Yehudini the Magic Mover, THE LIE, and a Whole Lot Else

If you really want to see a slice of life in New York, skip the village, bypass the meatpacking district and head straight for…the Brooklyn home depot parking lot. Its truly amazing. I go there every weekend. Which may be a little more frequent than necessary but nonetheless, it makes for some incredible sights. For instance, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Hasids at home depot. Today, Sunday, at 4:30 EST Daylight Savings, Home Depot was approximately 59 per cent orthodox. While I sat in mahdis' car intermittently driving around the lot when the Jamaican van drivers realized I was stationary and therefore would certainly like to be smiled and winked at, and possibly approached and/or propositioned, I saw four young orthodox couples, young like my age, with two kids each under five and the woman at least six months pregnant…SLOW YOUR ROLL FOLKS! The meshiach may not have room for that many and I want a spot!! The real meat of this anecdote, though is that in my vehicular pacing, I saw a sight that now, in the sanity of my domicile, seems like it may never have happened. I saw a Hasidic man, driving a Cadillac Escalade, with the license plate (drumroll please...) SHEM TOV 9. Shem Tov 9!!! Each one of those elements is more staggering than the last. Not the least mindboggling of which is the implicit fact that at LEAST nine other people have honored the founder of modern Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, with their vanity plates. On a later round, I saw the man out of the Escalade (!) he had the traditional beard and pe’ahs (sp?) but was wearing workmans jeans, gloves, timberlands and a baseball hat. Ive never seen anything like it. Perhaps he, like myself, questions the legitimacy of a God that would make his chosen people wear a ridiculous, weather insensitive, defamation inviting outfit like a huge wide brimmed hat and monster black furlined coat 365 days a year. Whatever the reason, he cut a hell of a sillhouette. Especialy with the escalade.

So I bought a couch. It wasn’t easy. And it was a good illustration of how we make our lives more difficult than they need to be. The first way in which I created difficulty was to schedule the move for 11 30 on a Friday morning. Now, as an adult, when was the last time you were free to help someone move furniature on a Friday morning at 11:30? Well, if you cant think of it, youre in good company because not one of the crowd of Seattleite NY transplants was able to assist me in the move, with one important exeption. Monica Frisell, who glory be to God, has yet to really begin her adult life since shes still an undergrad, had no classes and was able to come to 23rd and park with me to meet the moving guy with me on Fri am. Which leads us to the second way in which I made my life harder than it needed to be. I asked a Senegalese acquaintace who has a van and has at least considered using it in the service of other people’s moves enough to make a card which advertises said service, to come and help me move the couch. Now, as my friend Talib so succinctly put it, “have you ever heard a West African person say no to anything?” And no, I haven’t. Ive seen them not do things, but I’ve never heard them say no when asked. And that’s just what happened. He just simply didn’t show up. Which put me, Mahdis and Monica at 23 and park at 11, with half an hour until I told the guy from craigslist that id be there to pick up the couch and no van. They man I was buying the couch from supplied me with the name and number of a man that he had previously used and was reliable. And Israeli. So I called the guy. He was available at four. That left, oh five hours to dink around and get tired and hungry before going to move furniature. That’s just what we did. As my really pretty stellar luck would have it, my very attractive single Sri Lankan friend from Seattle whose number is 206. 697.9557 was coming in to the city to visit and he happened to get in at about three. So, we will leave Me, monica and Pradeep eating lunch in Café Havana on Prince and Elizabeth (great corn) while I tell you the story of the actual couch purchase transaction.
