Last month I decided to buy a Groupon for a "Relaxing Shave and Haircut" at some Barber Shop in Rockefeller Plaza. I'm not sure about you, but every time I buy a Groupon I feel a sense of accomplishment akin to how I feel when I'm ordering off the McDonald's dollar menu. Something about 4-piece nuggets for $1 seems to good to be true. Sometimes if I'm lucky I'll get a 5th nugget for free. I'm making out like a bandit! I'll think to myself. That's the same feeling I get when buying a good Groupon. It's as though I've spotted some crazy deal that no one else has found and I'm taking the suckers down for everything they're worth. $20 for an $80 haircut and shave? How do these people make any money?! For some reason I feel as though I'm the pioneer of online discounts and deals. In reality, I think I'm just an idiot and often times get EXACTLY what I paid for.
Anyway, Pride weekend was coming up and naturally I had to look my best so that the gays wouldn't snicker and jeer and throw apple martinis at my face. So I booked my appointment with the Barber Shop in Rockefeller and skipped out of my apartment on a fine Saturday afternoon. It was actually 95 degrees and I took a cab and arrived late, lost, and annoyed so it wasn't all that "Relaxing" thus far. I checked in and was directed towards a single chair next to a man named Mohammed. The chair sat alone in a store that looked to sell mainly hair products, facial exfoliates, and some heavy duty electric razors. Crowds of people walk the concourse area of Rockefeller Plaza quite freely, so the position of the chair made it seem like the perfect setting for Mohammed to conduct a public execution. I looked over at the table next to Mohammed's chair and saw an assortment of electric razors and sharp knives. For a second I thought I had booked the wrong Groupon and got nervous that I was going to have my undercarriage shaved and groomed in front of all these people.
"You sit. OK? My name Mohammed".
Well this should be interesting, I thought. So I sat.
He covered me in the typical smock, except this one latched around my neck so tight that I felt like a duck being prepared for a Foie Gras feeding. Mohammed was on the phone speaking in Arabic the whole time, which I didn't mind because sometimes I'm that asshole that speaks on the phone while ordering at Starbucks.
He reaches for a pair of clippers and says, "How you like?"
"Well I don't want it too short so just keep the same form and make it a trim. Not too crazy, ok?"
"NO. Not Craaazy...is good. You like! I Promise!" replies Mohammed. My hair is now in the hands of Allah.
Bzzzzzzzzzzz I can hear the sound of the clippers striking the side of my head and sheering off every piece of hair that stood in its way. It happened so quickly that I'm fairly positive I blacked out at some point. When I looked in the mirror the two sides of my head were completely shaved. Gone. For some stupid unbeknownst reason to me, I'm never good at speaking up in these situations. A blind woman with hedge clippers and missing thumbs could be cutting my hair and, the instant it reaches the point of no return where things have gone terribly wrong, I just close my eyes and hope it's over soon. I imagine this is what married sex must be like. And when she's done, she'll ask if I like my new haircut and I'd say "Yes this looks great thanks so much it's the best ever!" while slipping her a $20 tip on my way out the door. This particular situation proved no different.
The buzzing continued and I looked on in horror. I was in such a state of shock that I literally lost all speech and motor senses. I thought about getting up to run, but my legs weren't working. I was frozen stiff like a Kardashian in the presence of a black penis. Do with me what you want, Mohammed. Take everything and just finish me off.
As the buzzing continued, I looked on in horror when I realized we had reached the "Relaxing Close Shave" portion of the Groupon. I only realized this because the same electric razor that was used to chop my hair off was now being run profusely over the entirety of my face and all the way up to my nostrils. Then all of a sudden, the chair tilts back violently and Mohammed returns with a scalding hot towel. 1, 2, 3!! he counted and threw a scolding hot black towel on my face. I laid there at a 120 degree tilt in a blacked-out state of confusion. My face was covered and the only visible feature of mine were my eyes, so for all intents and purposes Mohammed had dressed me in a Burka. A little boy walked by pointing in horror and asking his mom if I was being tortured. YES, LITTLE BOY. GET. HELP! I thought.
