Clareified

So, I didn’t go back to the club tonight and honestly I can never in a million years go back there and I don’t know who I was kidding. But word to the wise never date anyone anywhere you’d like to go back to when you are an unrepentant coward who would rather just get a new cellphone, new email addresses and move than have an uncomfortable conversation.
That said, I managed to have quite the evening.
My back aches have quashed my daily routine of spending hours at the gym and then huors watching movies in front of my TV, but the back aches also meant that I needed to get a massage. Needed. Must. Doctor’s Orders. So, I figured that would be today’s project. And then I was deciding between happy hour with a bunch of liberals or a book reading by one of the columnists I used to edit when I worked on my college paper.
But first massage.
I am still on living that income-less life, my dream job sadly not coming through as I’d hoped, so we needed cheap. But we wanted good. No chair massages at the local nail shop. Karol put me on to the good idea of going to a massage school. I googled used a search engine which shall never be mentioned here ever ever ever again to find a local school. I called the first result and was told Swedish massages were $35!!!! WOO HOO!! She even had an appointment for this evening.
Great, awesome, I’ll be there.
“Where are you located?”
Sywhatit? Syosset.
That’s right. Long. Frickin’ Island.
Bah. No matter. Have car, no job and under doctor’s orders to get myself a massage. Fine.
My friends let me tell you the tale of a road called 495 East. You know that Jim Carrey movie 13 and how he could tell evil because the numbers equalled 13. Well 4+9-5= THIRTEEN. EVIL!!!!!!!
According to Fred, this massage school was 31 miles away and the trip should have taken about 37 minutes.
Instead, I left my apartment at 2:30 pm (for a five pm appointment) and pulled into the parking lot of the school at 5:28 pm.
I was feeling all summery today, so I was wearing a skirt and my strappy sandals, moves I sorely regretted as I bolted through the parking lot to make it to the receptionist.
Through asthmatic wheezes I explained the whole traffic thing and gave her my bestest puppy dog face ever hoping she had a later appointment.
And she did!
I had to wait an hour…but still. This waiting room was chock filled with elderly Jewish women, the fact bulk of whom were named Esther.
The masseuse would open the waiting room door and say “Esther” and like four old ladies would be like “Yes”
And then she’d add a last name and that would narrow it to two and then she’d resort to addresses.
It was funny.
I overheard one woman telling the receptionist that she went to her grandson’s graduation from Rochester Institute of Technology. “There are no girls at that school anywhere. If a woman is smart she’ll go up there and take some classes. She’ll find herself a husband right away.”
I don’t know why this made me laugh out loud. But it did.
And then I pretended that my book was hilarious.
(In an effort to…umm…leave my apartment…I joined a book club. The scheduled book is called “Motherless Brooklyn.” We meet on Monday and I just cracked it open yesterday. I totally feel like I’m back in college now, just racing through it so I can have cogent thoughts to share with group….unfortunately somewhere on page three the author makes the statement “the only White Castle in Manhattan is on 103rd street.) This statement is as wrong as wrong can be, as off the top of my head I can think of two other Manhattan White Castle locations AND I’m fairly sure there isn’t a White Castle on 103rd street. So…I’ve only read about 30 more pages and the whole time I’m just thinking…I wonder what else is all made up Mr. I can’t-bother-to-internet-search-engine-White-Castle-locations?”
Oh, and worse, the novel’s protaganist has Tourette’s and as i am a hypochondriac, now I think I have Tourette’s. Of course, the Tourette’s symptoms in the book may be as made up as his White Castle franchises, so I might be fine. Motherfucker.)
Anyway, where was I? Right? Pretending that Motherless brooklyn was hilarious and avoiding the glare of old Jewish lady named Esther and waiting for my $35 massage.
“Dawn”
“Yes, that’s me!”
My masseuse was a chubby Hispanic lady named Gloria. She was friendly enough and I’m happy to report the $35 massage was pretty much exactly like my $175 massage at the Canyon Ranch in Las Vegas, except that there wasn’t any fruity zen music or ghez aroma therapy. So, win win.
The drive back was infinitely faster than the drive there. In fifteen minutes I was already almost through Queens. I decided to go to the book reading of my former columnist figuring I might run into some of my college classmates and at the very least I could say hello to this guy.
Fred lead me to the edge of Hipsterville: Williamsburgh. And this bar was clearly Hipsterville Central. It’s called “the candy store” — but there is no candy to be found anywhere. Like that equally fruity “Grocery Store” place in Manhattan that is really just a bar.
I walked inside and there were hipsters EVERYWHERE. Jeans and ironic white T-shirts and buttons with sayings on them. OMG. How is there not been a task force commissioned to study how to control this scourge? I walked inside where a hipster announced that this was the last reading series of the year and encouraged us to buy the books being read at some hipster selling them in the foyer and our purchases probably went to some hipster cause like saving the dying chalupas in the Amazon rainforest. Or is that a taco bell sandwich?
Any, my columnist guy was first. I would tell you the name of his book, but then I’d be unable to write about how mind numbingly boring it was. I kinda recognized his face, though th eyears have not been kind to him. The guy I remembered had floppy black curly hair and a nervous shake. This guy had no hair and a nervous shake. The book was about some guy — no wait an “African-American guy” I remembered that because that was the last trace of interest I felt in my brain before settling into a near comatose stupor. He blah blha blahed for a while and then the hipster introducer came back and said we were taking a five minute break before continuing with the next author.
I took this opportunity to run.
I started hitting the door open button on my car keys from the middle of the bar lest some hipster try to hug me before I made it to the street. I so need one of those cars that opens the driver’s side door and starts the ignition for you.
Must get out of Williamsburgh before the sun sets.
Hmm…now there’s a compelling movie idea.
Hipsters after dark: you can run, but you’d better recycle.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.