Never odd or even

I got my hair cut yesterday. My boss hinted that I look like a slob, and strongly suggested that I start wearing a tie (then he gave me 5 really swank neckties from his personal collection, so I didn’t have much of a choice) and cut my hair. I didn’t have a bedframe for my first 12 days in this country, and, tacitly, I was holding out on the haircut until bossman hooked me up with an elevated bed. There are these weird little red ant things running amuck here, so a mattress on the floor was actually a bigger deal than it otherwise would be. As of Friday night, I haven’t had to worry about sharing a bed with these antlike things, so off I went to axe one of my few bargaining tools.

The guy cutting my hair spoke pretty good English, so it wasn’t that hard to tell him how I wanted it. There is, however, another problem. I held up my fingers to show him how I wanted my hair, and he said, "OK. Five centimeters?" "Uh, yeah." I have some idea of what that is, but not really. I just thought that maybe he was a bad estimator, because he totally saw how far I spaced my fingers apart. Anyway, I wasn’t really paying attention for the first several snips, and by the time I looked up he was definitely taking off a healthy chunk of hair. I just wanted one inch taken off, but it was really more like 3-4. I haven’t had hair this short since I was a kid. Apparently, I now look "like a hobbit." Ultimately, he ended up giving me a Korean haircut. He was not digging on the "Jew-fro," apparently.

I’m thinking about following the lead of bell hooks and Carolivia Herron and writing a children’s book for Western kids growing up in the East. Tentative title: It’s Easy Being Greasy (these rhyme a little better in the Am South, and, thus, in my head). Seriously, though, in one of my favorite classes I teach all week, I’m either a Math, Social Studies, or Science teacher to a roomful of the most precocious 8-10 year olds I’ve ever met. Last Tuesday’s lesson introduced the term "African American." Out of curiosity and to reinforce the "concept," I asked them how many Af Ams they could name. As a class, they came up with two. Any guesses?

A live in a really posh area. I’m totally in need of a bedside lamp, that way I can induce sleep via reading and try to finally get on some kind of weekday sleep routine. Yesterday, I hopped to the local lamp shop, and kept gesturing retardedly.* I can ask "how much?" - but at the time I couldn’t understand what was being said in response.** And I sure as hell don’t have the linguistic faculties to ask for the cheapest lamp in the store. So I just said "twenty" - the wrong "twenty" - and kept pointing to all the lamps in the store. The shop owner was more than a touch rude in response. She ushered me out of the store, madly flailing her arms. The only Korean epithet I know is "dog baby" (taught to me Friday night by an illegal Canadian - wtf? Everything is truly backwards here), but that hardly seemed appropriate. I was a little pissed, though. This summer, I really boned up on my pleasantries when I was trying to learn the Korean alphabet and phonology, and everything I can say is with the most polite verb stems possible. There really aren’t any English equivalents to my repertoire of pleasantries, but a rough translation of the things I say most often would be "humble dame, if it were possible, I would gladly exchange my maidenhead for your service." Or whatever.

So, yeah. Spent 7 `til 6 hanging out with old friends - people I’ve known for seven days - and their pals. The evening involved a meal of dog, a rooftop house party with the most amazing view of the city, and a few bars - some divy, some not. My buddies helped me ask for a vegetarian meal, which wasn’t on the menu. The specialty restaurant only serves two dishes: dog and chicken. After a bite of what I thought was really delicious tofu, I realized that they put in blocks of spam. After not eating meat for two years and then accidentally eating canned whateverthefuck, there was no valid reason not to try a bite of dog. My eyes welled up a bit, but I was able to conceal that from my new pals. The Korean waiter who spoke a bit of English claims that dogmeat is fabled to give you power (which I took to mean sexual stamina, but who really knows). If you're going to lapse as a vegetarian, then lapse as a vegetarian. The meat industry is the meat industry; at least a blown-up newspaper article in front of the restaurant mentioned the eating dog is a controversial issue; it also claimed that this particular restaurant went out of its way to be as ethical as possible. But, yeah. Sorry, Danielle (and Niko and Max [totally left out one]). :(

It’s so amazing not to wake up hungover. I’m off to do something enriching, which may involve schlepping my happy ass to the nearest taco shop. I need something familiar in my belly.

* I’ll always make the claim that this word is kosher when used as an adverb, and it's pretty apt. There are canaries who can find their way around town better than me.

** Korean has two number systems. One that is "pure Korean" and used for counting, and one that is Sino-Korean and used for everything else. I boned up on the Korean system before I got here, but I didn’t learn Sino-Korean until I went to my first ever Korean language class a few hours later. To make it even more of a mindfuck, hours are in pure Korean (maybe because you count them?) and minutes are in Sino-Korean. So, yeah, I’m wearing a wristwatch for the first time ever.