Green Saturday recap

While the Boyfriend was taking a 24-hour-at-home-final, I was understandably ushered out into the world. Lucky for me, I sometimes like the world, especially if I'm with a friend. First I hit Strand, the biggest bookstore in the whole monkey monkey. Last time I was there, I hit the uber-bargains and took home 11 books for $50. This time, not so lucky. 3 books for $40. But I need them. I've read every book on my shelf at least once (if you saw my shelf you would admit that it's quite a feat) and will shortly be undertaking a series of long flights and family time. Need more books. So I got a few. Hopefully they will sufficiently satiate my reading need.

When I walked into the giant store, I suddenly remembered that people are xmas shopping. Just because I don't do it, I assume nobody does it. But then when I saw the crowds, I remembered that I was wrong. As I'm standing in line, I sum up the guy ahead of me. He is buying gifts for his wife, which is hard because she's usually the one that buys everything. So he's unsure of the state of the world. He notices my green hair, green jacket, and green fingernails (all different shades, I'll have you know) and asks if green is my favorite color. We make small talk for a little while, and it comes out that his wife's favorite color is green. He's never seen her with green hair or green fingernails though. (Most people haven't seen anybody with either, let alone the combo.) His face brightens with the onslaught of an idea, and he gets very excited about buying her green nail polish. This is an odd duck, but I tell him to go to Duane Reade because they will probably have it (not like those "salons") and it will be cheap. So if his wife doesn't love the xmas present of green nail polish (?) then at least he'll only be out a buck or two. Unless she takes it really hard and throws him out the house. But I think that she'll realize that her husband, though his heart is in the right place, isn't allowed to shop anymore because weird green-haired girls put weird ideas into his head.

After Strand, I met up with Suzanne and we experienced the World's Longest Gift Certificate Buying. The guy "helping" us took longer than forever to find the gift certificate book, fill it out, find a box to wrap it in, wrap it, and charge us money. Not counting the time he took stopping the transaction to dance & sing along with the songs on the radio. My annoyance meter must have been turned off, because I thought this was funny and no violence ensued. (This is also why the guy in Strand was allowed to talk to me.) Plus, we had no real deadlines, so time was everyone's.

We moseyed over to the Crazy Haircutter to get my haircut. Normally this guy is crazy on drugs.
1. He doesn't ever remember seeing you before.
2. If you walk in while he's cutting someone's hair, he runs away like you caught him doing something wrong.
3. He makes racist comments.
4. He's a little paranoid.
5. Many other reasons that kind of make me want to avoid him.

But I had a gift certificate, so I needed my free haircut. We actually had to come back later because he was busy, so we went uptown to buy beads, which I'll talk about in a minute. When we came back,
1. He remembered not only that I'd been in before, but that Suzanne had as well, and that she usually came with someone else.
2. He was a little freaked out by my hair color.
3. He insisted that the spray bottle was insufficient to wet my hair, so we had to go to the sink.
4. He combed out an earring and I lost the earring back as a result. He didn't believe me.
5. He said I needed to go home & wash my hair because it looked greasy.
6. He remembered the gift certificate, and how many times I'd used it (it was good for 3 cuts). He'd never done that before.
7. I got a damn fine cut, but I'm not sure if I'll go back. He's still super weird, but now he's cognizant, and it's a little more weird and less tolerable this way.
We decided he must have switched his drug regimen.

So with my new pretty hair, which needs to be redyed now because all of the purple and most of the blue-green is on the haircutter's floor, we went on our merry way. We stopped at a super cheap accessory store and bought matching headbands with big bows on them (hers is red with white spots, mine is white with black spots) for $2 each. We spent some time in the bead store, which I'm not allowed in because I tend to buy everything. But I did need some actual supplies, and then I found some other things I "needed" because they were pretty. (Editor's note: The Strand guy was right - my favorite color was green. This changes everyday, but you can always tell what my fave color is on a shopping day because 85% of my purchases are of that color. Thus, I bought several strands of green beads.)

More moseying, and eventually to dinner (mmmm hummus) and to the Loser's Lounge for their Elton John Tribute Show. Before the show started, we had plenty of time to kill so we meandered across the street to Barnes & Noble. My plan was to buy more books, but Suzanne and I got distracted by the giant book of Playboy's celebrity spreads (ha ha... spreads). Suzanne's husband conveniently disappeared while we flipped through the massive book looking at naked chicks and criticizing them. For the record, the photos from the 50s & 60s are the best because the women have actual shape to them and are not airbrushed and are not in weird poses. There were a lot of gross photos from the 90s and such, featuring rail-thin models with breasts the size of small continents and an odd flat color to their entire body with no flaws, and prominent ribcages and wearing high heels and arching their backs and just being gross. So I'm glad we didn't spend the $40 on the book. Instead we stood in the entrance way of the store pointing out our critiques of naked women to anyone that could hear us. Which was everyone.

When I got home, Boyfriend was still working on the test. But I went almost directly to sleep, so I didn't bother him. Now it's Sunday and even though I want a pajama day, I don't think I'll get one.

The end?