I swear I bathe

So yesterday I was leaving for work (really late, again) and as I headed out the door I saw my landlord/fake uncle parking his car. (Meanwhile, how someone who is retired can be up, ready, out and BACK before I can even force myself to leave for work is really beyond me.)

I stop to wait for him and notice a lady walks by me, pretty slowly. So I chat with my fake uncle for a few minutes, about pretty much nothing, but just small talk. Then I turn to go to my car, which is probably only 30 feet away, and see that the lady who had walked by is still kinda there. Just loitering near where we had been talking. So fake uncle goes inside, and I start to walk to car.

And the lady is like, "Sweetheart! Can I ask you a question?!"

Now, I get bothered a lot. I don't know what it is about me, but so far on my street alone I have had several weird conversations. One guy tried to sell me a half-eaten muffin from a dirty old rag, one guy just asked for money, one guy was yelling at himself and then me when he passed by, and one guy knocked on my passenger car window one day when I had just gotten in. I opened the window like, a decimeter. First, he asked me for a quarter, and I was like, "ooh, no. I don't have it." So then he asked if he could just borrow my cell phone. And I swear, I am a nice person. But I typically don't like to lend things to strangers, especially things I can't really afford to replace, and they had literally just shut down an institution/rehab in my neighborhood about a week earlier and just let the "healthiest" people go. So I was like "you know, I don't have a cell phone." Of all the inopportune moments, he looked down at my passenger seat where apparently my cell phone was peeking out from my bag. So I broke down and was like, "you know what? I just found a quarter." I gave him that and he seemed happy enough.

So anyway, back to my lady and the story at hand.

Lady: "Sweetheart?"

Me: "[walk, walk, walk]"

Lady: "Sweetheart, can I ask you a question?"

Me: "mmm-hmm?"

Lady: "Just a quick question. Real quick. Honey, can I ask a question?"

Me: "yeah, what?"

Lady: "In the mornings, how long do you wait after showing before you leave the house?"

Now this did give me pause. Because I honestly thought she would ask for either directions, or money.

Me: "Uhh, I actually usually shower at night."

Lady: "At night?! I can't do that!"

Me: "Yeah."

Lady: "But see, I keep getting sick. And I don't know if it is because I leave the house too soon after showering."

Me: "/stare/"

Lady: "I have been waiting an hour. Do you think an hour is enough time? Sweetheart, do you think an hour is right?"

Me: "Yeah, I definitely think that an hour is enough time. You should be good to go."

Lady: "BUT I KEEP GETTING SICK!"

Me: "Well, it is cold season."

Lady: "But this is from showering. You shower at night?! Huh."


At this point, I had arrived at my car already, been putting my stuff in, and was trying to leave.


Me: "Yeah, but I am sure an hour is enough time. One would certainly think so."

Lady: "Yeah. But I mean... I sure keep getting sick."

Me: "Bye."


I also took a moment when I got into my car to reflect on how not only do strangers like to talk to me, they also really like to call me "sweetheart." I get that a lot. I guess it's just 'cause I seem and look so darn nice.

Hair update

So I think I am getting kind of used to my bad haircut. I am just putting it back a lot. I tend to do those 2 half-ponytails. But the one problem is that people keep being like, "Can't you just put it in a ponytail?"



Here is a photo I took yesterday of how my hair looks when it is in a ponytail. And if you look at me head on, I just have this weird section that sticks straight up about an inch from my head.

And somehow, this picture doesn't even do my bad haircut justice. It is so much worse than I could capture with a mere camera phone.

Haircut

Okay, so I have no idea what happened here.

I went to get my hair cut, and I went to a lady that I had been to before and I was pleased with. And I even brought in a photograph. A photograph of me with a haircut from years earlier that I liked and wanted again.

So I show the woman the picture and go, "I think I'd like my hair to look like this again."
Hair destroyer: "No, your hair is too thick for that haircut."
Me: "But see, that IS me. That IS my haircut. That's MY head."
HD: "No, that would poof up too much with your hair and would look too big. How about I cut it a little longer than you want, and then do some minor angling towards the front?"