It was a dark and stormy night, really it was. But this time I had an umbrella! So while my feet and ankles were soaked my head and undergarments stayed mercifully dry. I digress. I had an appointment to meet a young (Jewish) man from Craigslist with the confident voice of someone who has been considered attractive their entire life, about a couch. He sounded very cute, and I was actually kind of psyched to meet him cause we got along really well on the phone. Heres the TOTALLY HUMILIATING story of how I convinced him through bizzare Seinfeldian deception that I am a complete psycho. Usually I don’t get off until eight, so I had plans to meet him at 8 15, but I ended up leaving work early cause I wasn’t feeling so hot and I thought maybe we could meet earlier. No dice, he had already planned on meeting me then. Fine. That gave me three hours of downpour to kill. I ate, I shopped around finding 100 places to buy the same cheap unwearable Chinese import clothes. And I decided to get an early start to our meeting place, so I would be sure to be on time even if I got lost. Which I of course didn’t. So I took the 23rd ave bus across town to 23rd and first, and got there about eight. When I got off the bus, the guy calls me. I didn’t want to seem like I was overeager, or that I was going to try and rush him by getting there early, so when he asked me if Id gotten off the bus yet, I LIED and said no. I said I was still on 23rd and Park, where the 6 let me off. "Good" he said, "cause I want to change our meeting place a little. Don’t get off the bus until the last stop, youll know because the driver will announce it and everyone will get off." Crap, of course I had already gotten off the bus and would have to wait for the next one. Which I did. It came quickly, and I quickly realized that he, having grown up in the neighborhood, would know that if I had really been where I said I was by the six stop, It would have taken me quite a bit longer to get to 22nd and FDR on the bus and I would never have been there so soon. So, again, I LIED, and when he said with surprise, and sounding as attractive as ever “You’re here already??” I said “Oh,” nonchalance, “I took a cab, I was freezing.” Now that would have sufficed, except that he asked where I was, and I said 20th and ave C. Apparantly that’s not where the bus’ last stop usually is, but the driver had said "everybody off, last stop." So when Cutie Jewstein said, "Wait, 20th and Ave C or 22nd?" I, not used to having to preserve the integrity of a lie, said “Well, the street sign says 20th and that’s where the driver kicked us all off so it must be the last stop.” I immediately realized that I had JUST told him I took a cab. I'm sure he did too. He said he'd be right down and I busied myself thinking of further lies to try to cover up my slip, i had taken a cab but we pulled up behind the bus and I saw everyone get off etc etc, eventually realizing Id be better off cutting my losses and just never mentioning it again. He was ADORABLE, worked in film advertising, kind of looked like Jason Patric but cuter and with green eyes. Which Jason Patric may have as well, haven’t seen him act since Lost Boys. His mother had on a whim bought a new couch and coffee table and had been neurotically regretting it for six weeks deliberating about either putting this one in storage in case she didn’t like the new one as much, which she doesn’t think she will, or maybe just sacrificing the deposit she put on the new one and telling the store she made a mistake and doesn’t want it. She said she felt better now that she knew I was going to get it, that she felt like she already knew me. It felt very familial, sort of upper middle class, brainy neurotic loving Jewish parent way. I wanted to invite myself into their lives immediately; “want to have brunch sometime? Maybe go see a dance performance?" But I couldn’t, buying their couch and coffee table was the closest I was going to get. Anyway, his parents are fabulous, the couch is fabulous and If I hadn’t LIED like an IDIOT our life together might have been fabulous but instead as he walked me back out of the complex and prepared to brave the rain and walk home he said “ So you have my dad’s number you should be able to just deal directly with him from hereon out, right?” Or somesuch translation of “get away from me you weird, damp, orphan craigslist liar and don’t come back.”
Cut to me and Monica and Pradeep, racing up to the weird complex which is divided into two identical halves, called Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Who the fuck is Peter Cooper? We tried the rosters in three identical buildings and called the poor guy about five times before finally finding his and going up to start moving the couch down. I was sure he hated me, but he managed to put his animosity aside and help us put all the pillows into hefty bags for ease of transportation. A little after four, the moving guy showed up. Not Israeli as I had been told, but a Moroccan Jew who came with his 17 year old son. The kid looks like Harold from Harold and Maude, with big overgrown curls, and has the kind of Queens accent that seems inappropriate on anyone younger than 40. I had my doubts at first, he didn’t have a van and his truck looked like it would fit about a quarter of the couch in it and I suddenly saw myself having to make several trips on following days, my heart sank. But, he assured me that he was Houdini, and that he would be able to fit the whole couch, the coffee table and all five of us into the truck. I was sure he was out of his mind. But as more and more of the monstrous sectional disappeared into the bed, I relaxed. I was in good hands. Mon, P and I chatted up his darling son as he helped us carry stuff down to his dad. A sweeter teenager could not be found. And as Yehudini artistically rope tied the couch and table to the boat hitch under the open tailgate of his truck, I felt like the stupid cycle of karma attached to this purchase was lifted. We took the long way back to my house, along flatbush cause I cant give driving directions to save my life, and visited the whole time. He has been in NY 20 years, his son helps him move whenever hes not in school and he loves it. Hes the kind of kid I imagine existed a lot more frequently in past generations, who look forward to spending time with their parents and see helping them out with their work as an honor and a responsibility. Plus he's ADORABLE and asked me about skin care products when he found out I was a cosmetologist. So they helped me get everything in the house, and stayed for tea and haircuts. They looked sharp as hell going, they really did. Im hoping we can somehow be friends. I may buy a dresser soon…

We filmed a reality TV show in my work on Thursday. It was long and boring. The host had a small white dog that cohosts with her. The human host, and the dog too actually, were totally charmless and unremarkable. I couldnt imagine looking forward to the next episode. It was called something inane like relationship rehab and focused around a dry looking white girl who had been dating a guy for two months and was devastated when he “dumped her.” Ive got stories that would put that chick in a padded cell, but enough about me, lets talk about reality TV. They were in the salon from 9:30 to almost four and will probably use about 40 seconds of footage from the shoot. They filmed her getting new hairdo from a very nervous Judah, whose charisma and strength of character was overwhelmed by shyness on camera. Very cute. Then they did her clothes (ugly, glasses sponsored by lens crafters) and makeup. I gave a couple of the sound guys and production assistants haircuts.
