“Ha, well, my roommate and I are both in our twenties, so…” I responded.
“No stuffed animals. Good,” Randall said. This isn’t true. I have a stuffed Dalmatian, Lucky, who I can’t fall asleep without. I talk to Lucky more than anyone else—including Siri. There was no way I was going to let a stuffed-animal murderer, no matter how cute, sleep in my bed. Yes, I was protecting Lucky, but also: John’s spongy foot pads were covered in the piss and filth of New York’s gag-inducing streets.
Not wanting to spend my afternoon making small talk with a devastated divorcé, I inched toward the door until Randall got the hint and John and I were left with only each other.
Small dogs are not usually my bag, but John had a boxy face and big velvet ears that I liked to curl between my fingers. He loved me fiercely and immediately. Aside from my dad, I’d never had a man express such loyalty. I was addicted. His attachment to me proved to be a problem for my male roommate, really any man who tried to get near; I loved John all the more for it. My protector.
Behind every dog with behavioral issues, there’s a narcissist who loves being the only one the dog responds to. The smaller the dog, the bigger the emotional needs of the owner, is my theory.
John spent the first night crying at the foot of my bed. He stopped around two a.m., because I brought him, and his poo-pee foot pads, into bed. Lucky moved onto the shelf, where he stayed for the rest of my affair with John.
It only took me a couple of weeks to pick up on John’s other quirks:
John’s Likes
• Throwing up on clean sheets
• Peeing on trash bags
• Rolling in his own urine
• Attacking other Dachshunds
• Shitting himself when my landlord, Herb, comes into the apartment
• Eating tennis balls
John’s Dislikes
• Sleeping alone
• Stuffed animals bigger than him
• My landlord, Herb
• Men
• Small dogs
• His collar
Eventually, a few weeks turned into a few months, and a few months turned into an offer for me to keep John full-time. By that point, I’d become completely dependent on John’s attention, so I accepted—partially thrilled with my luck and partially disappointed in Randall’s decision to abandon his dog.
John and I became the Queens of Brooklyn (he was neutered). We’d wander the streets for hours; sipping on iced coffees, smelling buttholes, sitting on benches, peeing on trash bags, attracting men who liked other men.
We always disagreed on the amount of time it took to effectively smell another dog’s anus. I thought it was twenty seconds, John thought it was until I used all of my weight to pull his sausage body in the opposite direction. I can still hear the sound of his nails scraping against the cement as he was dragged away from his beloved butts. He was the greatest slinky, bendy addition to my life. I cared more about his well-being than my own. He trained me to take pauses throughout the day, step away from my stresses, wake up early, drink less, and rub his belly. I even began to make plans in the park (in nature!) so that he could come. John upped my fresh air intake and my skin reflected that. He made me more attentive, sensitive to the surrounding world. I even became more thoughtful about the men I dated, choosing wisely who I brought around.
John in my bed.
John boosted me from an insecure and sloppy girl to an insecure and sloppy woman. The careless tides of my early twenties were slipping away. He was my new focus and I was happy to stop worrying about myself for a moment.
John was with me when I got my first real, decent boyfriend in New York. He was with me when I moved into a new apartment. And when I decided to look for a more creative job. He was the first one to learn that I got an offer to work at an animation company and the first to celebrate when I accepted. John was even allowed to go to work with me. New York was opening up in ways I’d never imagined. I felt everything settling, becoming more manageable, coming together—which everyone knows is what life feels like right before it all comes crashing down. Hard.
The night before my first day on the new job, I took my bedsheets to the laundromat; I reserved bedsheet washes for special occasions and wanted to feel extra clean in the morning. I came home, made the bed—which takes forever when you’re single—and lifted John into it for the night. In the morning, I woke up in a pile of John’s vomit. “Damnit, John!” I yelled, shooting out of bed. He wagged his tail as if nothing had happened. His chickpea brain already erased the memory.
Initially, I thought John’s stomach was upset because he was picking up on my first-day jitters, but now I know it was his warning shot; a prediction of trouble to come. A prediction that would result in my giving John back to Randall, proving that I was still a little girl dealing with little girl’s stuff. Not prepared for any real responsibility.
6
DONATE HAIR
I believe that if you have too much of something you should share it—a controversial opinion in my family. My parents came from a Communist country where the whole “sharing” thing didn’t quite work out. In fact, it was a catastrophe. Tired of the living conditions, they clawed their way out of Russia and headed to the land of life, liberty, and the “great music band, ‘Bee Gees.’”
In America, my parents started looking out for themselves; family first. Period. Their move proved that life is indeed better when you don’t have to share. My dad immediately began making more money and upgraded almost every facet of our lives. Then my parents took this no-share way of thinking and passed it down to me. I was raised with a lone-wolf mentality. “Look out for yourself, no one else will,” my mom sang as she rocked me to sleep at night. “Trust no one!” my dad yelled at my soccer games.
The thing is, my parents earned the right not to share; they came from a rough country that didn’t play by the rules of basic human rights. I came from Michael Stars, BMWs, and tween Xanax fever dreams. I’d faced about as much adversity as a palm tree. So my life was too cushy not to share.
