HAIR AND CARE

After the rain burned off the air is heavy. Still hot for September, a t-shirt and shorts all day long, into the night. A haircut turned into a cultural divide in the Dominican neighborhood.

“Please use the clippers all over my head.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Take your clippers and run them all over my head.”

“So it’s all the same length?”

"Yes."

When he finishes he starts to mess with my hair. Puts product in it even though there’s plenty already. Starts to try and spike it. All my life most barbers and stylists have often failed to pay attention to how my hair looks when I walk in the door. It’s like a blind spot. A kind of amnesia. Maybe if I took a photo of myself right before I walked in things would go smoother.

I love riding the subways. I love going to the YMCA and spending as much time as possible away from the freelance work I should be doing.

It’s Saturday night. Everyone is out in Soho. Its trendy and crowded and women’s fashion is perilously close to the outfits my mother wore in the 70s. I’m meeting Cara to look at clothes though I can’t imagine buying anything for winter until it’s actually cold. The humidity is kinda draining. I feel out of shape going up a flight of stairs. We get traditional Chun Hong Tui Na Chinese massage in a storefront shop where tables are laid out communal style in a darkened room. A small woman works me over for 40 mins. It feels like two hours. A deal at 36 bucks. Cara goes for 30. We’re zombies when we leave and I get ice cream before heading home.

Celebrity spottings on random days: Seann William Scott in SOHO, and David Patrick Kelly in Greenwich Village, he was the guy in The Warriors chanting that beloved mantra, “Warriors, come out and play-yaaa.”