Then Chaim and Judah took all 18 of us out to dinner at a nice upper east side Italian restraunt. That was really fun. We were so loud. Everyone was toasting and doing impressions of each other and how they each do hair. That group is insane, I was looking around at everyone thinking about how different everyone’s growing up was and how we all ended up around the same table doing the same work. Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Dominican Republic, Columbia, Israel, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Puerto Rico, Seattle, all five boroughs, Kentucky. Incredible.
Judah said he was impressed with my haircuts on the crew and that he could see we could start booking me with men’s haircuts! Exciting. Hope that happens. I know this installment is a bit long. It’s been a dense week. My neck is out, Ive been icing and taking advil, and simultaneously my throat is killing me. Halloween is tomorrow. Mahdis and I went to a costume party last night that sucked and felt like a frat party, the DJ played a John Cougar Mellencamp song, but our costumes were good. I went as one of the small Incan, Peruvian Indian guys that plays pan flute music in every major city in the world. I knew as I bronzed my face, that it had the potential to be somewhat offensive. But since Ive never heard anyone speak ill of those with incan ancestry, nor have I ever met a Peruvian, well, that’s not quite true but one in 29 years is pretty good odds, that I was safe. Naturally, since I showed up to the party with a long black wig in one long braid down the back, a Guatemalan pullover, white jeans and sneakers with my skin bronzed to that reddish shade that they are blessed to have all year, and Mahdis friend Laleh’s pan flute that gave me the idea in the first place, the first person I met was of Peruvian ancestry. Though not from the mountains he assured me, so I now know those guys are from the mountains. GOD I’m a jerk. The next partygoer I met approached me speaking pig latin backwards and touching my panflute (the lowland Peruvian told me what it was called but I forgot immediately.) Of course he wasn’t Peruvian, a Caucasian with a dark and heavy beard, but he had lived extensively in Ecuador and Peru and had taken it apon himself to learn QUECHUA. Apparently that’s the indigenous language of the panflautists and he informed me that next time I come wearing such an instrument I should be prepared to speak quechua or not wear it at all. He was dressed like a surgeon and it occurred to me to ask him if he knew how to do a quadruple bypass and if not why he was frontin’ , but decided that he probably had a point and vowed to be a fucking jellyfish or bambi for Halloween next year. Unbeleiveable.

Umbrellas and Espresso

Seattle has several claims to fame. Indie ("grunge" if youre on the east coast and havent paid attention since nirvana) Music, Boeing, Microsoft, the list goes on. Nothing puts seattle on the map though like the beautiful combination we know and love to hate; coffee and rain. And until I moved to New York City I have neither owned an umbrella nor pulled a shot of espresso. And liked it that way, truth be told! Umbrellas are the fucking WORST! Sure they could keep you dry but since rain rarely comes without wind, they never fail to blow inside out and leave you both wet and wrestling with the goddam thing while all the other people walking in their little patches of umbrella dryness observe you tensely wondering if/when their turn will come. Which it inevitably will. Especially here. Why didnt I need an umbrella until I came here? Because it doesnt rain like the end of days in seattle like it does in NYC. jesus h. You cant walk from the cab to your door without getting drenched, and I wish I could afford to take a cab home. I got out of dance class, 18th and broadway, last saturday. I had to walk to Union Square, 14th street. By the time I got in the station, not only was my hair plastered to my head and neck, soaked all the way through, but my freaking underwear was wet!! Through my sweater and jeans. I had sort of dripdried by the time i got home and was redrenched completely walking just around the corner to my house from the subway station. It literally looked like I had gotten in the shower with all my clothes on. Not to mention how dirty the rain is here, NOT a refreshing cleansing feeling, rather you must maintain hope that whatever particulate material is encased in the brussels sprout sized drops is too large to penetrate the surface of your skin before you can race into the real shower at home. Plus you have a car in seattle, so you only have to walk from wherever you are to the car, in the manageable drizzle which i am already apologising for ever complaining about.