After college, the itch to give back to the world began to travel down my spine and into my soul, but I had a low paying job and was barely covering rent. My hair was my only possession of monetary value.
I never quite understood anyone’s attachment to their hair—unless it’s for religious reasons, then I understand it even less. Hair is not necessary for daily functioning; it’s the only thing that grows back, and people with short hair always look cooler. Of anything to cut off my body, hair would always be my first pick. I’d cut off my ring finger second, because I spend too much time wondering what to put on it. My left foot comes third, and I’d always keep my hands because I need them to write.
I guess it’s not fair of me to judge how others relate to their hair because I’ve always had a lot of it. Too much of it, really. The thickness of each strand carries the historic weight of my ancestors, whose hair protected them against their greatest enemy: the cold. My ponytail boasts the girth of one baby arm. It weighs down my head and ruins my posture. I’m going to be a hunchback one day but, like, so is everyone else in Generation Laptop.
When my brother was a toddler, I used to demand he play with my hair, because he was younger and weaker, making it easy to bully him. I go into a trance-like state when someone is running their fingers through my hair. This is particularly weird considering I don’t like to be touched; hand-holding makes me gag, I hate sharing beds, and massages are a nightmare. But if a stranger came up behind me and started stroking my locks, I’d stand there motionless, letting the tingles travel up and down my spine. I even started perusing Craigslist to see if I could hire someone to come into my home and play with my hair—little-brother style. Please stop thinking this is a sexual thing. It is not. I don’t think.
One time when my brother was braiding my hair, he asked if we could play Barber Shop.
“Sure. Why not?” I was amused that he was taking my abuse of his baby-brained naiveté to a new and innovative level. As he used his fingers to “cut” my hair, he got into character. “Trimmies here, trimmies there!” Then he got bored and ran off.
I didn’t pay much attention to where he went because four-year-old boys are not very linear humans: they’re eating string-cheese one minute and peeing off your parents’ deck the next. Moments later, he came running back.
“Bar-bar is back!” he yelled.
“Okay, Barber. Can I have—” there was a distinct snip, and I felt the tension in my hair slack. I turned around in time to watch him run off with a fistful of my freshly cut hair.
“Mom!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. She didn’t respond because she was in the backyard ashing her cigarette into an empty orange juice carton. When Olga was on her cigarette breaks, everything went to shit for ten minutes. For example: my brother would run around with scissors positioned directly under his jugular while I ran after him, attempting to catalyze his death. My mother, oblivious to the madness inside the house, stood on the deck, shifting her weight from left to right, smoking with her eyes closed.
I went into the bathroom to survey the damage, bringing my head close to the mirror as I dug through my knotted tresses. Regardless of how hard I looked, I couldn’t find where my brother had made his cut. My mane just engulfed the six-inch missing piece—like in a sci-fi movie. There was too much hair. That’s why giving it away never seemed like a big deal to me. Anyone who has long hair should be donating it. But as with anything, there is a right and wrong way to do it.
The process of donating your hair, although a simple one, takes a lot of time. There are different rules for different places—you can’t just send a toddler with a fistful of his sister’s hair to a hospital’s doorstep and expect a bald kid to get a tear-jerking wig. So here is a good umbrella of rules to operate under:
My hair was basically unusable for seven years due to horrendous self-dye jobs and self-haircuts. I was twenty-three the first time it was in good enough shape to donate.
One Friday, my boyfriend Carl brought me sunflowers during my lunch break at my new job. Sunflowers are my favorite flower. They’re so happy and robust, plus they produce snacks; I like me a flower I can also eat. It was the first time Carl brought me flowers, and I couldn’t help but get carried away. I pressed the bouquet to my chest, absorbing the warm glow of a nice gesture. Carl gave me a kiss on the cheek before disappearing into the madness of Times Square. Back in my office, I grabbed a pair of scissors and stood over the trash can, shearing off stem after stem until there was a lighter, more manageable, bouquet. The act of snipping the stems made me realize that I was feeling heavy lately, emotionally and literally. My body was plump with the diet of a new relationship, and my soul sagged heavy with the stress of a new job. I put the scissors away and began to look at hair salons near my apartment. I wanted a change, and my hair was ready for one.
I spent my post-college years taking too much from the world. It was time to give back, to restore a little balance to my twenties. While my parents do not agree with what they call my “Communist” beliefs, they have grown accustomed to my unending desire for societal symmetry and my instinct to give away anything that was gifted to me, like good hair.
I went to a woman named Lisa in Brooklyn because she was the only one who would take me on such short notice. She twisted my hair into one thick braid, and cut it off. Snip. No America’s Next Top Model makeover tears or anything exciting like that. She handed me the braid and charged extra for an “intensive” haircut. The whole experience proved that donating hair is possibly the easiest thing one can do to improve the world and that’s why everyone should be doing it.
Had I done more research, I would’ve learned that many salons offer discounts for hair donation cuts, that a large percentage of hair is rejected due to the volume of donations and the state of the hair, and that some recipients are charged on a sliding scale depending on their family’s income.
