Fashion Week and a Chinese Massage

So the hearse chasing dominican assistant at work has been talking about how when she gets her tax return check she's going to go to "my country" to see her daughter (she has two of her kids with her and the rest are in the DR so that her familymembers can claim them for tax credits, dont ask me how it works.) So she doesnt get her check, and she calls the IRS and they tell her that she has an outstanding school loan from several years ago so theyve garnished her check. She went hysterical, at work and left very dramatically, tears and running. It was really sad. I spent a couple hours thinking about how some peoples lives are just miserable and they continue to make them more so and there just isnt anything you can advise them to do that will actually help. Then the next week she comes in and says her mom is buying her the ticket and had said "Hija I dont know why you work, I will pay for you!" You coulda knocked me over with a feather. Why the hell are you always crying poor and pathetic all the time if you have help?? Flabbergasted. Simple Simon is on vactaion in Florida, god knows what hes doing down there but I hope he falls in love with someone or something ans stays there happily forever. I think hed be happier somewhere slower, where people dont expect a quick mind or need their clothes to stay dry after a shampoo. I know my work life (and my hope for a non flaming afterlife) has much improved since he's taken his leave. I finally got sick of having to run the albanian gauntlet everytime I go downstairs to do laundry. I dont know if I mentioned it, but for the last three months weve been tearing out the basement and building small massage rooms. The guys doing the construction are albanian and there is one young guy in particular who has asked me for my phone number every time i go down there, interspersed with making hissing noises and saying classic american phrases like "sexy hey" and "hi baby." Ive pretty much played it off and made jokes, I told his friends to tell him i couldnt see myself having a phone conversation with him since his english and my albanian were pretty much neck in neck. Finally last week he asked me again and I lost my patience. I said " No, no you cant have my phone number because I dont watnt to talk to you on the phone or otherwise." I dont know if he understood the words but im sure the tone translated. Remember this is after three months of this, I was starting to dread going downstairs. So the next day, his dumb friend comes up next to me while Im making a sub par cappucino (the foaming already) and says, "youre getting so fat! what happened to you?" What an asshole! First of all, I have not gained weight, second I was cute enough for you guys to make my life hell for three months and when i finally put my foot down then Im fat? Men are such jerks its amazing. Yeah, my feelings were hurt, thats my achilles heel, but more I was angry and imagining them treating some girl like that who was less likely to tell him where to stick it and more likely to hate herself more than she already does. So I told Oksana (the receptionist) because she knows the super, their boss, and I wanted her to tell them. But of course she has to ask the other assistants if they are bothering them as well. And since the venezuelan girl assistant is the biggest hater ever, one of those girls in high school who only hung out with guys and made other girls cry at lunch, she runs downstairs and tells the guys that I told and they should watch themselves. I know thats what happened cause she dissappeared for 10 mins downstairs and when I went to switch the laundry they were all silent and laying tile. THe laundry room is like a closet, its narrow and small and dusty, the insulter had laid the stone tile on one side, and was kneeling in the only spot i could stand in, since we cant step on the tile when its first down. He opened the dryer door, like i could come in and stand right in his face to get the clothes out. I asked him how he expected me to get the towels out of the dryer if I couldnt step on the tiled side and he wouldnt move out of my way on the other side. He looked at me like he didnt care how I got my shit done and if he could put me in the dryer he would. But he moved, the bastard. The joys of womanhood. I hate that venezuelan girl. I dont beleieve the kind of crap I have to deal with with these people, I never knew about this kind of small mindedness.