I never had to make coffee. I just said "double short soy please," listened for the thumping slam of the last person's shot being emptied, the screaming whistle of the steam in the metal pitcher and watched the ivory soy milk make floral swirls in the deep brown espresso. I DIDNT KNOW IT WAS SO HARD TO MAKE FOAM!!!! Heavenly father! We make cappucino (i think its italian for latte...) for our clients at the salon, because we're SO european darling, and so I have to make the damn things. Ok, the shot i get, and I pull it ristretto, which nobody here understands, savages, but the foaming of the milk is impossible! I cant do it! I always make it too hot and it boils w/o foaming, or I turn the steam down too low and the foam gets really loose and dissipates before I finish pulling the coffee. Aargh, it is beyond aggravating. Kiss your barista, theyre working hard for the money. I have a lot of apologising to do. Carrie, I'm sorry, I never knew.
I took the R instead of the F across the bridge to manhattan last week and saw the sunset, which made me realize that I hadnt seen the sunset for a month. SInce NY is so flat and has so many tall buildings, there are only a few places you can be where you can see more than a small strip of sky. It was beautiful and refreshing. I am going to have to get out of here frequently and be able to see some natural phenomena.
Work is good, im working extra because the Chasidic receptionist, rebbe's daughter turned fashionista, quit without notice (living a double life can be so exhausting,) and the lovely slovakian receptionist had to go home for a couple weeks (were hoping) to renew her visa. So of course, front desk-o-rama. Its good, I can make a little more money and they can feel a little indebted to me for helping out. Which never hurt anyone. After work on wed, I shared a cab with my boss cause he was going down town, close to the F line, anyway. On the way down, he asked me questions about myself, what I did before I came here, why i wanted to do hair, etc. and told me how it was for him when he came here from Israel, as a young stylist on madison ave, a cautionary tale about wanting to get ahead and get paid more too quickly which got him off Madison and into less prestigious salons. He feels that was his only mistake, not too bad for a 20+ year career. I wasnt sure if that story was chosen because thats what he wanted me to hear or if that was really his worst mistake, but either way the point was taken. WHen we got out of the cab, I prepared to say goodbye and walk to the train. He said 'No, youre coming with me. My family is inside." We walked inside the closed and somewhat darkened restraunt, there were some women with strollers full of kids drinking tea in the front room. We rounded the corner, and here I had NO idea what to expect, i could hear voices. Outside, in a large covered space were tables and tabels of bewigged and yarmulke-ed orthodox families, the likes of which I have never seen in person much less sat down amongst them to eat. I felt garish and obvious but as I got more comfortable and sat down with him and his really nice american wife and outrageously adorable kids (he isnt orthodox, apparantly the other tables were different reservations, but since they were all jews i assumed it was some kind of group affair. hilarious.) i realized I really didnt stand out that much and that actually i fit in more than a lot of places where I do feel comfortable. Weird. Dinner was good, I think it was some kind of Sephardic moroccan restraunt. I enjoyed meeting his family and friends and feeling that family vibe for a while. Chaim's friend, the one who wanted to take me home from the party that night, gave me some words of wisdom outside the salon the other day. "You know, the difference is (between me and the other assitants, most notably dominicanattitudeproblemdotcom) you are one of us. You will always be one of us. Not that that means you will just get everything but that every thing that is hard for everyone else will just be a little easier for you." Imagine! Im one of them! I mean us! Im one of us! There's an US and Im one of it! I have always been accepted in spite of being what I am, not because of it, and even though there are massive and very real differences between me and US, I cant deny that it was cool, very cool to have a leg up just because we come from the same blood. Sort of. Steer clear of political discussions in the workplace thats what I always say! Secrecy is the best policy! The end is nigh though, my boss has set me up with his adorable cousin who just got out of an elite special forces unit in the israeli army. Hes from a little village and has been in NY for all of a week. He wants him to "take me out" and teach me hebrew. Itll be interesting, hopefully we can keep from discussing anything about the middle east and itll be a good time had by all. I dont know what a wan smile would look like in writing, you know how Charlie Brown or Sherman always broke the fourth wall and looked at the readers with a wan smile, insert me doing that here.