When Mohammed returned he took the hot towel off.
"Berry Good, yes?"
"Mmmhmmm" I replied softly.
He then picks up the close shave knives and begins hacking away at my face. With the speed of a butcher dismembering a live chicken, Mohammed navigates my face and gets uncomfortably close to my jugular vein area.
The whole thing takes only 20 minutes. Once he finished, he repeats, "Berry Good, yes?"
"Mmmmhmmmm" I reply again. This time with tears welling in my eyes as I see the mounds of my hair that's fallen victim on the ground.
The final touch was the freezing cold towel he wrapped my face with and pressed down against my nose to the point that I literally could not breath. I took Mohammed's hairy arm with my hand and eased it off my face and sat myself up right. I looked in the mirror and laughed in hysterics at what had just occurred. I laughed even harder when I saw the results of my haircut. It was the only reaction my body could think of. I resembled, almost exactly, a tiny red tomato with the green leaves that stick out on top. Mohammed had not only given me the worst haircut I've ever seen, he actually stood proudly next to it. Presenting it to the passersby as if to say, "Yes my peoples you, too, can look this awful if you come to see me!".
With this particular Groupon, tip was not included. And obviously being the dumbass that I am, I removed $10 from my wallet and gave it to Mohammed. And as the $10 left my hand and went into his, I smiled and said "Berry Good", knowing that it was he who go the better end of the bargain this time.
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Where did my life go?
As I sat outside my fire escape on a brisk Manhattan night, smoking my 1 luxurious 5 dollar Parliament in my shorts and a tee-shirt, I took a glance around to take it all in. I hear the sounds of dress shoes making that "clack, clack, clack" sound they make when a person wearing them walks briskly down a concrete sidewalk. A man walks down the street below me in a suit, and I can't help but wonder what he's doing. You know, like what's his deal? Where does he work? Did he just come from happy hour with friends, or is he just on his way home, dead and destroyed, after working a 12 hour day? Is it possible that he, this total stranger, can be feeling exactly what I'm feeling at that exact moment? Does he know his own life?
I see so much of myself in this city. The struggles of surviving, the stress of work and life and money, and yet I'm still here. Making it. Or at least trying to, like everyone else. But it's not just the city that's a struggle. It's not unique to just New York.
Life as a whole is a struggle, and at times an ugly bitch of one. Like Renee Zellweger without make-up in HD. But as I sit on my flimsy fire escape, nervous that it could give way and I could plunge 3 stories to my death, I look out and see so many opportunities for myself. I smile because my world has changed. One year ago, I was working in DC at a job I was bored to death with and desperately trying to find a way out. And when I packed my things for NYC and arrived. I got out of the car, took a deep breath, and told myself, "I'm here. I made it". That was far the from truth. I could have stopped at "I'm here." Because what lay ahead of me was something I would never come to expect.
The last 6 months have been the hardest of my life, to say the least. Between apartment nightmares, financial hardships, an excruciatingly stressful and demanding job, I felt I was reaching a point where I would just collapse and spontaneously combust, like a fireball that leaves behind an insignificant pile of ashes for the trashman to shovel into a bag and forget about. And then a stray dog meandering the city sniffs it, lifts his leg and slowly urinates. In this city, you can feel significant and insignificant all at the same time. But I look to see how far I've come, and I realize how much stronger I am then I ever gave myself credit for.
I've come to realize that change, in any form, is one of the most difficult and exciting and terrifying things all at once. I made a change because I felt it was the right thing for me at the time. I took a huge risk with my career and my life that at times seemed hard to justify. At my first job in New York, I was sprinting to keep up with the pace and the amount of work I needed to learn and perform just to stay afloat. Long hours, stressful and demanding clients, and a plethora of other factors that came together to form one big ball of "What the fuck happened to my life? Where is it?" I had quite literally been blindsided.
