Sometimes it occurs to me that I could populate a very unrealistic novel by simply describing the daily customers that come into my shop. Currently there’s a bronze-tone airhead escort and a nice couple in shopping for leather that I rather like. Middle-aged, short hair, I’m making castrati jokes with the wife and they’re asking for my opinion on how everything fits, whether his bouncy penis is showing or no. Another man is shuffling around, a senior citizen with immaculate inch long nails, (one pinky nail painted gold and a full inch longer than the others), trailing an oppressive floral perfume that goes well with his wrists full of jewelry and his over-size rhinestone rings, but painfully with his hawaiian-print silk shirt, teal gore-tex jacket, and ill-chosen dark brown lipstick. Even with the door open, the air will be choking sweet for hours after he leaves.
Yesterday a cross-dressing hooker dressed entirely in shades of pale baby pink gave me half a box of chocolate covered almonds because she’s trying to watch her weight. Last week a midget in a three-tier camo-print mini skirt came in with her intimidatingly conservative chinese grandparents and a girl with a inexplicable jar of peanut butter, which initially doesn’t sound odd until you’re aware of just how polished she seemed, as if she were wearing plastic on her skin to keep the dust off.
Every day is a little bit like this. A long song of eccentrics, broken up by bleach blond trendy girls with hoop earrings, playboy belly button pendants, and puffy white ski jackets that show their navels, clothing marking social regularity or mis-match. It’s a parade of costumes to the point where I can spot call girls from strippers in a crowd without trying just by the way they wear their hair. Eye make-up and foundation are also beginning to be tip-offs. I wonder if this is the skill I’ll pull away from this job, being able to spot market trends in people who put themselves up for sale.
Undressed – From the Hotel Lobby to a One Night Stand, a mix-tape by dys
There’s a Christopher Walken movie night happening this Friday at Michael‘s house downtown. At this point the plan is to watch the William Gibson film, New Rose Hotel*, the King of New York (by the same director), and Suicide Kings. (These are subject to change due to availability or complaints). There will be also various potentially painful SNL clips, if you are brave enough, and a reading of Poe’s The Raven.
*New Rose Hotel comes with a warning: Willem Defoe appears naked. This is more scarring than you would previously suppose.