I gave Pablo's friend a haircut in the salon, it was fun, and came out well. Michele helped me, hes not the greatest teacher, hed rather just do it himself so he can be sure it comes out well, but he showed me the partings and helped me figure out a plan of action. It was cute.
I went up to Harlem, much to the shock of my cabbie who picked up up on the UES and said he never takes white people north of 100th. He was a pakistani with a puerto rican girlfriend. Think about that for just a moment. I didnt have the heart to tell him that I dont see it working out. Though they have been together for over a year, talk about beating the odds. Only here. In Harlem I ate some fab senegalese food with my dear friend Pape Demba who I havent seen for a year and hung out in his apartment with his baby daughter who came as a complete shock to me. A lot can happen in a year. Not to me, of course but to other people, really quite a lot can happen. At Pape's house I met another guy who happens to be a cab driver and a real sweetheart, he was so good with the baby who had diaper rash and was fussy (understandably! think about what diaper rash really is! It doesnt feel any better to them than it would to you and me!) Then I went to a very cool little bar on 149 and St Nick where they were having a wonderfully talented jazz band play, really great music, and I met up with my roomate from bard college whom I havent seen since 1996! It was great to see her, such a funny person. I got to tell her how much her parents, specifically her mother who was the archetypal brooklyn jewish mother, influenced me when I stayed with them and all the sunday mornings at bard when she would wake me up to see if her daughter was still sleeping and if we got the chawklut covahd pretzels she sent. man they were good! I wonder where she got those things! Both her parents have passed. A concept i wont be dwelling on any further. Apparantly they were in poor health and it wasnt a sudden or unexpected thing, nonetheless I will continue to pretend that that is not a possibility and i would appreciate your complicity, dear reader.
I opened a bank account at BofA over here, which has nothing to do with BofA in washington. Dont let the word AMERICA fool you, bank of AMERICA has totally different rules and regs according to state, and if you dont have your account number, they cant find it! Seriously! I had to call seattle and have them give it to me. What in the h-e-double hockey sticks is the point of being an evil corporate conglomeracy if you cant provide your clients with omnicient omnipotance! They should be able to scan my freaking iris and know my account number for goddsakes. So it took me over an hour and if I hadnt been paying attention the guy would have put the wrong unit down for my address, the wrong drivers liscence number for my ID and not transferred my balance from WA into the NY account. Ok?
I just got back, well for you I never left, but for me, I just came from the west village where Mahdis (bless her heart) came with me to a sukkot celebration of the Joan Baez variety. Thats what I call those renewal type congregations where there is music involved and a chance that youll see women wearing taalit and yarmulkes. It was alright, one of my clients invited me. She is the Executive Director of this Shul and she's really down to earth and cool. I think i might try to go to one of their functions that wont involve an interpretive dance performance of the story of King David moving the holy of holies and flooding the world. That type of thing, and the circular dance that we were all coerced to do following it, really doesnt move me. The music was good though, a band called Rocky and the Cavemen, which was fronted by a young jew with a large knit hat which threatened to reveal large and probably unkempt and fragrant dreadlocks, shudder. But, it seemed like a nice, if not a little dorky (we are talking about jews here though) group of people. Plus there was food in every room, and people seemed a lot more interested in the snack table than the interpretive dance, and thats my kinda people.
Now Mahdis and Pablo are at home cooking, Im writing, Mahdis is cooking and talking shit and Pablo is pretending that he doesnt like overly sexy halloween costumes either. Last night we sat at the bar at Relish in Williamsburg and visited with Stephen and Ryan while they worked. I may never make non Seattle friends out here...fine with me, I have missed my friends so much.
So some arab guy followed me home on the train last week. It was weird, he was super young and cute and didnt seem the type to have to be following chicks home, but I guess no one ever HAS to follow anyone home, they do it cause they want to. I guess I wasnt rude enough to him after he suggessted that I come stand right next to him in the station, though I was rude mind you, just not rude enough. he sat right next to me and watched me read all the way from 34th st to smith and ninth (that is about 40 minutes for those of you seattleites) when I bolted and ran a few cars down and got back on. he wasnt fast enough to make it off the car and find me. Note to self: increase the cold front in public places. Everyone has cautioned me about it, and I felt like i had a good enough game face, but when people talk to me its hard for me to just ignore them or snap at them before they even say anything rude. I mean the guy asked me what time it was. I guess a few years of riding solo in Sizzla kinda made me soft.
