STO: My New Haircut

Not now chief I'm in the fucking zone. Sorry, I love that line. Anyways, the composition of this post follows my first haircut in Beijing by a mere two hours. While this was far from my first time having my haircut by Chinese people, this was a historical haircut under other criteria. At 38 kuai, this was the cheapest haircut I've ever had. Unsurprisingly, the style of this haircut was also unique as I just told the barbers to do their Asian thing. In addition, this was my first haircut not only in foreign soil, but just my 5th different parlor ever. My previous haircuts had taken place in just a total of 4 haircut spots in Boston and DC (as far as I can recall) - 2 places in Boston Chinatown that I regularly go to, 1 place on Wisconsin Ave. in DC that I go to in college, and then 1 place in West Roxbury that I went to once senior year. EDIT: Oh and apparently I neglected to mention that this was also my first haircut at night, and first time I had walked straight from after-work drinks at a bar to a barbershop. Thanks, I know you all were totally fascinated by my hairstyling history. Either way I currently look like this picture:

Ok so Saturday night was goodbye night for the wonderful individuals at the CIEE program at Bei Da. It's ok, I'm carrying on, but it's not often that half the numbers in your phonebook suddenly become obsolete. Well I was hoping that this would be a blessing in disguise: between working all day until 6, playing Frisbee twice a week and going out another four times, I don't get a whole lot of home time. There's so much I do want to do here especially practicing Chinese. In addition, I haven't seen a movie, read a book, done or written a crossword, in the last month. I have however imbibed a fair amount of White Russians and Singapore Slings, so I'm not complaining or anything.

So Monday night was going to be a chill night for me. I'd write a blog post, listen to some Chinese podcasts and work on my presentation for work (about linguistics and the English language) and perhaps see a few episodes of the Office. Well instead, after lifting weights for an hour, I get a text from Crystal and her friend Anastassia within minutes of getting back to my place: "Crystal and i at lush if u want to come" Well...I really shouldn't...fine.

So Crystal has just come back from a weekend trip to Xi'an and is apparently on antibiotics but nonetheless eagerly anticipating downing several Long Islands. Anastassia is coming off a 5:30am night and a full day of work but shows no ill effects - she is just a total baller. Well we take Lush's buy 2 drinks get 1 free deal and order 3 Long Islands, but unfortunately the 服务员 gives us 3 Adios instead. The full name is something like"Adios Mother Fucker" and the description reads: "The best way to end the night. And it will end your night." Lovely. For the record, an Adios is blue, tastes like vodka mixed poorly with powerade and gets you drunk. So there's a lonely white guy sitting on the bar right in my line of vision, making love to his White Russian and trying to find someone to talk to. I couldn't stand a dude like that, so after hearing stories of Anastassia's ill-fated 2 year engagement, I tell Crystal to invite this guy to our table. I'd like to think of this as my best and worst suggestion ever, or at least of the night. The kid was named Marc and had just finished his freshman year at Colby. We found out the next day that there's a Facebook group dedicated to him not made by him, so that says a ton about him right there. For the RLers reading this, think Nafis Ahmed. Marc was superbly awkward but had the amazing gift that whenever he opened his mouth, hilarity ensued. He said the craziest, most absurd and misunderstood ideas and we all loved them.

At some point during this, Crystal went to the bathroom and returned wearing, in her words, "slutty boob dress." Anyways, Crystal really wanted to play "Never Have I Ever" and Crystal typically gets what she wants, so voila I'm playing "Never Have I Ever" with 2 girls who have become best friends because they're both totally nuts, and a total crazed stranger. Halfway through the game, some dude just pulled his stool up to our table and said, "Hey, I'm joining you guys." Not "Hey do you mind if I join you guys?" or "Could I join you guys" but a forced entrance into our little table. Creeeeper. He was later joined by 2 other creepers - all 3 of them had apparently just graduated from the same high school but the original guy was clearly the alpha creeper. So yeah this was an interesting game of "Never Have I Ever." For the sake of privacy, I won't go over all that was gleaned during this game, but let's just say Marc has never jumped off a cliff, and I've never gotten it going in a McCarthy shower.

Suffice to say, last night was not my chill night. I stumbled back at 2 am. Crystal blacked out due to the combination of adios, antibiotics, and significantly more drinking during "Never Have I Ever" than any other participant. Anastassia got everyone's phone number and posted on the Facebook group dedicated to Marc. I've been decidedly more chill tonight in addition to the haircut, and among other things, cooked stir fry rice with egg and chicken. It actually was not bad and I'm thinking I'm going to refer to myself as Maestro Cal more often.