So I thought about it and figured, why not? It's just hair, and even the worst haircut can't be that bad. I mean, it grows out. And usually when I listen to the people, it turns out pretty good.

So I am sitting there watching my hair falling around me, glad that I am cutting off my hair to shoulder length as I wanted. You always have that weird sense of freedom when the weight of your old hair is just falling away from you. And angles are good. People look OK with angles. I was getting excited for my new look.

Suddenly I feel a tension in my stomach: why did she just cut that big chunk from so far back? That can't be an angle, can it? What is happening? But no, I don't know anything about cutting hair. I'm sure it's fine. It must be fine. She knows what she is doing. And anyway, she's done already. The scissors are away in that strange blue liquid. Why worry now? It will be FINE.

I see my sister come back in and mouth, "Oh my God, am I getting a mullet?" She looks at me like I'm crazy and I am appeased. Noooo, it's not a mullet. She'd tell me. It was just that my hair was so wet, so I couldn't tell how it would look.

We finish the hour of hair drying, and I look up again as my sister is staring at me in blatant horror. Then she bursts into silent laughter and hides it behind a People magazine. Oh my God. What is it? How bad is it? I can't have a...mullet, can I? No! I am just being obsessed. I don't have a MULLET. Pshhh.


I do find it a little bit odd that the woman has me facing away from the mirror, though. Don't they usually show you with the big "ta-da!" and are happy when you smile and go, "Wow, it looks great!" even when you just got a trim and you can't even tell that anything was actually cut? I mean, does anybody ever look and go, "MY GOD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"


But I turn, and I see this (see right for Exhibit A--also known as Exhibit mullet-head). That is the side of MY HEAD. MINE! Not some guy in a rusty pick-up truck down in Florida. Me. I live in NEW YORK CITY and I have a mullet. Look at that party in the back! I tell you, IT'S NO PARTY!! I am horrified.

And the worst part is, I am terrified of washing my hair. I have wavy hair, so once I wash this mullet sucker, I am going to look like carrot top. But with a worse haircut. Which I never thought possible until I saw my sister hiding her hysterics behind People magazine, because reading about Britney Spears and her latest antics was less horrific than seeing me in this haircut. She was frightened by the mulletude of it all.

Oh...my...God.

Howdy Stranger

I must look like the kind of person that you just want to talk to. Strangers are constantly just striking up conversations with me. The thing is, they are all weird. I never get the normal person who turns into a good friend. Just weirdos.

Like when I was at the mechanic’s a few weeks ago, and I was just waiting for my inspection. This nice old man came in, sat down next to me, and smiled. So eventually he started talking about how cold it is. I had to concur; it was indeed a chilly day that day. But then the conversation took a turn:

Man: “You know, my wife is always complaining that she’s cold.”
Me: “Yeah, today it certainly is...”
Man: “And I told her, that is because she doesn’t wear cotton panties.”
Me: “oh...”
Man: “I mean, you can’t wear polyester panties and expect to stay warm. You know?”
Me: “Yeah. Gotta stick with the cotton underpants.”
[I hate the word “panties” as much as Maria, so I chose different wording.]
Man: “Exactly! Well, have a good day.”

Then he just got up and left. Like imparting that important wisdom on me was it for the day.

I have had a woman talking to me about fruit at Stop & Shop, asking me what I thought she should buy. Last week I had a woman at Target yelling at me that they didn’t have enough pants for short people. (She must have thought we were comrades in shortness and figured I would be just as indignant.)

But probably the worst one I ever had was when I went to visit my parents in Florida. My dad took me to WalMart to buy something, and on our way out he had to use the bathroom (he’s old). So I was just standing at the end of an unused check-out line, waiting.

This old man approaches me, so I smile at him. Gotta be nice to the elderly, right?