I was going to meet someone who Stephen set me up with and I was late and hurrying and my shoe broke and I had to walk down broadway for three blocks wearing one shoe until I came to a shoe store. The humiliation was intense. Then I only liked one pair of shoes in the joint and had to haggle with the Jewish owner of the place until he left me alone with his Senegalese employees who wouldnt pay 75 bucks for a pair of mules either even if they used to be 145 and told me to leave as much as I wanted to pay on the counter and just walk out in the shoes. Didnt have to tell me twice! Ramadan mubarak boys! From my house I can hear the shofar blow and then seconds later the Adhan call...whatever your tradition its a special time of year. Be thoughtful and take your time, and call me for god's sake, while I still have a 206 area code!
love and knishes.

Shampoo Politics and the High Holy Days

First week of work down. It was pretty good, which is not to say that I didnt want to run out the door screaming and waving my arms over my head a few times per day. But ten hours a day of anything, especially with the cast of singularly NYC characters that I work with, makes me want to go on and get the hell on. First of all, I have never lived in a city where the population is so overwhelmingly Jewish that everyone is aware that Rosh Hashana is the day after next and is wondering what businesses will be open, and are suprised that any really will be. Everyone was in getting their blowouts done for the holiday, getting all ready for the family descent on their homes for dinner, driving out to Long Island early since they cant drive on the holiday. My bosses took a couple of days off and actually, one of them invited me to his house for his RH party. How could I say no? I immediately wished I had since my friend later that day invited me to sit backstage at the Capleton show in times square, HELLO? I love apples and honey as much as the next JAP but seriously! Thats a once in a lifetime offer. Damn, what could I do: "Sorry Chaim (names have been changed to protect the innocent...and the guilty) something much more fun came up, thanks for thinking of me though! See you on Thursday at the meeting?" Nope. So i went, I was one of the first people there, and as it turned out the only american. Everyone was Israeli. Actually there was one other girl there, a gentile, who was the most likeable person there. His apt is really nice, very bachelory. He lives a couple blocks down from the salon in a big building, he and like six of his israeli countrymen have apts in the same building. Hes done it in all white, including the floors, white wood floors, with black leather couches and a big TV. Oh its hip, and uncomfortable.
So everyone was speaking Hebrew, I was trying to help so as not ot just be sitting there lookng reform, and withing a few moments the requisite older wealthy unnattached guy with the thinning hair attached himselft to me and came on like a freight train. He did all kinds of charming things like tell me to put his keys in my purse and "make sure to look at my car key," which I purposely didnt do, although I unfortunately know a bmw key, and tell me that he could see what a beautiful person I was through my eyes, that my physical appearance didnt mar how gentle and sweet he could tell I was. Apparantly my hideous countenance couldnt spoil my charming personality, asshole. I went along with him to a point, getting him drinks and shit cause I knew he was a good friend of Chaims and I didnt want him to talk about me but he was SO smarmy. I cut the evening short when he started taking about he wasnt racist, but (my fave) how he didnt trust "them" (the arabs, this came out when I said my roomate was Iranian...) and he had seen first hand how they breed hate into their children. That there are some who are ok, but that most, MOST of them are evil and not to be trusted. I told him I didnt want to have that conversation and lets keep it light, its party time!
Then I most firmly refused his generous and drunken offer to drive me home (to S. Bklyn from the UES? No thanks!) and be seen leaving together, and promptly got in a cab to take the train home. The food at the party was really really good, and other than that, I wouldnt mind never seening those people or anyone like them ever again. So not fun. The women are anorexically thin, and overly trendily, fashion victimishly dressed. and the men look like sailors or european fags. they drink like fish and dont seem to be at all religious despite all the fuss they make about being Jews. I thnk theyre a bunch of self obsessed jerks and unfortunately this NYC thing hasnt done anything positive to change my feelings about Israelis, sorry mom. Yom Kippur is next week. Im off early on Wed and Im gonna go to some service, should be entertaining.