During this time, I was miserable. It took months of hard work and determination just to get out of DC and get to this one point, and this one point sure felt like a big sack of warm shit. I went through some of the darkest moments trying to evaluate my life and everything that was going on. Did I make the right choice coming here? Did my job fulfill me? A huge part of it was a dire unhappiness with the stressful environment at work. But was this really the only thing causing me anguish? Well let's examine the evidence:
1.)I'm quite literally the only person that can come to NYC, piss away my savings, attempt to walk everywhere as a substitute for a gym, and gain 15 lbs. I feel like Christina Aguilera stuffed into a burlesque costume and waddling around in my now too-tight-for-comfort jeans. Well it must be my demanding job that doesn't give me the time or energy to go to the gym. That's what I tell myself.
2.) I'm single. What the fuck? What ever happened to movies like Serendipity and every other movie ever shot in NYC that tells some fairy tale of two strangers meeting in a coffee shop or underground rave, falling in love over a $15 Latte, and walking hand-in-hand down 5th ave into the sunset? Shouldn't I have found the love of my life whilst almost getting run over by a cab and being saved at the last second? I'm furious. But I tell myself it's because I just work too much and don't have time to date.
So I was getting fat, not going on dates, basically putting everything on hold and using my long work hours and stressful life as an excuse. But then it dawned on me 1 day, as I sat in a bar at the shitty Port Authority Bus Terminal drinking beer and reviewing pics of my old trips with my coworker Colleen. She was horrified at the transformation from who I was in those pictures to the person that was sitting directly across from her, binge drinking a lukewarm Miller Lite. A picture of me half naked swimming in the crystal clear blue waters of the Aegean Sea in Greece. Was I happy here? Maybe for the moment. But I sure as hell was thin. And that made me happy. But was I truly happy as a whole? I was on a two week vacation from the IMF, where I was unhappy, so probably not. What happened to my life? Slowly through the "professional years" of my life, I lost control of it, and I needed to get it back. Where did it go? Who stole it?
To get my life back, I had to re-evaluate some things. First, I had to take a look at the things that are causing me immediate unhappiness - Work. Second, take a look at how I got into that situation to begin with - I settled for a job that was not the right fit only because I so desperately wanted to escape DC and come to NYC. Third, what do I do now? How do I fix this?
It just so happens that in order to get your life back, or at least regain some sense of control and a sense of self, you have to take action. That's what I've concluded. I'm a firm believer that if you don't like something, try to change it. And if you can't change it, find ways to direct yourself away from it. You can take measures to change the shitty situation you're in, or you can choose to remove yourself from it. Those are your two options. If work is unbearable, find out why. If the reasons behind it can be fixed, then fix them. If not, then it's best to remove yourself from the situation completely and wave a titty to your boss on your way out the door. It's JUST.NOT.WORTH.IT. Expand your horizons and open your eyes to what lies beyond your office walls. The moment I saw clearly how I could do this was the moment I started getting closer to finding my life again.
I worked hard to get here, worked even harder when I arrived, and worked hardest in order to leave. Not to leave NYC, but to leave my less-than-desirable state of grim that I've fallen into. I've sulked. I've complained. I've cried. I grew numb. I lost faith in myself. I grew afraid of my future and what it would look like. If I kept going like this, you would have found me in the corner of my apartment rocking back and forth and staring at the wall while repeating the words "This is not my life" to myself.
Admittedly so, it can sometimes be fun to feel like shit. Sometimes you just want to play the victim and wrap yourself in this cozy blanket of misery because it gives you an excuse to point all those fingers away from you. Because looking at yourself and your decisions would be too unbearable if you had to find out the truth. And as long as that blanket is wrapped around you, you feel a false sense of comfort and familiarity. A comfort that you think you'll miss if you had to let it go. This is how I lost my true happiness and my life to begin with.
I had always thought that hard work pays off, eventually carving a path towards some uncertain future and, within that uncertain future, a feeling of happiness lays amidst the fog in the distance. Well it's not only hard work that carves this path, but it's also your own ambition to want more for yourself. I know that I will always want the best for me, which means I will strive to go to the next level, and maybe even skip a few along the way. I'm no longer an entry-level 22 year-old college grad, so I won't take jobs that pay me entry level with the promise of some great opportunity for growth that may or may not exist. That was mistake #1 I made in NYC. I'm not a robot at a desk all day, because I'm a person that becomes stifled by the lack of creativity while I'm forced into processes and spreadsheets and repetitive motions day after day. And that, that right there, is how I started to lose sight of my life in the first place.
