Sunday, October 31, 2004 everyone is dressed funny
Saturday I dressed up for work, sort of. My plans for a really good "sexy bullfrog costume" really derailed themselves during the month of October. First I got the wrong size flippers, and then I never got around to getting green make-up, or goggles, or much of anything else I needed. Maybe next year. When it happens, it's going to be so good.
Without my frog costume, dressing up seemed a little lame, but I felt like enough of my co-workers were doing it that I had to make the effort. I support Halloween, and sometimes you have to look like an asshole for something you support.
I went to work in my pajamas and my own authentically slept-on hair. The stylists who were there early were pleased, and one of them ratted up my hair more convincingly. It stuck straight up on one side.
Half the people who came in didn't realize I was in costume. Customers smiled politely at me or gave me sideways looks: we are in Baltimore, and it is conceivable that someone would come to work in her pajamas, with crazy crackhead hair. Several of the stylists who came on later told me that they'd initially seen my hair without noticing the rest of my outfit and thought, "Oh, God, what has she done?" I gave them a genuine Halloween scare!
One of the customers said, "Well, it sure took you a long time to get dressed this morning." I gave the dippy line I gave everybody: something like "Heh, heh. Well, I figure this is the one day a year I can get away with this." (I find my workday goes quicker if I just come up with a few things to repeat endlessly.) He said, "No, no, it's very creative. The pajamas, the hair, the face! Very good." And then he left.
The face?
Asshole.
Happy Halloween!
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/31/2004 05:53:00 PM
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004 "Agent Starling, we'll need you to check the pro-ana communities."*
My favorite consequences of the bat-shit insanity that overtook a whole lot of people after 9/11 are the small things. I like the beeping of metal detectors, the creaking of kevlar body armor, and mustaches. I like yellow ribbons, special edition Precious Moments figurines, and knowing that a lot of different people are allowed to shoot me if they get scared.
Best, best, best of all, though, is something I realized tonight: thanks to heightened security, the FBI and other government agencies now have to scan fanfiction for subversive material.
This link sends you to someone's internet diary. It tells about the way the government is allowed to say "That's not funny," if you get a little uppity with your satire on the internet. A couple of Secret Service agents visited this person and his or her parents' at home, had some coffee, and accused this person of threatening the life of the president in this same internet diary. After a while, they realized this person was not a threat, and said goodbye: the thing is, the internet diarist now has an FBI file. That could mean nothing. Hell, I could have an FBI file, and so could you. (I could check that out under the Freedom of Information Act, but that costs money, and besides, I prefer to do things the old-fashioned way. I'm just going to see if I'm allowed on the plane the next time I want to fly anywhere.) Still, depending on what jobs or freedoms this person may want in the future, an FBI file can be a real drag.
This is the second person I've heard of who's suffered consequences due to flippancy online: my own favorite sociopath was recently fired from a temporary clerical job for joking that, due to the nature of this job, he could "swing ____ County, Nevada," in the upcoming election, and that he was taking bids. Back to the rake factory for you, funny guy.
Don't get depressed: think of all the bright young people who grew up with a healthy respect for the law and for the US Government, who studied hard and majored in criminal justice, never got arrested for pot or littering, took their tests, aced their interviews and finally made it into the FBI, thinking they were going to take down Osama Bin Laden or catch the next Ted Bundy, or both. All these eager young Liddies report to work for the first day, and their dour supervisor (perhaps known as "the Old Man") says, "OK, are you familiar with LiveJournal?"
Oh, you poor suckers. According to the link, this particular online diarist was turned in by a concerned citizen who saw the satrirical anti-Bush post. To wit: whenever some crackpot decides to tattle on somebody who's said mean things on the internet, the FBI has to check it out. And you know what else? I'm betting that they have to read ALL the journal entries, to see if the incident of insensitivity to President Butthead's emotions is part of a repeated pattern. That means reading months or years of someone's posts about break-ups, what they ate for dinner, and having fat days. That means fan fiction, crushes on classmates or co-workers, and fights with moms. Song lyrics, reposted in their entirety. Prom pictures. Gushy posts about cats and kids. Oh, FBI men and ladies, nobody knows what you've been through.
Rest easy, America: LiveJournal is securely patrolled. Maybe those missing Iraqi explosives will turn up on there eventually.
*Thanks to Licketysplit at Vomitola for the subject line. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/27/2004 08:19:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 26, 2004 I am not an animal!
Oh, we have DSL in the home now! Oh, my missing limb grew back. Sayonara, art school. I never liked you anyway, and now that I have no use for your labs, I feel that we have grown apart.
I'm just kidding. I need the extra ten dollars a week in income you provide. Your labs were OK. Let's keep our strained and ugly friendship going forever. Let's go do Putt-Putt. Do they have that up here?
