stripping pushy hookers

Change

Shift

Change and shift

Position

Move

Move Position

Darkness

Penetrating

Deep thought

stirring and whirring

hands that look like time cannot allow blood to flow

eyes that only look through silver shadows

of doubt

betrayal

hope

betrayed hope

for what was bright, true and forth is now dim, a lie, and hidden

frothed lies in  your hidden light

why do you hide your light?

a ring, a chance

that stupid dance

lines on paper with meaningless chance

images for a smurf or a snotty dogs nose

it all gets lost when the wind never blows

bar fights, bar scenes

hookers on a stripper pole

it all has meaningless meaning for the vibrant and pushy attendees

yet they savor the next chance

a wrinkle in the purple fabric hides the small world of complete serenity

but we can’t go there

Follicular-Drama

Drama. We all know it and have heard of it. It’s on our TV, in the magazines, and in everyday life. But, there is a bigger drama out there not many are aware of:  salon drama.

After working in the beauty industry since 1992, I’ve decided to touch base on this mane event. Of course, the disclaimer: the names have been changed blah blah blah will be assumed.

While truly non-fictional in every word I will endeavor in this tale of woes and foes, it is at best fiction and biographical. Where to start? Any ideas? I’m open to suggestion. Several salons later, several hundreds of salon clients and crazy bosses later, and then the rest…

Give me some tips. Should I start with the last and end with the first? Chain salon or private salon? Regardless their daily settings may have changed by location or mood (or who was fired or canned that day or week). However, the drama co-exists across all universal encounters of the beauty industry.

Here is one day in the life of drama in the follicular sense:

Kam: OMG girl! Did you SEE that guys butt?

Tim: No, today’s not my day to be looking that way. Sorry.

Kam: (puffing on his smoke) You should have seen the sweeties down in Philly last night! TOTALLY to die for!

Dino: Well I face slammed the bar last night.

A woman walks in, all three stylists slowly peer from the break room saying, “Who wants THIS lady? She looks like an Irish train wreck!?” They pause, look at her, she looks back nervously as if they are looking at her naked. She shuffles her feet looking back at the front door as if wondering if she made a mistake.

Dino: I guess I will take her.

Dino slowly walks the long walk from back-breakroom to receptionist area, not bothering to smile or pretend she is happy to make 50 percent of a $14 haircut.

Dino: Can I help you?

The Lady: Yes, I wanted to see about getting a perm today with really really tight curls.

Dino: (thinks, “Ugh, another blue rod nightmare!”) OK, follow me.

The Lady and Dino walk 10 feet to an electric orange colored hair station with poor lighting while rap music blasts in the background.

Dino: So, you want a tight curl you say?

The Lady: Yes, I had a perm last time but it didn’t seem to take.

Dino: (thinks, every old lady says this every time!) OK, let’s go to the shampoo bowl.

They walk to a crappy uncomfortable shampoo chair and bowl.

Meanwhile, the two stylists left in the break room get bored. “Time for another cigarette,” one says. “I think I’ll get chinese food but last time I got the craps,” the other replies.

Kam: I’m getting chinese again, does anyone else want to split the ticket?

Dino: Not unless you want to split my SIDES open again!? (The Lady looks up listening to the conversation, the phone rings)

Kam: (answering the phone) Hair’s My Follicle’s Incorporated How Can I Help You?

Phone Customer: Yes, do you do butt waxing?

Kam: Ummm, I dunno let me check? (looks back, yells to the salon, “Hey! Do we wax butts?” but gets no reply). Sorry, we don’t wax butts ma’am… (hides a giggle). Hangs up, yells back to the salon: OK, I just got the WEIRDEST call about butt waxing, I mean WHO wants to rip the hairs out of some perv’s A**?

Dino: YOU would! (laughs)

Meanwhile, Sarah storms in from the front door for her shift one hour late with a hung over from horrible look on her face.

Dino just watches, ignoring the attitude sensed while regretting the next two hours that will be spent wrapping near toothpick sized blue rollers on a full head while using wrapping papers thinner than anything a cigarette is smoked with. Dino tells The Lady, “Follow me.” They walk back to the horrific orange station and Dino starts to section off the hair in nine areas just as learned in beauty school. Dino thinks, “GAWD! Why me?!” 30 minutes later The Lady’s hair is wrapped in a flurry of blue rods and the rotten egg smell is making everyone sick. Dino walks back to the breakroom dying to have a smoke while everyone else has been sitting in the back complaining about how “slow” it is. They vaguely discuss food, flip through gossip magazines and discuss which Hollywood star has fake boobs or needs to return to rehab. Another customer walks in and they all, again, slowly peek around the corner and stare….