At the IMF, I felt suffocated by the environment and the city and the auto-pilot route my life had taken. I was unchallenged, coasting through life like a little flower girl at a wedding, walking down the aisle all la la la and throwing rose petals on the floor while people complimented me for doing such an outstanding job. And yet what was so outstanding about it? A drunk midget could do the same, which was exactly how I felt about my job. I was going through my life and my career not knowing that soon enough I could blink and ten years would have gone by. And then, all of a sudden, I realized I had gotten too comfortable. So comfortable that the thought of leaving scared me. And because it scared me, I left. I felt myself losing my life, becoming one of those people that works for the same company and after 25 years turns around with a blank stare, offers you a tired smile and says, "I have 432 days left until I retire. Want to grab a cup of coffee before this meeting?"
And when I left, I took the first opportunity I could find just so that I could reunite with my beloved New York. What is it about this place? It's disgusting and smells of sewage but my masochistic side loves it.
My hopes and dreams of a new life were literally pulled from under me within my first six months. I was blindsided by the work, the environment, and the demands of my job. For 6 months a fog overtook me and I was blinded. I had no idea what was happening. I couldn't see. Not one bit. But I knew I was still in New York. I could smell it and hear it, but I couldn't see what was there. Everyday for 6 months, I walked home like a zombie. And then one day after numerous nervous breakdowns, I sat in that bus terminal with Colleen and looked at pictures of myself from only 2 years ago. I was happy there in that moment. I want that happiness back. But I don't want it for only 2 weeks while I'm on vacation drinking margaritas naked in a pool somewhere. I want it always. And it's fair to ask to have it always, because we are human beings and we are living one life of ours that collides with millions of lives of others. And in there, amidst the chaos, lies happiness. Maybe the ambition I feel to want more for myself is what makes me happy. And maybe what they say is right, that enjoying the journey is mostly what it's about.
And now, through all of this, that blinding fog has lifted. As I sat outside on my fire escape, I had a greater sense of clarity for where I wanted to be in my life and what I wanted for myself. I'm no longer settling for a job where I'm unchallenged or constantly stressed or overwhelmed or taken advantage of. I want to give myself the choice of not settling. I have standards for the places I'm willing to live, the people I'm willing to date, and even the toilet I'm willing to shit in. So I had to set some standards for where I work.
Don't settle for being in a place that is slowly taking your life, because once you realize it and a long time has gone by, it's hard to find it again. Some of the greatest successes that ever come are as a result of removing yourself from your comfort zone. Without risk and excitement and some nerves along the way, then the journey isn't worth it. Take risks, be uncomfortable, know yourself, know your value, know the right questions to ask, know that somewhere within you lies ambition and worth. And no job, or even relationship, is ever worth the fog that blinds you to what's been there all along.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
I see so much of myself in this city. The struggles of surviving, the stress of work and life and money, and yet I'm still here. Making it. Or at least trying to, like everyone else. But it's not just the city that's a struggle. It's not unique to just New York.
Life as a whole is a struggle, and at times an ugly bitch of one. Like Renee Zellweger without make-up in HD. But as I sit on my flimsy fire escape, nervous that it could give way and I could plunge 3 stories to my death, I look out and see so many opportunities for myself. I smile because my world has changed. One year ago, I was working in DC at a job I was bored to death with and desperately trying to find a way out. And when I packed my things for NYC and arrived. I got out of the car, took a deep breath, and told myself, "I'm here. I made it". That was far the from truth. I could have stopped at "I'm here." Because what lay ahead of me was something I would never come to expect.
