Monthly Archives: December 2018

A hairstylist and a therapist in one, and women’s lib

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Although I had a 5:30 cut and color appointment with my colorful and vibrant hairstylist today, I was delayed by over half an hour because the person she was working on before me was going through a very long and nasty divorce… and we all had to hear about it, everyone within a 15-20 foot radius of my hairstylist’s chair. They were married over 24 years, no children. She said she was in her mid-50s, in a lucrative career where she’d soon have to be paying her husband alimony payments as a result of her higher salary.

“He’s set to inherit over $5 million when his mom dies… granted, it probably won’t be for another 10 or so years, but he will be set!” this soon-to-be-divorced woman exclaimed loudly. “Yet I, because I earn more money than he does, I have to pay him alimony! That women’s lib… it’s a bunch of bullshit! Women thought they were going to be better off, to work and be men’s ‘equals.’ Well, here you go: you want equality? Then you have to pay your ex-husband alimony if you make more money! Is that what you want?” 

She was going off, saying that it would have been better to just be a stay-at-home wife, with basically no job opportunities. Because this way, if she went on this route, she’d be getting payments from her husband today.

I had so many things I could have said to her, but I decided that I wanted her out of there ASAP because she was already delaying me over half an hour, and I did not want her delaying me even further. Did she really think she’d have this lucrative career if the women’s liberation movement never happened?! 

She eventually left. My hairstylist looked at me apologetically. “I’m so sorry,” she said to me as she hugged me. “What can I do? She needs someone to listen to her who is unbiased… I can’t just kick her out.

“You’re basically a therapist and a hairstylist in one,” I said to her, smiling. “Except… maybe you should be charging therapist rates on top of your cut and color rates?”

It had never occurred to me to ever vent or rant about life’s frustrations to my hairstylist, or really anyone who did a service for me, whether it was a haircut, a massage, a mani/pedi, or anything. When I used to see a Japanese stylist for my haircuts in the East Village, they were practically expressionless mutes who never said anything to me other than asking what I wanted, if I would like more green tea, or if I wanted a blowout. With my current hairstylist, we just talk about random things like work, travel, our families, and most recently, our cultures and upbringings. But ranting? It seems too much to ask of a hairstylist. Don’t they have enough of their own problems that they shouldn’t be made to listen to ours?

At least I saw this divorcee give my stylist a fat tip. It’s the least she could have done for all her venting and free therapy.

 

Becoming

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A few days ago, I started listening to the Audible version of Michelle Obama’s book Becoming, which she narrates, and it’s even more amazing and down-to-earth than I ever could have imagined. For someone who is so accomplished from a working-class background in the South Side of Chicago, it is so hard to imagine the people who choose to criticize and hate her. The story of her childhood certainly is a working class one, no matter what anyone wants to twist and ask, “how can she be ‘working class’ if she went to Harvard and Princeton and is now a multi-millionaire”? Not everyone who is wealthy and successful today came from wealth the way President Dipshit did. If anyone bothered really listening or reading her story, they’d know for a fact that she had no privileged upbringing at all, unless you want to define “privilege” as living in an in-law of an apartment in a working-class neighborhood and having one parent working a city-job.  She barely left her city, much less her state, until she got to high school and had an opportunity to go to Paris for a school trip, and even that, she wanted to deprive herself of that because of the guilt around how much her parents would need to spend on this trip just for her to do what the other kids in her class did. That sounds like what I’ve done with my parents a few times… except in her case, her parents wanted her to go and paid for her to go. In my case, I didn’t go.

I’ve really come to the conclusion that people who choose to hate Michelle Obama do it simply because they a) hate women, b) hate black people, or really, any people of color, c) hate it when people from relatively humble backgrounds are able to rise through the ranks and become successful and wealthy, or even d) don’t want children (who are poor or of color) to be literate and educated, or want to prevent them from eating nutritious foods. There is little to nothing to dislike her for.

