.” If I do, I look like I’ve been recruited mid-brunch to play defensive tackle. My arms enter the room five minutes before I do.

So when I saw Chrissy in her rhinestones, I understood. She wasn’t overdressed—she was optimized. Because some of us weren’t built for “effortless.” Some of us were built for impact.

Chrissy didn’t just walk into that diner—she testified.

And it made me think:

Who gets to decide who you are on a Saturday morning???

Chrissy reminded me that identity isn’t something you discover—it’s something you decide. Every morning. Even Saturday ones.

And you know what I think should be our new rule?

Don’t be “relatable” if you’re radiant.

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the glory isn’t in “appealing to everyone.” Maybe the glory is in rhinestones at 9am. In being too much. In knowing exactly who you are—and showing up that way.

Maybe that’s all we’re really chasing—not perfection, not polish, but permission. Permission to be the rhinestone version of ourselves in a world obsessed with neutral tones.

Because everyone wants to feel like they’ve stumbled into a world that knows exactly what it is and has the confidence to stay that way.

And on that Saturday morning, in that bright green booth by the creek, I realized: Chrissy wasn’t just part of the diner’s charm. She was the diner’s philosophy—proof that authenticity never goes out of style.

P.S. I would never order eel eggs, and you know it.