I got a free haircut today. I am probably only about 4% cuter, but I guess that's something. My poor hair. It remains neat no matter how much I try to screw it up and make myself look glamorous.
Did I mention I'm typing from the home? My home?
I just had a birthday, so this blog did too. I guess it's two years old now. One would think that after all this practice, I'd get coherent, stupid. No way, internet. I'd never do that to you. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/26/2004 02:21:00 AM
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Monday, October 25, 2004 Hotlanta Hotlanta Hotlanta Hotlanta
It was pretty much worth the 22 hours of driving time this weekend to see that once again, my friends had been telling me the truth, and that there are indeed large packs of wild dogs roaming the streets of Atlanta. The best I saw was a pack of nine big dogs and one little dog, all running together. They were having a good time, and the little one looked like the toughest of them all.
My housemates and I stayed with kind person who happens to live in the dudeliest of all dudely dude pads. How dudely was it?
*Porn wall
*Porn under the bathroom sink
*I found the porn under the bathroom sink while I was looking for the toilet paper, before I realized that the pile of napkins was the toilet paper
*Numerous dudes
I left my towel there by accident. "That towel is dead to you," my housmate J. told me.
"Thrown to the dudes," I agreed. I can get more towels.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/25/2004 05:41:00 PM
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Wednesday, October 20, 2004 People go crazy
I got some Seven jeans for 48 cents at the thrift store today. They fit as perfectly as jeans ever have, which is lucky, because the thrift store does not have changing rooms, so you just have to get undressed in public, try on clothes over other clothes, ore eyeball it.
I wouldn't have recognized that they were a designer product, but my housemates J. and L., often known as "the blondes" were along, and they have "style". I read dumb-ass fashion magazines all day long (or I dust, depending on how dusty the beauty parlor is), and I still don't know the different between ugly and pretty, or cool and uncool. I do always enjoy new pants.
I also enjoy:
public singing. The other day as I was walking to work, a man sang the words "Fat man fell down and broke his back," over and over again.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/20/2004 08:02:00 PM
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Monday, October 18, 2004 A good joke
There's a square of pavement I walk by a couple times a week that had the words "Fuck You" scratched into it when it was freshly poured. It cheers me up every time.
My father once told me a joke:
A priest is out walking one day and he notices a little boy writing his name on a wall, and he says "Timmy, that's not a nice thing to be doing!"
Timmy says, "Aw, Fuck you, Father O'Malley."
Father O'Malley says, "Timmy, you shouldn't use such language! And besides, think of it: i'm a priest! Why, one day I could be a Bishop, and after that, a cardinal, and one day, one day, Timmy, it is even conceivable that I should become Pope! Fuck me, Timmy? Fuck you!"
I don't wish to mention any further news today. I hope you are well and happy.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/18/2004 08:37:00 PM
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Saturday, October 16, 2004 the red running figure
People kept missing their hair appointments today because of the Baltimore Marathon.
I'd imagine a marathon in Baltimore might be trickier than one in other cities, because the running athletes might have to leap over a dead body every now and then.
But then again, J. the bike messenger thinks that "Car fires might be this season's dead body."
I guess you probably shouldn't even try to run through a car fire, because no matter how fast you are, no matter how tough you are, it's a damn car fire. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/16/2004 08:48:00 PM
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Friday, October 15, 2004 These things I do just to make myself more attractive to you
Team Vomitola is going to think I'm "biting their style," but here is the story of something that happened at the beauty parlor today.
A man called the salon to ask what "the catch" was: why are our haircuts so cheap. I lied and lied 'til I was like to melt the the phone. I didn't say, "The low, low price is our license to be rude to you," for example. I said something about our streamlined concept.
I thought that he was satisfied, but as I said goodbye, he said to wait, he had another question.
Keep in mind, all throughout the call, I have to deal with people who are physically present in the salon, so every thirty seconds, I interrupt the caller, and then he has a pause to collect his thoughts. I won't keep talking about this, but keep in mind that this is happening, and know that he never faltered in his purpose.
"I've heard that you had a stylist there that's a big Morrissey fan," he said.
I named the stylist most likely to be a Morrisey fan.
"Yes, yes. I'm sure that's her, he said. Well, you know Morrissey's touring the United States right now," he said.
"Of course," I said.
"Well, soon I'm going to see Morrisey, and I was thinking it might be fun to get my hair cut like Morrissey, he said. "Could I do that today?"
I didn't get up and yell, "I order you to!" Instead, I agreed that it was possible, and with a shaking hand, I booked his appointment.
Things got busier after that: I swept hair and greeted customers and washed towels and did all the time-eating things that I do, and when he came in, I nearly missed him. For this I may be forgiven: I wasn't expecting him to have a crew cut.