The last 6 months have been the hardest of my life, to say the least. Between apartment nightmares, financial hardships, an excruciatingly stressful and demanding job, I felt I was reaching a point where I would just collapse and spontaneously combust, like a fireball that leaves behind an insignificant pile of ashes for the trashman to shovel into a bag and forget about. And then a stray dog meandering the city sniffs it, lifts his leg and slowly urinates. In this city, you can feel significant and insignificant all at the same time. But I look to see how far I've come, and I realize how much stronger I am then I ever gave myself credit for.
I've come to realize that change, in any form, is one of the most difficult and exciting and terrifying things all at once. I made a change because I felt it was the right thing for me at the time. I took a huge risk with my career and my life that at times seemed hard to justify. At my first job in New York, I was sprinting to keep up with the pace and the amount of work I needed to learn and perform just to stay afloat. Long hours, stressful and demanding clients, and a plethora of other factors that came together to form one big ball of "What the fuck happened to my life? Where is it?" I had quite literally been blindsided.
During this time, I was miserable. It took months of hard work and determination just to get out of DC and get to this one point, and this one point sure felt like a big sack of warm shit. I went through some of the darkest moments trying to evaluate my life and everything that was going on. Did I make the right choice coming here? Did my job fulfill me? A huge part of it was a dire unhappiness with the stressful environment at work. But was this really the only thing causing me anguish? Well let's examine the evidence:
1.)I'm quite literally the only person that can come to NYC, piss away my savings, attempt to walk everywhere as a substitute for a gym, and gain 15 lbs. I feel like Christina Aguilera stuffed into a burlesque costume and waddling around in my now too-tight-for-comfort jeans. Well it must be my demanding job that doesn't give me the time or energy to go to the gym. That's what I tell myself.
2.) I'm single. What the fuck? What ever happened to movies like Serendipity and every other movie ever shot in NYC that tells some fairy tale of two strangers meeting in a coffee shop or underground rave, falling in love over a $15 Latte, and walking hand-in-hand down 5th ave into the sunset? Shouldn't I have found the love of my life whilst almost getting run over by a cab and being saved at the last second? I'm furious. But I tell myself it's because I just work too much and don't have time to date.
So I was getting fat, not going on dates, basically putting everything on hold and using my long work hours and stressful life as an excuse. But then it dawned on me 1 day, as I sat in a bar at the shitty Port Authority Bus Terminal drinking beer and reviewing pics of my old trips with my coworker Colleen. She was horrified at the transformation from who I was in those pictures to the person that was sitting directly across from her, binge drinking a lukewarm Miller Lite. A picture of me half naked swimming in the crystal clear blue waters of the Aegean Sea in Greece. Was I happy here? Maybe for the moment. But I sure as hell was thin. And that made me happy. But was I truly happy as a whole? I was on a two week vacation from the IMF, where I was unhappy, so probably not. What happened to my life? Slowly through the "professional years" of my life, I lost control of it, and I needed to get it back. Where did it go? Who stole it?
To get my life back, I had to re-evaluate some things. First, I had to take a look at the things that are causing me immediate unhappiness - Work. Second, take a look at how I got into that situation to begin with - I settled for a job that was not the right fit only because I so desperately wanted to escape DC and come to NYC. Third, what do I do now? How do I fix this?
It just so happens that in order to get your life back, or at least regain some sense of control and a sense of self, you have to take action. That's what I've concluded. I'm a firm believer that if you don't like something, try to change it. And if you can't change it, find ways to direct yourself away from it. You can take measures to change the shitty situation you're in, or you can choose to remove yourself from it. Those are your two options. If work is unbearable, find out why. If the reasons behind it can be fixed, then fix them. If not, then it's best to remove yourself from the situation completely and wave a titty to your boss on your way out the door. It's JUST.NOT.WORTH.IT. Expand your horizons and open your eyes to what lies beyond your office walls. The moment I saw clearly how I could do this was the moment I started getting closer to finding my life again.
I worked hard to get here, worked even harder when I arrived, and worked hardest in order to leave. Not to leave NYC, but to leave my less-than-desirable state of grim that I've fallen into. I've sulked. I've complained. I've cried. I grew numb. I lost faith in myself. I grew afraid of my future and what it would look like. If I kept going like this, you would have found me in the corner of my apartment rocking back and forth and staring at the wall while repeating the words "This is not my life" to myself.