The salon is hilarious. there are three main elements, functionally and socially. The stylists, the front desk and the assistants. I am an anomaly because I kind of float between the three, im definitley not a stylist but everyone knows that I will be eventually, and I work both behind the desk and as an assistant, something none of the other assistants do, nor are they allowed behind the desk. So, theyre a little thrown off. There are two dominican girls with horrible attitudes, a romanian guy who is really sweet and actually has his cosmetology license, a russian girl who also has her license as well as horrible eastern european style (spray on white jeans?,) and a Venezuelan guy who is really really nice and is an impressively good painter. The dominican girls are really the only ones who are hard to work with, www.dominicanattitudeproblem.com. They are really competetive and told me that whoever gets there first gets the first shampoo, then you alternate after that. It totally doenst work. One of them, who doesnt know I speak spanish was hatefully complaining to one of the stylists that that bitch (me) had done four shampoos and she had done one. I felt like gently suggesting to her that she might be more apt to see the clients come in and take care of them if she werent getting a haircut, a blow out and then spending an hour sitting in a chair in front of a mirror iron curling her hair. I just keep busy and am not thinking "three dollars!" when I see someone come through the door, Im thinking ok, there is someone who needs an expedient and pleasurable experience starting now, and I proceed from there. Its exeedingly hard for me to work with people who have such a dreary and poverty stricken outlook on life. I understand that her circumstances are tough, she has five kids, she is 36, several of them are in the DR still and she feels trapped in a job that, true enough, doesnt pay enough to make ends meet. oh ass well! youre still alive, healthy and an attractive person! Many people would die to be in your shoes. Not to mention that you certainly would be further along by now if you made yourself into someone other people would want to be around. As it is neither of the Italian stylists will work with her or even send their clients to her for shampoos. One of them told one of the receptionists, a nice yet vacuuous girl who moved here from kentucky the same time I came form seattle, that he didnt like working with these trashy ghetto girls, that its embrrassing to send their clients to them. And while I cant condone that kind of statement I know what hes talking about. These wealthy Jewish women dont want to have a dominican hair salon experience wcomplete with gum chewing, nasal spanish shit talking and acrylic nails. I wish there could be some ettiqiute classes, like charm classes included in beauty school that people would actually be able to take seriously. it can really be an impediment to success, the whole class problem. Understatement of the century.
So everyone in there is hair trigger sensitive and defensive as hell. Personal responsibility is eschewed in favor of the blame game, which travels from stylist to front desk and stylist to assistant and assistant to stylist and front desk to stylist. #1 offender is Chrissy Fagioli the amazingly neurotic Italian american woman from LI i think, the one who is obsessed with her thinning hair. She couldnt find her foiling board, something which neither I nor any of the stylists at Robert Leonard have ever used, so you can see the immediacy of the need. Now, let me be clear. She had a foiling board (which is nothing more than a long narrow peioce of plexiglass that helps you keep the foils close to the scalp) but it wasnt her foiling board. And apparantly, it wasnt good enough. "oh mwy gawd, ive haid that bowad fuh two yeahs and ive nevea lowst it, ware is it? Jeesus, who moves things arownd in heah, Vivi, can you help me foynd my foyling bowad please?" Shes Very high pitched, its a kind of shrillness that defies description. She then segways right into ripping the front desk a new one for undercharging a client when she didnt tell them she had raised her prices. In front of the client I might add, and then turning to the client to sympathize with her about the world's incompetance compared to her. SHUT UP! Its no ones fault, this is what busy feels like! Sometimes customers wait, and sometimes youre waiting, just slow your roll and enjoy your life. Plus when Im around hysterics like that, i knd of shut down into this super calm mode,like "I...dont...know...where...your....foiling ...board is...chrissy....maybe...you....took ...it...home .....by....accident?'
I think neurotics find the calm infuriating but its that or laugh aloud, take your pick!
I had to come in early on thurs, my day off, to hear a presentation about Phyto products. the woman giving the presentation had such a ludicrous french accent that I woulda been better off just reading the literature. She sounded like a disney chef. Then I got on the train, slowly since F service was suspended for 'alf an 'our (french accent?) for some mysterious reason, met my friend in the W4th st station and rode back to my house where I painstakingly combed out all the little locks that were already started and twisted his hair into bigger more sustainable size ones.
I didnt go to dance class. I went last sat and it was great, next week Im on to twice a week. Promise. Ill even go to both classes on Sat. Wish me luck!

Smoke Damage and the Elusive Cornover.

Note to Craigslist shoppers: There is a reason why people vending their used furniture take the time to mention that its coming from a non smoking home.