I'd told the stylist he was coming, but she'd forgetten, or hadn't known it was HIM, because I heard her say, "So, clippers on the top and sides?" as they walked towards her chair, and the last thing I heard him say before I had to answer the phone was, "Well, actually...
Periodically, I'd try to peer over at the station where the fan was getting his haircut. I saw him gesture emphatically several times. When he came to pay, he said, "Next time I have to talk less. I talked through two appointments."
I shrugged and smiled.
"But I had Morrissey-related things to talk about!"
As he was leaving, I saw him stop to talk to someone in the doorway. I only heard a stray word or two of their conversation.
That word, each time, was "Morrissey."
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/15/2004 10:34:00 PM
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Thursday, October 14, 2004 I was born like this. I have no choice.
Yesterday the ladies of the house and I went to Hampden to try and get some secondhand furniture. One store was closed, and another had nothing, but we went home with a car full of furniture anyway, because we all got interested in a big pile of garbage by the side of the road.
Dragging stuff in from the trash is in my blood more than iron is in my blood. I can't have nice things.
Oh, but I can. I got a small oil lamp, which is painted with a pastoral scene. I also got a pen, and when I tried to replace the ink cartridge, there was a knife inside! If ever I'm attacked by a very patient mugger, they will have unleashed the fury.
I love junk. I love it so much.
I will never be a cat lady, at least: I feel like two cats should be the legal limit for most households. I also feel like our current household cat, Trouble, should keep in mind that there are plenty of cats in the world who have never snuck into my room to pee on my stuff, and she can be replaced.
Otherwise noteworthy: today at work one of the stylists accidentally dyed another stylist's hair green.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/14/2004 04:26:00 PM
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Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Columbus Day
The hair salon was closed on Monday, because the hair show continued for a second day. The stylists stayed for cutting classes, and I had the day off--without pay! I got out of bed late, but it could have been later. After I'd been downstairs for a while, I heard a beeping coming from my room. "I'll be right back," I said to J. and D.. "I've got to go turn my alarm off."
"Did you really set your alarm for one PM?" said D. "Who are you?"
Who, indeed. Here's what I did for the rest of the day:
I rode around Baltimore in the back of a minvan while J. and D., who are bike messenegers drove packages to their destinations.
Who's lazy?
Everyone.
To be fair:
It was Columbus Day, and most of the offices in town were closed, so only a few packages went out that afternoon. However, the messengers get a higher percentage of the cost of the packages they deliver if they report for five days of work a week, so they couldn't just go home.
They are usually very industrious people, who face danger and insults with good humor, or at least with better insults and danger of a more menacing and personal nature.
Earlier in the day, J. told me, one of the more established messengers had ridden by and seen J. and D. loading D.'s bike into the van. "Are you guys going home?" he asked.
"No." J. answered. The other messenger just shook his head and rode away.
Between packages, we drove around and stared at people. The messengers abused, as they always do, their two-way radios.
When one walked into a building, the other would click over and start speaking, so that his friend's radio would crackle out, "Attention, attention! This messenger protected by the HIV virus. That's right, step away from him, you in the green shirt. You're doing the right thing. " or other lighthearted or obscene sayings. They do this all day long, even when they aren't in sight of one another, because there's always a chance that the other will be inside a courthouse or quiet office.
They tried to get me to take a couple of packages into the buildings for them. "Come on, just say you're new."
"Yeah, imagine: you can say you've worked as a bike messenger. Think of all the punk points."
I pointed out that I don't have any punk points. "Stupid tattoos count," they told me.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/13/2004 10:40:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 12, 2004 I like to think of us as day makers!
Sunday night in Crystal City, Virginia, celebrity hairdresser Robert Cromeans surveyed his audience from the catwalk and told a touching story about a woman who had sent him a postcard: it read that she'd been contemplating suicide, but the blow-drying experience she'd received had changed her life. The audience sighed. We were all very moved.
The motivational speaking was just a part of the hair show, though. Other parts involved gettng a bunch of tall, thin, attractive people, and then doing ridiculous things to them, in front of the wild-eyed audience of licensed beauticians, salon owners, beauty product reps, and me.
Oh, my God, the things they did to those pretty people! They all came out in strait jackets, some of which were sequined, with tape over their mouths, while the "Shut up, shut up" song played whompingly over the loudspeakers. The hairdressers were beside themselves: they HATE when people talk.
The strait-jacketed young people then received haircuts, before our very eyes. Mama mia! The team of celebrity hairdressers made these nice kids look so funny! I was envious. I want an asymetrical cut, teased into the shape of a hunch-backed poodle. I deserve it.