So I get:
Old man: “Is that what they pay you for?”
Me: [still smiling like an idiot] “Excuse me?”
Old man: “Is that what they PAY you for? Just standing around like that?”
Me: [I just stare at him, mouth agape.]
Old man: “That may be fine today, but let me tell you hon, that won’t work when it gets busy this weekend. They won’t be happy to pay you to just STAND there.”
Me: “I don’t actually work here.” [I look down to be sure I am not accidentally wearing a bright blue vest with a happy smiley face on it, and I surely wasn’t.]
Old man: “Pshh. Kids today.”

And he leaves in a snit! Like I am being unreasonable! Like he didn’t just accuse me, on my vacation, of working at WalMart and not doing a good enough job! Crotchety old guy.

Pick up lines

So. A few months ago I was on the subway with my friend Leigh coming home. It was really late; probably about 5 in the morning. We had both been drinking (but remember, we were on the subway... so it was safe drinking). I decide to call my friend in Armenia because it can be hard to get in touch with him, and for some reason, it works best when I call him at 4 or 5 a.m. There is much less static and delay.

Leigh and I had been having a conversation, then I rudely make my call on the subway. The entire time, there is this weird guy sitting across from us (picture that famous sketch of the unabomber, but without the glasses--you know, the one that looks like Weird Al), just staring, and occasionally smiling. Repulsed, we both ignore him. I believe he even started somewhat "touching himself" but being that we wouldn't look at his general direction, who knows?

My subway stop is about twenty thousand from where we were, so it took a good amount of time. The guy ends up standing up and standing next to Leigh. He mumbles something like, "My stop next. You want to get off?"
"WHAT?"
"You want to come with me?"

Leigh (rightly so) says, "You need to back up and leave me alone. BACK UP! GET AWAY FROM US!" (or something similar) and he finally just gets off the train.

But the point of this story is this: does that EVER work? Is that guy ever on the subway, sees a total stranger, smiles while touching himself, then says, "my stop is next, you want to come with me?" and get a response like, "you know what? Yeah! That sounds like JUST what I wanted to do tonight..."

Sometimes I just want to understand the thinking process behind all of this.

Camponotus

When I first moved into my apartment, within about a month I developed an ant problem. It was those chunky big black ones (see left), the carpenter ants. Now, I try to be nice to buggy little things. But those big guys really freak me out.

Anyway, they were pretty much hanging out in my bathroom. I would go in and see 1 running from under the radiator towards the tub, and then in a day I’d see 2 more doing the same. So these were apparently the scouts. And I let them go, and would freak out and scream a little (I mean, look at those tiny little waists and flapping antennae), but I let them live.

This was going on a for a bit, and then one Sunday morning I got up and went to take a shower. I got all ready, opened the curtain...and saw TENS of ants!
(I don’t want to exaggerate, so although HUNDREDS or MILLIONS would have been a lot more impressive here, it was really just tens. Maybe about 50 total.)
But 50 of those big black ants is a lot, especially when you are naked and about to step into a tub with them. There were about 5 at the bottom of the tub, and maybe 10 just crawling on the walls. And the rest of them were smashing themselves down underneath and next to my shampoo bottle, as though it was their little ant church where they were congregating on this lovely summer Sunday. Because I don’t use sugar shampoo, I’m not sure exactly what the draw was. But ewwww. So I was screaming and jumping around, and grabbed a towel to cover myself (because I didn’t want their ant eyes to see me exposed). I ended up turning the shower head on them, and then watched them all just wash away down the drain, their creepy bodies and antennae swirling around in the tub. (The image of it is still burned into my brain; it was like a massacre, all by my hand.)

I decide that day that I’d rather just not shower, and go on with my life. The next day I shower, and when I look over, I see an ant that jammed itself up between the clear shower curtain and the decorative outside one. It was just sitting there, not moving, not doing anything. I think it was judging me. Silently. Effectively.

I still live with the guilt of that massacre today. Enough that I think about it and write down the experience 4 years later. I am haunted. And I am the person that was crying uncontrollably in “Honey, I shrunk the Kids!” because of that scene where their little anty friend defends them against the scorpion. Wait, I must be remembering wrong... Didn’t they live in the Northeast? Who knows.