Yours truly industriously discovered a table, chairs and buffet on craigslist for $200 and free delivery. You already know the last part sold me. Do I want to rent a truck or locate a mover and schlep things from fucking Weehawken to Brooklyn? No, I dont. So, On friday morning, after I finished giving BL (thats Barely Legal, the adorable young guy who used to barista at Animals in Seattle with Carrie, I thought I told you everyone in Seattle has moved to New York) a haircut, three hiliariously questionable guys, puportedly from queens rolled up in a huge brown chevy van with Pennsylvania (?) plates with my new table, chairs and buffet on board. i was suprised at their appearance as the email of the vendor on Craigslist that i had communicated with was justamommy95@blahblahblah.com. The ringleader, Mr. Justamommy I presume, was a heavy, sweaty balding ponytail white guy. With him he had two very young, very thuggish looking kids who couldnt have been even 20. One was latino of unknown origin with an incming baby moustache of black fuzz, and one was african american. Neither was able to put aside their apparant differences even for the good of a smooth moving experience. As they were wrassling the buffet up the stairs, they were arguing loudly with each other, "whatsa matter witchu?" "Nothing man, youda won witda praalem!" "Naw man you been beefin, you betta quit!" "Yo, you know what my praalem is? Ima fucking tell you!" Which ruckus caused Sweaty Baldo to shoot them the look of death and they shut right up. I had no idea what their relationship to each other was and I dont care to think about it further. Altogether they had the spatial gift of a rhesus monkey, so as I watched them try to muscle the round table through the narrow doorway at the bottom of my stairs, I realized that A. the table may not fit anyway B. If it does, its going to take some really graceful planning and manouvering so as not to bang up the walls on either side of the stairs, which my preshistoric albanian landlord will have a heart attack about and charge me up the arse for and C. even if i could plan it out they won't listen to a word of my guidance because i am not a man.
So, in the intrest of having them out of my house and back on the road to Queens or whetever rock they crawled out from under, I told them to just put the table down and I would figure it out myself later. Justamommy looked at me like he wasnt sure that I could figure anything out, be it now or later, and admonished me to the effect that he had told me we would have trouble with the table. Thats alright, I'd rather have hours of trouble with the goddam thing on my own than another moment of trying to keep a straight face with Hood Rat Moving Co. Inc. present. Which leads me to the moral of this cautionary tale: the smoke residue. I spent the evening lysol disinfecting the chairs and table (after I took the thing apart in the foyer and brought it up the stairs in peices, very heavy peices) and scraping off what must have been thirty years of tar and smoke residue off the formica. I went through an entire can of lysol and roll of paper towels doing it. The color of the furniature appeared brown (and sticky...) when I got it, but it turns out its actually a light beige with wood grain! The towels looked like I had been wiping out the inside of a well loved and rarely cleaned outhouse toilet. Those of you who are still smoking, STOP IMMEDIATELY! Think of your furniature! It was amazingly gross. Now they're all really cute though and the chairs are actually quite comfortable. Then I showered (necessary after the disassembled-table-up-the-stairs struggle) and got on the F to Park Slope to go see some Jazz with Mahdis' friend... my new friend I guess! It was pretty seattle-y. But enjoyable. Then we went to Smiling Pizza and ate a spinach roll. It was good. It was open is what it was. Everything is open all the time. You can eat, drink, dance and buy groceries almost all night if the mood strikes. That alone makes New York 10 times cooler than Seattle. What doesnt make NY cooler than seattle is a phenom I've now seen twice and if it gets a third sighting I may be forced to call it a trend: The Cornover. A cornover is a cornrow comb-over. I first saw it on the lower east side after a daytime gin and tonic with a friend (an underage one which meant we were relegated to a smarmy blue moon style tavern that, save the light over the pool table was completely dark and inhabeted by 40yrs+ men and a fat black lady with dreads who didnt stop talking the entire time we were there. Apparantly they dont ID.) In any case we were walking back to her enviably centrally located apartment in the village when I saw the older balck man with the sherman helmsley hairline whose dedication to braids was so intense that he had two (only two!)rows braided from one side to the other over the shiny dome of his head depending only on the length from the sides to make it over the hairless expanse. It was outrageous. And i might have forgotten had i not seen it again while visiting Sarah at columbia and eating at a memorably mediocre restaurant called Toast: where all things are toasted, on like 125th and broadway. this time it was a white guy with the more vampire style M shaped recession and an equal loyalty to the timeless cornrow tradition. So ugly, so so ugly.
Im going to dance class in about 45 mins, my first one since I got here! A little nervous, but I've got to get right back on the horse. Ill let you know how it goes.