Wednesday, Jun. 01, 2005 - 1:12 p.m.
I need a haircut. I need one incredibly badly. The last one I got was when I was in Tennessee. That was at the end of March. Count that. It’s been like 2 months since I had a haircut. It’s now an awful shaggy mess, but I can’t seem to find a place that doesn’t cost $100 or more and still does a decent job. It’s depressing to know I’ve been here for almost 2 years (wow!) and still don’t have a hairdresser.
I want to go to a place in the city that gives free cuts if you let the students work on you, but the only time they have it is during my work hours.
Anyway. I’ve been wanting to write.
I’ve wanted to write about the period of time lasting just over 2 weeks when I had no work from my temp agencies. And how then the only work for a few days challenged two pieces of me that are at odds. The working-class part of me that feels like I shouldn’t count myself “above” any work and the college-educated, skilled part of me thinking “but I am skilled to do more than this,” that I guess does feel above it.
Wanted to talk about how just when I’d resigned myself to look for something in retail to get by, I got my current temp job… and more importantly a call from a creative staffing company called Aquent because they’d seen my resume online and I fit a job description. And how I have an interview tomorrow (but I’ll get to that tomorrow or later).
And about this current job and how it stifles the human spirit by not having personalized atmospheres, or allowing music, or allowing people to read when they have nothing to work on. I can’t handle being completely disconnected from the world (not allowed to use email) and restricted in my free time (‘cause god forbid we admit that an employee might have valid free time – no just make them stare into space) and stifled in my personal space (everything is way open for everyone to see, no one has personal stuff, every desk looks the same, you can’t listen to music even with headphones, etc). So, I’m just waiting it out and hoping something else comes around soon.
Wanted to talk about how in the meantime, I really really need/want to move. How I’m starting to get uncomfortable with my boyfriend’s family.
But more importantly, and more immediately, I wanted to talk about my memorial day weekend.
Friday was a normal day at work. Even though most people I knew were getting out of work early, I still got out at 5:30. After that I didn’t really do anything. I’d been debating going up to northern New York with a friend and then meeting up with another friend up there (near Niagara Falls), but realized I didn’t really have the money to do it. So Friday I spent the evening hanging out and reading with my boyfriend. We completely forgot about a party thing with some wizardites (for one of them’s wives graduation I think).
Saturday, the original plan was to try to head to the city, but James called early and wanted to hang out before he headed to work at 3. Because he’s been going through some big stuff lately, it was not really a question of saying no. It turned out for the best anyway. The three of us headed to a park in Yonkers called Untermyer park.
I need to learn more about this place. Apparently it has some connection to the son of sam murders and is rumored to have occult dealings going on. The facts I know is that it was all part of some millionaires grounds and he donated it to the city in his will. The opening is beautifully manicured gardens and then there are woods to traipse around in.
As you walk through the woods though there are random stone walls and staircases. There is an “eagles nest” gazebo up high, looking out over the woods toward the river. And as you walk through the woods you come to a place where a large gate used to stand. The gate is gone, but the stone pillars remain. Step inside and you see a large stone archway, framed by sculptures in the stone, a lion and a unicorn whose head has been broken off. There are steps through it that lead up to a building that may have been a house, but given that this was someone’s “grounds” it was probably something more specific and useful.
The house is full of graffiti, falling apart. There are stone walls around it that apparently probably have caves running through them. There is a doorway behind the house, that James said he had never gone in and never would. It was pitch black inside and there were fairly freshly burnt logs from a fire. So going inside did not seem like a good idea.
The place had that wonderful feeling of seeing something that had been manicured and grand scale, being grown over by the nature it cohabitated with, giving it a different kind of charm. Added to that was something mysterious and spooky because of the stories that come with the place and the graffiti. I now want to find some books about it, and hopefully some photos of it way back when.
James took us back and headed to work. And it started to rain. So, it was probably better not to be in the city.
That evening I managed to get Jairo to do yoga with me and he actually seems to like it. He needs stretching and he recognizes that it does him good. It’s getting motivated to do it that seems the problem.
Sunday we spent the entire day in NYC. We started in Times Square, wandered around, checked some shops. Eventually we ended up in Chinatown, where we always seem to end up. It is a great place to find video games (if you’re into that), produce, good food, and cheap tourist stuff. We walked Broadway to check out the shops. We stopped at Midtown comics and (better for indie stuff) Forbidden Planet. It was Sunday so things closed a bit too early and we didn’t manage to get to a museum or anything, but we did get to have Doener kebabs and falafel. We also visited The Strand Bookstore. This place is fantastic!! It’s online, check it out, but if you ever go to the city and you love books, definitely check it out. Miles of books. Every kind of book. They even had books in foreign languages other than just Spanish.
By the time we got home that day we were both ready to sit down. We’d walked miles and our feet were soar. And it was nice to go to bed with the knowledge of another free day ahead of us.
Sunday we got up and were getting ready when James called. So, we headed out and about with James. He took us to another park, in Irvington, that they call “goose park.” After that, since we were in the area, I asked to go to the Sleepy Hollow graveyard.
I like cemeteries. I know a lot of people don’t. But I think they’re lovely. This one is fantastic! It’s huge and sprawling, hills and valleys, large intricate graves and small simple ones. Family plots, single graves, crypts. You can walk it like a park it’s so big. We didn’t manage to find Washington Irving, but we walked past Edgar Lister’s grave (whom James believes invented antiseptic). Allergies forced us out before I’d have like to have left, but I now know where it is and plan to go back.
James told us he’s getting married. Asked that we be the witnesses. I know that Jairo has some major reservations about that, and apparently my response meant a lot to James. My response was simply to ask some questions and when he said stuff like how he’d never felt this way about anyone and just always wanted her around I told him that was the right reason to get married and that I supported him.
Following that we headed back to Untermyer so I could get a good photo of some places in it and then we headed to our friend Al’s house. First we stopped at a gas station, where a man came up to us and said “guess how old I am.” We were all like 75 (even if we were thinking 80) and he said he lived with his 73-year-old daughter. That he’d just celebrated his 74th wedding anniversary and turned 96 the next day. We congratulated him a lot and he smiled and said have a great day and left.
Al lives with his parents still (which is another story in and of itself). His parents are Italian American (as in more than likely several generations in America) and Korean. His mother cooks a ton of food and just keeps telling us to eat. She made some fantastic spring rolls and lots of other stuff, and some of it was too spicy for me.
Al’s girlfriend Kelly (new relationship) we met last weekend when we helped them move some stuff out of his deceased grandparents house. That house was amazing. Like something from an Alcott novel. Wood floors, staircases, old wood furniture. A giant living room, dining room, kitchen, den. Window seats. And like 6-8 bedrooms upstairs, with a third story we didn’t see.
Kelly was really nice, but very shy. So once I found something we had in common the two of us just kept talking. She’s been to Europe, wants to go back.
So, at Al’s bbq, there was a neighbor lady from Germany. James was dying to hear me speak German with her, but there wasn’t a good time or point to do so. And it felt exclusionary and rude. She was nice and interesting. She had been a twin, but her mother had been forced to abort her sister because she was “too old to have kids” and they hadn’t realized it was twins. She grew up, very young during WWII and more so in the depression and famine afterward. She moved here 50 years ago.
She told us about her father being taken away by the police for having tattoos and being beaten to death and many other stories. All of them though, with very little emotion, just matter of fact. I guess the human psyche just learns to cope.
It was a nice day. It was a nice weekend.