Admittedly so, it can sometimes be fun to feel like shit. Sometimes you just want to play the victim and wrap yourself in this cozy blanket of misery because it gives you an excuse to point all those fingers away from you. Because looking at yourself and your decisions would be too unbearable if you had to find out the truth. And as long as that blanket is wrapped around you, you feel a false sense of comfort and familiarity. A comfort that you think you'll miss if you had to let it go. This is how I lost my true happiness and my life to begin with.
I had always thought that hard work pays off, eventually carving a path towards some uncertain future and, within that uncertain future, a feeling of happiness lays amidst the fog in the distance. Well it's not only hard work that carves this path, but it's also your own ambition to want more for yourself. I know that I will always want the best for me, which means I will strive to go to the next level, and maybe even skip a few along the way. I'm no longer an entry-level 22 year-old college grad, so I won't take jobs that pay me entry level with the promise of some great opportunity for growth that may or may not exist. That was mistake #1 I made in NYC. I'm not a robot at a desk all day, because I'm a person that becomes stifled by the lack of creativity while I'm forced into processes and spreadsheets and repetitive motions day after day. And that, that right there, is how I started to lose sight of my life in the first place.
At the IMF, I felt suffocated by the environment and the city and the auto-pilot route my life had taken. I was unchallenged, coasting through life like a little flower girl at a wedding, walking down the aisle all la la la and throwing rose petals on the floor while people complimented me for doing such an outstanding job. And yet what was so outstanding about it? A drunk midget could do the same, which was exactly how I felt about my job. I was going through my life and my career not knowing that soon enough I could blink and ten years would have gone by. And then, all of a sudden, I realized I had gotten too comfortable. So comfortable that the thought of leaving scared me. And because it scared me, I left. I felt myself losing my life, becoming one of those people that works for the same company and after 25 years turns around with a blank stare, offers you a tired smile and says, "I have 432 days left until I retire. Want to grab a cup of coffee before this meeting?"
And when I left, I took the first opportunity I could find just so that I could reunite with my beloved New York. What is it about this place? It's disgusting and smells of sewage but my masochistic side loves it.
My hopes and dreams of a new life were literally pulled from under me within my first six months. I was blindsided by the work, the environment, and the demands of my job. For 6 months a fog overtook me and I was blinded. I had no idea what was happening. I couldn't see. Not one bit. But I knew I was still in New York. I could smell it and hear it, but I couldn't see what was there. Everyday for 6 months, I walked home like a zombie. And then one day after numerous nervous breakdowns, I sat in that bus terminal with Colleen and looked at pictures of myself from only 2 years ago. I was happy there in that moment. I want that happiness back. But I don't want it for only 2 weeks while I'm on vacation drinking margaritas naked in a pool somewhere. I want it always. And it's fair to ask to have it always, because we are human beings and we are living one life of ours that collides with millions of lives of others. And in there, amidst the chaos, lies happiness. Maybe the ambition I feel to want more for myself is what makes me happy. And maybe what they say is right, that enjoying the journey is mostly what it's about.
And now, through all of this, that blinding fog has lifted. As I sat outside on my fire escape, I had a greater sense of clarity for where I wanted to be in my life and what I wanted for myself. I'm no longer settling for a job where I'm unchallenged or constantly stressed or overwhelmed or taken advantage of. I want to give myself the choice of not settling. I have standards for the places I'm willing to live, the people I'm willing to date, and even the toilet I'm willing to shit in. So I had to set some standards for where I work.
Don't settle for being in a place that is slowly taking your life, because once you realize it and a long time has gone by, it's hard to find it again. Some of the greatest successes that ever come are as a result of removing yourself from your comfort zone. Without risk and excitement and some nerves along the way, then the journey isn't worth it. Take risks, be uncomfortable, know yourself, know your value, know the right questions to ask, know that somewhere within you lies ambition and worth. And no job, or even relationship, is ever worth the fog that blinds you to what's been there all along.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
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