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.