Trying to get this all down before it goes away
Did things a little differently today. Something called for change.
Woke up with a hangover mirroring the intensity of several large-scale construction accidents. I haven't gotten that disgustingly drunk in a while, or so I was told by a series of early afternoon text messages. At least I didn't vomit. Not that I can recall, anyways. I shall not here expound upon the sordid details of whys and hows, which on their own could constitute an entire entry.
Smoked about four cigarettes last night. Had to bum them off of Dan. I never make it a point to buy cigarettes because I don't ever smoke alone. (Was I smoking alone in front of a Whataburger last night?)
Mental Note: reduce self-destructive behavior
Went to lunch with my mom and my brother at Yan Sushi. The service was slow but the food wasn't bad. Wing-Ho grew out his hair. He's looking more and more like the older brother whenever we go out together.
I left after lunch to go get a hair cut. I usually go to this place called Lucy's Salon. The salon is owned by a Cantonese couple. The husband cuts my hair and we chat casually about our lives, mine mostly, although I do make it a point to ask about his son who is also medical school bound. He goes to Baylor for undergrad and is on a full scholarship. Smart kid as far as I can tell, but I've never met him so I really don't know. Some people sound good when being described by others but fall short of expectations upon a face-to-face meeting. Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm one of those people.
The man who cuts my hair is not a particularly gifted hairstylist. In fact, he takes close to 45 minutes to cut my hair which I would like to think of as relatively low maintenance. But what he lacks in skill he makes up for in personality. We always speak in Cantonese, which is fine with me since I need the practice. He's in his early fifties with a head of thin white hair, a hunched back and a ventral abdominal protuberance typical of most men whose earlier years were marked by copious consumption of malted beverages. He looks much older than my own dad who is similar in age but has stayed comparatively in shape due to the manual labor required of his job. Sometimes I feel like the talks I have with my barber border on the nature of conversations that fathers and sons should be having. My dad is visiting in two weeks.
Today, I did not go to my usual barber for my monthly hair cut. Instead, I went to another nearby hair salon called 明利 (Ming Li). Adam had recommended it to me a few months ago but in misinterpreting his directions, I had discovered Lucy's Salon instead. Yao Ming apparently gets his haircuts at this place. Not that Yao Ming has a particularly envious head of hair, but it's just something interesting about the establishment.
As soon as I entered the store, I immediately noticed the distinctive nature of this place. The hair stylists were all young and Chinese with crazy off the wall hairdos. Many of them look like they had not long ago moved from a more fashion forward Taiwan or Hong Kong. If you live in Houston and you've gotten your haircuts from Supercuts or Visual Changes your whole life, you probably wouldn't be able the appreciate the strangeness of the situation. Chinese haircutting establishments are nearly always staffed with middle age Chinese women, reason being that the majority of these places are made FOR middle age Chinese women. On the whole, the idea is very similar to that of the FUBU clothing brand "For Us By Us". Young Chinese people in Houston simply do not cut hair, they go to medical school or fiddle with plasmids in a lab at Rice or trade energy stocks, or otherwise move to New York or California. To see this team of seemingly well-seasoned young hairstylists in a Chinese hair salon in Houston made me think that someone had imported these kids here for the express purpose of employing them as hairstylists, an act not entirely distinguishable in my mind from the contract labor camps of California during the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. But needless to say, these guys looked a lot happier.
Walking into this hair salon in which the employees basically double as models of an unpublicized hair show, I felt deeply embarrassed as I defiled the sanctity of the place with my crumpled blue baseball cap and matted clump of slowly thinning hair. It was like being a godless sinner at Sunday mass with a scorching pentagram branded onto my forehead.
I was asked if I had made reservations. I had not. I was asked if I had a specific hair stylist. I did not. These answers drew long sighs and looks of displeasure from the front desk staff. Eventually, I was assigned to a hairstylist who wore dark-rimmed glasses and a pony-tail of no excessive extravagance. She looked to be in her thirties and rather than sporting the conventional all-black attire subscribed to by hair-stylists worldwide, she wore a white spring dress. It was almost as if she had been on her way to meet her boyfriend for a date but had stopped by just to cut my hair. Nevertheless, I appreciated her willingness to fit me in considering I had neither a reservation nor her regular service - after all, her date was probably waiting alone in a cafe somewhere wondering if he had been stood up, the poor guy.
Rice gave me a great haircut. Technically speaking, it was the best haircut I've ever had. Fast, precise, pinpoint attention to detail. I mean, I'm not saying I look like Fabio now, but like any great artist, she made the best out of the material that she had on hand. The one strange thing about the entire experience was that she never once smiled. I consider a smile to be very important in relationship building because it conveys a sense of goodwill beyond words. Of course, she wasn't curt or rude to me in the slightest. In fact, I could tell she was trying to make conversation by asking me questions about myself now and then. But the truth is, the conversation just never took off. With that being said, I would gladly allow Rice to lay her sheers on me at my next monthly grooming session, but it doesn't look like we'll be sharing stories of weekend debaucheries any time soon. I guess sometimes you just can't have it all.
I'm considering writing a short story that takes place in a 7/11. I've always wondered about the lives of people who work in 7/11s. Not Circle Ks or Stop and Gos, but 7/11s, specifically.
