Unique New York

Just like a regular woman, only crankier.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Details of My Awesomeness, in list form

1. This week, I mailed out several boxes to my mom. They were souvenirs she picked up in New York. This morning, the postman rang our bell, and Russ climbed out of bed and let me know that a package arrived. I addressed one of the boxes to myself. The return address? Myself.

2. Yesterday, on the way home from Target, I heard the death knell of a tire. I had that fleeting moment where I hoped that the obnoxious sound was emanating from a car behind me. So, I pulled over to investigate. In going home traffic. As the sky threatened to rain. In Bed-Stuy. I pulled over onto a side street, and began the process of removing the flattened tire. I lost weight yall, and now my body weight doesn't have enough torque when I tried to bounce on my tire iron to force off the lugs. Thankfully, a young man helped me out with this (although if he weighed much more than me it was because of his shoes). Anyway, I had a lovely Nancy Botwin moment when I decided whether or not it was patronizing to pay the guy for helping me out. I paid him anyway. White guilt. I was easily the whitest thing for twenty blocks. For chrissakes, I was wearing a red plaid cotton top. I could have doubled for Marianne. While I was bending down spinning handle on the jack, my hair got wet. Rain? No. Dog urine and motor oil, thankyouverymuch.

3. Do you know what epoxy smells like when it is heated at a temperature past its labeled recommendations? I do. It's like a tire fire, only the tires are made of hair and shame. I was trying to be helpful and I epoxied the spinning arm in our dishwasher (it keeps leaning left and coming apart during the wash cycle. Something smelled amiss when I ran the dishes 24 hours later. I now associate this smell with my pride dying. We opened up the washer, and the epoxy had coagulated and slunk off the area where it was applied into little gelatinous piles.

Epoxy still smells, even after the pots and pans cycle.

I will now avoid operating heavy machinery for the duration. And no, I have not been drinking.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Conversion

When I decided to become a Jew, my hair got the memo. See children, when I was growing up, my hair was thick, heavy, and pretty much pin straight. I had what many call "Really frickin good hair". My mom was obsessed with my hair. I wasn't allowed to cut it until I went to college. Good hair. Grown out many times, cut many times, good, reliable, takes a curl, gets many compliments, hair.

So, imagine my surprise when a few months ago, I noticed that my bangs were sort of curly. As a younger person, I used to curl my bangs with the tiniest curling iron so that they wouldn't just hang in front of my face. Now they are doing it all by themselves, and I have no idea why.

But is the curl even and throughout my whole head? Not really. It's concentrated in the front of my face, and circles around my head. It's like a curly diadem. Perhaps on August 7th, when I pledge my oath to Judaism, I shall develop a head full of curls. Right now, my look is somewhere between Aileen Wuornos and a late 80's geometry teacher
.

**Update**

My husband says that I am mistaking the sharp curls on the side of my head for something else. He says my horns will arrive in earnest on the day when I officially become a Jew.