One of the Cromeans team's trademarks is their innovative reimagining of the staple gun as a hairstyling aid, so with a whock! whock! whock! they stapled giant artficial flowers to the models' heads. As far as I could tell, they didn't draw any blood.
Then it was time for the big finale, when some of the models came out in corsets and Chinese silk jackets, and the rest came as sexy cowgirls with sequined chaps. The cowgirls were not given upper portions to their costumes, and so had to hold their ten-gallon hats over their bosoms.
Prizes were thrown into the audience: these included scissors. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/12/2004 01:05:00 PM
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Saturday, October 09, 2004 The kindness of strangers
A few days ago I answered an ad in the City Paper for some free furniture, so now I have a futon mattress. On the inevitable day I accidentally leave the door to my room open, I'm sure it will be very exciting for the cat to have new surface to pee on. It's exciting for me not to sleep on the floor, in a pile of tangled rags.
The furniture belonged to a lady in Catonsville who was about to move from a house to an apartment. She had a little dog shaped like an ottoman, and she was very pleased to be getting rid of the stuff I was taking. By the time my housemate and I left, she'd given us items including but bnot limited to: the mattress, a desk, a chair, some artificial flowers, a bundt pan, size 32 dockers, and some plates. She also gave us ranch dressing, some ketchup, and a small tupperware container of rice. "Do you want spaghetti?" she asked. We said we did. Even if we'd refused it, I knew she'd won when she put the fat-free Catalina dressing in the food bag. "Well, I've lost over a hundred pounds, and I don't eat that stuff anymore," she said. "How about a microwave. Do you want a microwave?" Sure we do.
She blamed her excess posessions on some Chinese students she said had been living in her home. "They said it wouldn't fit in their suitcases," she said, not specifying which noun the "it" referred to. I'm just a little shocked, is all, that they didn't want to take the open bottles of fat-free Catalina dressing back to China. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/09/2004 06:00:00 PM
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Thursday, October 07, 2004 a funny thing happened at the beauty parlor
I never remember any anecdotes from the day when I work. I do the same things over and over, and it's all pretty much the same: hair, laundry, hair, the phone, smiling. It's my beautiful life. I also sharpen pencils. I wear them down to useless stubs, because somebody keeps buying the kind whose points disintegrate upon contact with paper: yes, paper. I have no computer at work. There are no computers in the store, unless someone brings one from home. We are barbarians. However, the big hairshow is this weekend. For some reason, I'm going, although a phone show or a cheerfulness show would be more appropriate to my own position at the salon. But my boss, baby's, got to have it! so all the employees, even the lowliest of us, were given tickets. I can't wait. There will be cocktails beforehand and a dance party afterwards. Who would not want to party with co-workers?
Also, sitting around and drunkenly making fun of stupid haircuts was like, all I did in college.
This is: poetic justice. Clearly, I should have spent the time I'd allocated for meanness and booze on trips to the career center. If I ever see my past self from that era, I'm going to stick out my foot and trip her when she walks by. But that's mainly for the tattoos. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/07/2004 04:29:00 PM
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Wednesday, October 06, 2004 News of today
There is a bird on my block who has learned to imitate a ringing telephone. Very amusing, you monster. Now, migrate!
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/06/2004 02:37:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 05, 2004 Seen about town
Charles and maybe 26th street, a few weeks ago: A uniformed crossing guard yelling after a little boy, who was running away laughing. What was yelled: "No you didn't No you didn't just do that! I saw you! I know who you are, and I will be here tomorrow! Don't think I won't remember you."
You can run, little boy. After that, it's up to you. I haven't seen any dead little boys on that block, so either that crossing guard was all hot air, or she is very skillful at disposing of the corpses of children.
I walk to work because I'm too chicken to ride my bike, and too full of human dignity to take the bus. I don't mind the walk, but it restricts my footwear choices. Also, it's a great opportunity to meet boyfriends, who announce their intentions by hooting or hissing. I hate boyfriends.
posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/05/2004 01:32:00 PM
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Sunday, October 03, 2004 so this is October, and what have you done?
Here I am again, internet. Crouched at a public computer, like an animal. I'm disappointed in me, too. Soon we will get cable.
We cleaned out the old apartment today, and moved the last few things out of it. Aloha, old apartment. You are so inferior to new house.
Ooh, and I registered to vote today at the farmer's market. I love that place.
A couple computers away, a young couple is taking the opportunity to make out. I know, guys. This computer station is totally romantic. You weirdos.
One day, I'll have the internet in my home again, and I'll be able to take the time to write thousand-word posts about my hair and the hair of others. For now, this is all I got for you. I need to get home to my wonderful house and watch a real depressing movie we got. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 10/03/2004 08:51:00 PM
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