The portraits that the right-wing media paint of her being elitist or angry are rooted in racism and bigotry, designed to paint her as “other” simply because she is a black woman who has strived to achieve the same things that white men and women have always wanted, but because she is black, she is apparently undeserving of her success compared to them (Ted Cruz was Harvard educated, but why does no one ever accuse him of being “elitist”? Oh, it’s because he’s white and male. He just deserves that. Plus, Republicans swim in elitism but just leave out their education from their oppressive political rhetoric. Going to Harvard for Ted Cruz is not elitist — it makes him more qualified. Going to Harvard for Michelle Obama is elitist because she didn’t really deserve it). As a black woman, she has never had the same “status” in society as a white woman would, so it so unfair to accuse her of being “angry” or “entitled.” Why is she angry — because she isn’t shy about discussing and confronting racism and sexism, things that obviously still persist that so many people refuse to acknowledge or do anything about, which is why Trump is so popular and is now the leader of the U.S.? If that’s how you want to define angry, then anyone sane who wants progress for society should be called angry, including me.

Reading this book is really hard in many ways knowing who has succeeded Barack and Michelle in the White House. “Was America really ready for a black president?” Michelle asked in her book. It seemed they were for eight years, but after that, America grew angry and said, fuck this, we’re going to elect a racist, I’ve-inherited-my-wealth-but-refuse-to-admit-it to the White House to prove to the U.S. that we’re just as racist as we always were, but now, we’ll make it more acceptable with the example Dipshit is setting.

Christmas cards 2018

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As part of my nearly annual tradition for years now, I handmade a subset of my Christmas cards that I am sending out. This year, I made 16 for close friends and family and spent most of today baking and writing messages in them, getting them ready for either hand delivery or for mailing out.

As I sorted through all the different designs and laid them out to take photographs of them, it suddenly hit me that it had been many years since I first made a handmade card for Ed. It had been years since I had sent him any Christmas card. And the piercing memory of coming back to the house and going through the belongings in his desk after his death in July 2013 hit me: the moment when I opened his second desk drawer to find several years’ worth of my handwritten and handmade cards I’d given to him, neatly stacked in a short, single pile. I remember immediately tearing up, reading each message I wrote him one by one. And in a slight fit of rage, I tore all of them up and threw them into the recycling bin. Maybe I should have kept them. Maybe I should have preserved them to remember what I used to write to my Ed with pen and paper. But my emotions got the best of me and they’re now all gone.

He only kept my cards. He kept them because he knew I wanted him to. He actually listened to what I said. Each Christmas, it’s hard to forget how much Ed loved Christmas — all the lights, the trees, the smell of Christmas cooking and baking, the idea of togetherness in even a dysfunctional family. He isn’t here with me anymore, but each Christmas, I think of him constantly, both fondly and sadly, and hope that he is happier in a better and more peaceful place, celebrating Christmas in his own way somewhere above us.

Exceptions

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I was sitting at the very first unagi (eel)-based restaurant that has opened in New York City today with Chris and our two friends at lunch today, and we were talking in general about people who are picky eaters and not. Chris was spending time hating on vegans and vegetarians, saying their lives suck because they are consciously making the choice to deprive themselves. Our female friend was critiquing quinoa, saying it’s tasteless and when it does have a taste, it seemed off or stale. Our other friend, who is this woman’s husband, gave me a sly look, saying he knows for a fact that if anything comes out of his mouth that he claims he doesn’t like that my response will be to turn him on it immediately and prove him wrong. He recounted a time not too long ago when he insisted to me that he wasn’t a fan of Indian or North African spices — so he meant spices like cumin, coriander. So I made a North-African spiced red lentil soup and asked him to come over and try it. Not only did he like it, but he actually loved it and was tempted to have a second serving.

It’s not that I cannot handle rejection or the fact that everyone has at least a short list of things they refuse to eat (I have yet to be turned on regular mainstream Heinz ketchup and will very likely spend the rest of my life refusing to touch it). It’s more that I feel that most of the time when people say they do not like something, it’s because they’ve had a bad version of it. That’s how I was, once upon a time, with things like organ meat or congealed blood. So I think it’s more about the tolerance of increasing one’s exposure to foods and trying to approach foods with an open mind, even if you think you do not like it.