Moving on. I had the time of my life doing hair at the Bryant Park Hotel for fashion week. Fashion Week is the week where they set up big heated tents in Bryant Park and all the best designers, new and established, unveil their spring and fall design collections. Tickets are coveted, you have to know someone or be someone to get in, and Fashionistas foam at the mouth to get all the free stuff and expensive gifts that product lines give away hoping to be associated with the who's who of couture. The Daily, a fashion newspaper, sponsored a suite in the penthouse of the hotel (which is beautiful and swanky in a danish modern way) for fashion editors, journalists, producers and fashionistas in need of a break from the hectic pace of the tented shows accross the street. I was hired by Blink PR, my friend's company whose clients product she had placed in the suite, a hair product line (me) a makeup line with two makeup artists, a fragrance skin care line, makeup brushes and massage products with two masseurs doing hand massages. The hair product line that I was repping is called Prawduct, designed by a celebrity stylist named Robert Hallowell who I spoke with from his trailer on the set of Commander in Chief where he was "following Donald Sutherland around trimming his nose hair." He was awesome, so down to earth and very enthusiastic and excited about his prawduct (thekitchenbeautician.com.) He thanked me for being the transamerica, transgendered him, and I told him that I would love to meet him when I was in La in may so we are supposed to have dinner and "adult libations." I cant wait. I got to meet all kinds of cool people, and I was expecting a lot of attitude but everyone was very kind and had a great time. Bacardi was sponsoring and there was some fancy restaurant giving out hors d'ouveres, mojitos aplenty probably helped the mood. I did the hair of the producers of all those fox reality shows, of NY Times fashion journalists and GQ columnists, plus some really cute girls self proclaimed "bagistas" who had started a online site all about designer handbags, she was so exited to tell me that this week they were giving away a cream sienna to one lucky site visitor!! When I asked what that was, I was suprised that she didnt know who made it either, but that it was THE hottest bag right now. Hilarious. I saw Finola Hughes (anna from general hospital) and some winning contestant on American Idol who I had never heard of. Everyone was happy with their hair, I didnt have lots of time, so I did updos, flatirons and big curling iron waves. People took my cards and were all excited to come see me. Thursday was so busy I could hardly look up, all I saw was hair from 3 to 8. My friend whose PR company it was was happy with how it went, and thought I did a great job. After the last day, we went and ate ethiopian food (it was no Ibex...) and they treated me to a massage at one of those weird lower east side chinese massage places that look kinda happy endingish and were probably brothels at one time. Ive never had a late night massage, and without a glass of wine and a mojito Im not sure I would have turned my body over to this random chinese man. I was unable to tell if he had had any formal massage training... my guess is no. He was really sweet and committed, but it wasnt great, he really focused on my left shoulder which is now quite sore, but I was falling asleep and it was pretty relaxing, He had a good touch and it was warm in there. So theres one step closer to the end of chinese predjudice, I have been working on it by the way. Mainly through positive talk on the train, and through talking to my friend emily who spent quite a bit of time in china and has some insight on their public bodily functions.
Oh, speaking of bodily functions, its been since the days of SVI that Ive seen people more gross and dysfuntional than this family that comes in to the salon twice a week to get the daughters hair blown out. The mother is short and quite heavyset. She looks like someone you might see sleeping on the steps of a church, she has long knotted hair, large warts in the corners of both eyes, always wearing a big down coat and carrying lots of bags. Her daughter is tall and obscenely skinny with blond hair. She wears greenish contacts and has her mothers pug nose and the most pained expression. She is in her mid 20's, and has to be propped up on the shampoo bowls with about 20 towels so that her neck doesnt have to bend. Apparantly she has a neck problem, thats not the only problem shes got. She wears a thin longsleeved tshirt with a sweetheart neck (which shows her ribs and her nipples) and a flowered skirt, all the time regardless of weather. They arrive late in cabs every time and the mom is always apologising that they got up late, their appointment is at 6 pm. When I say their appt i mean the daughter only, the mom never gets anything done. La Flaca (everyone at the salon's affectionate nave for the daughter) is so abusive to her mom, I cannot tell you how upsetting it is to hear. Last week something she had was broken and she was screaming like that spoiled girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory "No!! I want it replaced NOW! Tonight! Go get it NOW!!!" She threw her purse on the ground in the back and stormed out to the chair and waited for someone to start blowing her hair. Her mom picked up the purs and put it next to her and brought her a magazine to look at. She snatched it and said "Go get it now! I told you to hurry!!" She has sores on her legs and theyre often bleeding. I think she wants to be a socialite so badly that she thinks if she can just be thin enough and have her hair done enough that she can leave behind her baglady lookin mom and her psychotherapist dad and be normal. Well it it NOT working. Also, this other client heard us talking about her outburst and she was like "I went to school with her! She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard! We tried to have an intervention about her eating disorder but she said she'd always been a thin girl..." Thin does not explain her before and after blow dry trips to the bathroom which leave us having to clean up an...unsightly mess and air out the whole back of the salon due to the unmistakeable smell of a bulemic with not long to go. The girl is truly sick, and possibly not long for this world. I guess its the eventual outcome, the ugly side of all this fashion week couture obsession. The runway models are so thin that their arms look like long angular branches stuck to the sides of their hanger shoulders. Like no women I have ever seen, and ive seen some thin women. Actually La Flaca is the closest to that body ive ever seen and shes on her way to the glue factory! Money does not sanity buy folks. And a good blow dry does not put you next to Portia diRossi at Balthazar for cocktails on page six.