I’d later find that the best way to donate hair is to sell it on eBay and give your proceeds to a charity of your choosing. Money will always be the most useful thing you can give, and if you don’t have any of it, the internet has plenty of ways for you to make some. Selling your hair online is clearly the superior way to help out—it’s cheaper and creepier, which makes for a more interesting story. What is life if not a vessel for you to fill with good stories.
7
HAVE A DRAMATIC AIRPORT REUNION
I treat rom-coms like masturbation; something for when I’m alone and a little drunk, and never to be spoken about with my friends. My shame of rom-coms stems from a forever-fear of being considered basic. People don’t even use that insult anymore, yet I avoid the label like a shelter dog avoids a vacuum.
That being said, I go weak in the knees for a good airport scene. Especially pre-9/11 ones when the main character breezes past security. “I need to tell her I love her!” he screams over his shoulder as a smiley guard nods in understanding.
“Go get her,” the guard yells back. The nineties were a time when it was still socially acceptable to get a woman. Retrieve her, like groceries or gas. This scene has been used so many times, it’s now an ouroboros: difficult to tell where the cliché begins and the romanticism ends.
At the peak of my rom-com consumption, my brain was plastic and malleable, forming ideas around concepts hand-fed to me on pop-culture crackers. I left the nineties with a young understanding of what love looked like: a dramatic proclamation—preferably involving an airport. This understanding grew its own pulsating heartbeat as my brain filed away more and more movies: When Harry Met Sally, Cruel Intentions, The Wedding Singer, Sleepless in Seattle—they all cast airports as settings for the breeding ground of love. I was sixteen when Garden State came out. That scene when Zach Braff, a struggling actor, misses his flight to tell Natalie Portman that he loves her? Please. I know plenty of struggling actors and not a single one of them would squander a plane ticket. It’s impossible to find even a sliver of reality in most romantic comedies. But I didn’t think like that at the time, I thought: this is what I want.
Watching those movies over and over again created a deep desire to have an airport scene of my very own. I hopped from long-distance relationship to long-distance relationship, hoping that one day we’d get to the point where an airport greeting was on the table. To me, there was no greater marker of love than going all the way to the airport to pick up someone. I never dated anyone long enough to experience such a thing … until Carl came into my life.
Carl was—you guessed it—a musician. We had been introduced to each other years earlier by his sister, Barbie, whom I worked for as a Resident Assistant in Missouri. Carl and I reconnected after he invited me to his show at Pete’s Candy Store, a small bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Pete’s Candy Store usually booked acts with words like folk and rustic in their bios, and Carl was no exception. It was a long and narrow space with a tiny stage nestled in the back. A cacophonous coffin, really. Small but cavernous, warm and dark. It felt like stepping inside a rotting heart.
Carl was easy to spot. He had the same round face, striking eyes, and dark hair as his older sister. He sat at the bar with a PBR and shot of whiskey—a boilermaker, I believe it’s called. I’d never seen anyone consume two different drinks at once and found it incredibly adult. It was like seeing your high school crush smoking a cigarette and holding a cigar at the same time: confusing, yet cool. It was evident that he’d lost a lot of the boyish weight from the photos Barbie proudly displayed around her apartment. New York had made him hungry, both metaphorically and physically. That hunger took a tubby boy from the Midwest and chiseled him into the starving artist who was about to insert himself into my life.
When Carl got on stage and sang, his voice filled the rotting heart with beauty and optimism. He crooned about Missouri, oysters, beer, family, breakups, money—all the while occasionally glancing
my way. After his set, he got off stage, and I urgently offered to buy him a PBR and whiskey.
We sat at the bar and turned our backs to everyone, creating a mini-chamber of nervous laughter, and first date–like chemistry. He asked me over for pizza the next week and so began our relationship.
One evening, shortly after Carl and I started dating, he grabbed my shirt and asked if it was expensive.
“Not really, it was like nine bucks,” I told him, confused.
“Can I rip it off of you?” he asked.
I nodded my head yes and he proceeded to tear my shirt in half before throwing me onto his bed. It was the politest and sexiest thing to ever happen to me. I am from the suburbs. During high school, I had a mustache and questionable hygiene. In college, I loved “rules and studying.” Having my shirt torn off by hot musicians was never an option on my sex menu. But when you live in a city that never sleeps, people need to find something—or someone, rather—to fill all that free time.
Carl and I had been dating on and off for nine months when a work opportunity to go to Taiwan on a six-week training session came up. I immediately asked Carl if he’d greet me at the airport when I returned.
“I’ll see,” he told me. “Don’t know if I’ll be able to.” John F. Kennedy Airport is a trek, it’s even more of a trek when you’re poor. You really gotta love someone to make that journey, only to immediately turn around and journey back home.
“Is this one of those things where you pretend you can’t come but then you show up at the last minute?” I asked.
“I’ll see,” Carl repeated with a laugh. He kissed my nose and got up to get ready for his day job as a dog walker.
The night before my trip, I went out for drinks with some friends. “You’re not coming back, are you?” Rebecca said, studying my face.
“What are you talking about? I have a ticket back,” I told her.
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