What is also amusing is when people hate on picky eaters’ choices of things they do not like, but then do not call out their own. Our friend was appalled that one of my good friends hates shrimp and refuses to eat it (well, when she knows she is eating it), but she was completely fine when I said she used to have an aversion to oysters. We always make exceptions for the things we agree with, don’t we?

Rockefeller Christmas tree

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Every Christmas season, as we gradually approach the day we are departing for Australia (or, last year, the UK and South Africa) to celebrate Christmas with Chris’s family, Chris and plan a special dinner out from our curated Yelp list, and then, we will have our annual “trip” to visit the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Yes, it’s touristy. Yes, it’s crowded as hell with both tourists and locals. But it’s our thing, our annual Christmas time tradition. And this year, I really did not want to go tonight. It was so cold and windy, and I felt cranky and irritable from the cold weather as well as the chaos and busy-ness of work and catching up from traveling this week. But when we actually arrived at the tree, all the complaining in my head stopped. It really is a spectacular sight every year. I get why people want to come to New York during the holiday period to see all the Christmas lights and experience the festivities. There’s something really magical about seeing this insanely tall and fat tree lit up with what is probably thousands of colorful lights that flanks the Rockefeller Center. When I saw this tree tonight, I thought… wow. I’m really lucky to live in this city that others marvel over, that others travel thousands of miles for just to see this freaking tree. There is really nothing quite like New York City.

 

Suburban corporate office “parks”

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My last meeting before leaving Boston today was in Burlington, a suburb that is about half an hour outside of Boston proper. I wasn’t sure what the traffic would be like, as Google Maps estimated that my car ride would take anywhere from 30 minutes to a full 55 minutes to arrive from the Downtown Crossing area of Boston. So of course, I left an hour early only to arrive half an hour too early for my meeting.

As I sat in the lobby of my customer’s corporate headquarters waiting for my hosts to come pick me up, I marveled at the fact that I was sitting right in the middle of what I consider hell: in the boonies of suburbia, a corporate office park where every single person, whether against their own will or not, likely has to drive to work every single day. They have to drive and park their car in the lot outside, and then, when the work day is over, they have to go to their car, pull out of the lot, and leave.

People love to hate on Manhattan and say it’s too crowded, too busy, that traffic is a mess. But really, I don’t care about traffic here because I’m not driving in it. I’m taking the subway, then walking a few blocks to work. One of the best things, to me, about living in New York City is that pretty much no one (sane, anyway) drives to work. We can literally take the train or bus, then walk right into our office. No car to park. No parking lot. None of that. Walk right in. That just sounds so glorious to me.

Introverted

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One of my brother-in-law’s absolute favorite topics to discuss is whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert. He especially loves to say that his brother, Chris, is an introvert, which is the opposite of what most people who know Chris would say. I guess the two of us are both in that bucket; we’re both fairly introverted, but most people who know us as outgoing, gregarious, friendly people would say we are definitely extroverted. I have a lot of extroverted qualities; I am fearless when it comes to meeting new people. I have zero problem going up to a stranger and introducing myself. I also frequently make conversations with strangers when I am alone, regardless of whether the other person initiates it or not. I’m just curious in that way, I suppose.

Well, I know for a fact that I am introverted because one of the most telltale signs that you are an introvert is that when you are around people you do not know well where you have to make an effort to get to know them, to dig deeper and peel away all those onion layers, you feel exhausted once the time is over. I had two nearly back-to-back customer meetings today in Boston, with two video meetings in between both, and I felt so tired after. I wanted nothing to do with anyone. I didn’t even really want to leave my hotel room other than to grab a quick dinner to go and bring it back to my room to eat in silence by myself. The meetings were productive, mind you; I got all the information I needed from these meetings. I shared what I outlined to share via my agenda. But when they were done, I was so happy.