They all are dreading the manager who is returning today after his day off; they all talk about how he is from “hell” but they never say how to fix their “dilemma.”

To be continued…

No Post Notes NOT!

OK, I’ve heard of the post per day challenge. But what about posts per hour, especially when you can’t sleep, or are bored, or that itch comes scratching your brain again?
Why can’t there be a LESS predictable challenge telling us to “do this or that” when so many others have tried to challenge us before?
There’s got to be a better, more creative, fun way. Put your brains back in your heads!

Rub Here…

Painfully true

Honestly real

A blissful dream and yet a lie swept by the dog’s tail.

Light touched a toe into your reflection pool

Darkness surrounded your mind’s left eye fooling… 

fooling…

Again, she said. Commanded in one breath!

Harps will hide their strings from her angels death.

“No more dancing!” was screamed in a flourescent bubble’s reply

Despise.

No raven or crow will come during tonight’s fly.

Despise. Despise.

Today’s storm will be yesterday’s sunny sky.

Tomorrow’s snow is what remains

Yet glitter and milk feed.

Despise.

A one-handed Day.

Today I’m stuck in that time zone that no one likes to be in. It is the time between times where regret, loss, and yet hope and faith all fit in.

The what ifs, could be, did that, don’t do that all crowd into the same place and feel like a never-ending weed in the sidewalk that returns and returns.

You catch yourself looking at pictures, looking at other people who work in your field, you compare yourself to many, many mirrors in the hallway that all have a different reflection. And although each reflection was a satisfying image, at that time, today it appears incomplete.

Today is a day where two hands are not better than one. One will do the job, and the other keeps tempting, turning, and covering.

A couch filled with desire…

Here I rage against
the dying night
as one great poet once reminds me.

I sit and sink
I’m reminded of the stink
that today came when so did company.

Words were like a surgeon’s steel
No tears shed were like a hidden ghost’s sunburn peel
And yet I too stood there in the vast black emptiness.

Later to my angst I stood awake
next to a lover who wished for sleep to overtake
too the couch I slowly crept, still reminded of what today I had not wept.

Survival, betrayal, new names, regret
wanting and wishing, yet never to get
all these and more the words of today’s work now a reminder.

No sleep for me this hour
maybe none either the next
Just me and the black hole to get cozy with for what was not wept.

Comments welcome

Life comes in cycles and this cycle I’ve been handed recently is no picnic. I have a cousin on life support whose family has either given up on her, treated her worse than a dying dog, or has yet to figure out what type of love she needs. It’s all ever about communication and not everyone knows how to say, “I need this from you…”  One thing we ALL can hear though is that, “she did NOT need that from you…”

As much as communication is key, so is not communicating. It can tell us exactly what we don’t want to hear and what we need to hear. How random is your life? Just think about that for a moment. It seems I am the target of some very random acts of odd, painful, and just plain WTF! moments. How often do you consider your own healthcare as a credit report? We don’t think of it but what if you went to the ER and the meds they have listed for U were for someone dying from cancer? How would that effect your course of treatment?

What about communication between kids? “You have a manstash!” and “She’s the devil of best friend stealers!” Those are pretty strong words. Do we as adults ever speak like this? Not normally. But, I think it’s time we do.

Boss:  you stink, you’re ugly and you never appreciate me.

Husband or Wife:   you’re fat and lazy!

Teenager:   I am actually proud of you today!

Dog:  I hate your bathing habits but thanks for being so loyal.

Cashier:  You are SO freakin’ slow everytime I show up!

Receptionist:  WHY?  WHY!? Do you act like you hate your job if you are working here with people!?

Neighbor:  You are FAKE! Stop waving to me when you really hate me.

Church singer:  Stop doing this for yourself and stop singing all together. See how you like that?

Bus driver:  You know, I hate it when u look at me like that. Plus, u smell too.

What and to who are some things you would like to say but normally don’t. Comments welcome.