Woke up with a hangover mirroring the intensity of several large-scale construction accidents. I haven't gotten that disgustingly drunk in a while, or so I was told by a series of early afternoon text messages. At least I didn't vomit. Not that I can recall, anyways. I shall not here expound upon the sordid details of whys and hows, which on their own could constitute an entire entry.
Smoked about four cigarettes last night. Had to bum them off of Dan. I never make it a point to buy cigarettes because I don't ever smoke alone. (Was I smoking alone in front of a Whataburger last night?)
Mental Note: reduce self-destructive behavior
Went to lunch with my mom and my brother at Yan Sushi. The service was slow but the food wasn't bad. Wing-Ho grew out his hair. He's looking more and more like the older brother whenever we go out together.
I left after lunch to go get a hair cut. I usually go to this place called Lucy's Salon. The salon is owned by a Cantonese couple. The husband cuts my hair and we chat casually about our lives, mine mostly, although I do make it a point to ask about his son who is also medical school bound. He goes to Baylor for undergrad and is on a full scholarship. Smart kid as far as I can tell, but I've never met him so I really don't know. Some people sound good when being described by others but fall short of expectations upon a face-to-face meeting. Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm one of those people.
The man who cuts my hair is not a particularly gifted hairstylist. In fact, he takes close to 45 minutes to cut my hair which I would like to think of as relatively low maintenance. But what he lacks in skill he makes up for in personality. We always speak in Cantonese, which is fine with me since I need the practice. He's in his early fifties with a head of thin white hair, a hunched back and a ventral abdominal protuberance typical of most men whose earlier years were marked by copious consumption of malted beverages. He looks much older than my own dad who is similar in age but has stayed comparatively in shape due to the manual labor required of his job. Sometimes I feel like the talks I have with my barber border on the nature of conversations that fathers and sons should be having. My dad is visiting in two weeks.
Today, I did not go to my usual barber for my monthly hair cut. Instead, I went to another nearby hair salon called 明利 (Ming Li). Adam had recommended it to me a few months ago but in misinterpreting his directions, I had discovered Lucy's Salon instead. Yao Ming apparently gets his haircuts at this place. Not that Yao Ming has a particularly envious head of hair, but it's just something interesting about the establishment.
As soon as I entered the store, I immediately noticed the distinctive nature of this place. The hair stylists were all young and Chinese with crazy off the wall hairdos. Many of them look like they had not long ago moved from a more fashion forward Taiwan or Hong Kong. If you live in Houston and you've gotten your haircuts from Supercuts or Visual Changes your whole life, you probably wouldn't be able the appreciate the strangeness of the situation. Chinese haircutting establishments are nearly always staffed with middle age Chinese women, reason being that the majority of these places are made FOR middle age Chinese women. On the whole, the idea is very similar to that of the FUBU clothing brand "For Us By Us". Young Chinese people in Houston simply do not cut hair, they go to medical school or fiddle with plasmids in a lab at Rice or trade energy stocks, or otherwise move to New York or California. To see this team of seemingly well-seasoned young hairstylists in a Chinese hair salon in Houston made me think that someone had imported these kids here for the express purpose of employing them as hairstylists, an act not entirely distinguishable in my mind from the contract labor camps of California during the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. But needless to say, these guys looked a lot happier.
Walking into this hair salon in which the employees basically double as models of an unpublicized hair show, I felt deeply embarrassed as I defiled the sanctity of the place with my crumpled blue baseball cap and matted clump of slowly thinning hair. It was like being a godless sinner at Sunday mass with a scorching pentagram branded onto my forehead.
I was asked if I had made reservations. I had not. I was asked if I had a specific hair stylist. I did not. These answers drew long sighs and looks of displeasure from the front desk staff. Eventually, I was assigned to a hairstylist who wore dark-rimmed glasses and a pony-tail of no excessive extravagance. She looked to be in her thirties and rather than sporting the conventional all-black attire subscribed to by hair-stylists worldwide, she wore a white spring dress. It was almost as if she had been on her way to meet her boyfriend for a date but had stopped by just to cut my hair. Nevertheless, I appreciated her willingness to fit me in considering I had neither a reservation nor her regular service - after all, her date was probably waiting alone in a cafe somewhere wondering if he had been stood up, the poor guy.
Rice gave me a great haircut. Technically speaking, it was the best haircut I've ever had. Fast, precise, pinpoint attention to detail. I mean, I'm not saying I look like Fabio now, but like any great artist, she made the best out of the material that she had on hand. The one strange thing about the entire experience was that she never once smiled. I consider a smile to be very important in relationship building because it conveys a sense of goodwill beyond words. Of course, she wasn't curt or rude to me in the slightest. In fact, I could tell she was trying to make conversation by asking me questions about myself now and then. But the truth is, the conversation just never took off. With that being said, I would gladly allow Rice to lay her sheers on me at my next monthly grooming session, but it doesn't look like we'll be sharing stories of weekend debaucheries any time soon. I guess sometimes you just can't have it all.
I'm considering writing a short story that takes place in a 7/11. I've always wondered about the lives of people who work in 7/11s. Not Circle Ks or Stop and Gos, but 7/11s, specifically.
posted by Peter at 12:38 PM
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