These are the moments when you really do need time to yourself, when you’ve spent a lot of time socializing out of necessity, in this case, for business reasons, and need time to recharge. And the only way to recharge is to be alone, at ease in one’s aloneness and silence.

Growing up at 32

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I was in Boston tonight and met up with an old college friend who still lives here for dinner. At 32, she has finally finished medical school, residency, and her fellowship, and she is now working full time in the Boston area as a GP. She said she wanted to do this as opposed to specialize since it would give her the most work-life balance, but as she has discovered, it certainly has not been easy at all. She’s experienced some very surprising and emotionally draining patients, bringing home a lot more baggage than she ever would have imagined. And as she’s seen, there are not enough GPs to go around for all these patients who need help.

She recounted the two months she spent traveling through Europe before she started her job and how she met people 10+ years younger than her, doing the exact same travel route. She had conversations with them where she felt that they seemed far more worldly and mature than she ever was. “I feel like all this time I spent studying and studying and going through endless school that I let my life pass me by,” she said. “I love what I do, but I could have spent my twenties doing more exploration of the world, and now that time is gone.” She said she feels like at this age, now that she has a job and is figuring out her finances, sorting through her medical school loans and setting up her 401K for the first time that she is now legitimately and finally an adult.

I have no regrets about never going to grad school. I was terrible at science, so medical school was never an option for me. Business school sounded like bullshit to me. Law school – what a joke for me. I changed my mind in my early twenties about “climbing the ladder” and not taking as much time off to prove that I was harder working – what delusional American lifeless thinking. You really only have each year of your life once, and if travel or cooking or volunteering is what you are passionate about doing, then you need to make time to do that. I want to lead a life of least regrets. It makes me sad to think that my friend feels that although she loves being a doctor now that she regretted not traveling, not doing enough self exploration in her 20s. Because each year we get older, there comes more responsibility, more things to do and get done. It never really gets easier.

A Legendary Christmas

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Tonight, Chris surprised me with a Christmas concert featuring John Legend. This December, he’s releasing his Christmas album A Legendary Christmas, and this concert featured many of his Christmas songs, as well as a few of his mainstream John Legend classics. John Legend is one of those performers who, no matter what, always sounds so much deeper and more emotional live than on his LP. There are performers who are just fine or comparable to their LP  singing-wise when live, then there are the ones who should just rely on lip-syncing (not that I was ever much of a fan, but Britney Spears live… is not for the singing). In Mariah Carey’s heyday in the early to mid-90s, her emotions were felt far more live than on her LP. Her live version of “Hero” is a million times more moving than her LP version, which to me, sounds lifeless.

Then, there’s John Legend, whose LP always sounds flawless, and then you hear him in person singing the exact same song, and you think, “How could you outdo yourself? How do you do those vocal reverberations?!” I’m mind-boggled by his voice. You just want to tell him, “Sing! Sing! Keep singing! Don’t stop! Never stop!” His voice is a paradise.

Winter chill sets in

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Every year at around this time, the air turns from cool and crisp to bitter cold and absolutely frosty, and every year at around this time, I just want to hibernate and stay in bed every morning. There’s the routine and goal-oriented side of me that says, “Hey, you have to haul your butt out of bed and be productive! Be efficient! Exercise! Your metabolism is slowing down, so you need to do more exercise to make up for that!” Then, there’s the other part of me that says… it is so cold. I just don’t want to do anything; screw productivity and getting things done off the checklist.  So, that was me this morning in bed. Chris had to drag me out.

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to actually hibernate, to have zero activity for all of winter and basically be a sloth. I have a feeling that my muscles would atrophy, as would my brain. I’d be an antisocial zombie, having forgotten all my basic common sense and social skills needed to survive around other mortals.

But aren’t there already people out there like that, and I just set my standard higher than average and try to get too much done in too short of a period of time? Maybe I would benefit from slowing down and doing less?