1.14.2011

Dear Rachel Dratch,

There is never really a good time to bring up stress crafting. There is never a good time to bring up most of what we do to take the edge off, or to bring us down when we're wound up. Sometimes I eat my feelings, especially when I am feeling like blue corn tortilla chips. Sometimes I paint my feelings and they take the form of a picture that looks so child-like that an actual child may have painted it. My mom once took all three of these paintings I did and created a mini-gallery in her house for me. The kicker is that this gallery existed behind her bedroom door and could only be seen when the door was shut. The other kicker is that a twenty-year old me is the one who painted the beauts, not an actual child.

So while many times I would just eat my way through whatever I was letting bring me down, there have been very distinct periods where instead of turning to food I would instead turn to crafts, in general. I don't know if painting is exactly a craft so I'm not going to count it. But I think it was after my freshman year of college, a couple friends and I got really into making bracelets, necklaces and tye-dying. My friend Megan went up to a school in the mountains and came back a changed lady. I mean, she was always kind of crafty and into hippie-ish things, but there was something about that spring semester that really left her with a thing for creation and it rubbed off on me.

I learned all about how to make hemp necklaces and bracelets from Megan. The tye-dying we did was not very good, and everything ended up a weird shade of purplish brown. Gross. I remember spending a large amount of late-night time up at the Wal-Mart in the craft section debating over which bag of wooden beads would be the best purchase or which thickness of hemp I really wanted to work with.

The thick kind was clearly too hippie for me. You remember those dudes and possibly ladies who wore those really thick hemp necklaces, right? I always kind of judged them because hemp that thick is ridiculous. But something too thin wouldn't work either. I wasn't trying to have my jewelry be a non-presence. I needed to make a statement when I stepped out wearing these things. What kind of statement? Maybe that I'm super cool because I am wearing a hemp and puka-shell necklace. Or maybe that I am so crafty that I can recreate styles from Claire’s at a fraction of the cost. We did contemplate selling these things. I'm not sure who the audience would have been, but there's always some white kids running around wearing some hemp necklaces and I just needed to find them!

We bought the medium thickness and got to it. The first few times we made jewelry, we would go at it for hours. This was before any of us really drank alcohol so were stonecold sober and making necklaces. It was really fun. It'd be me, Megan, and my friend Beth just sitting around discussing what kind of bead we'd want to use, what would make the most appropriate hemp necklace to wear everyday and what might be more of a special occasion piece. We'd discuss making bracelets that matched the necklaces (which is weird because all hemp kind of matches itself). I was never much into the bracelets, but let it be known that is the way to go if you are trying to break into wearing hemp jewelry.

Of course I made myself an awesome everyday piece that I instantly vowed to wear until it literally fell off my body. This necklace was great. It was simple, with just a few classy wood beads to give it the requisite oomph. But what you don't know about hemp unless you are wearing it is that that shit can get itchy. Like you'll get a little itchy burn situation on your neck if you react like me, which is to say to scratch like crazy (but not Black Swan crazy). I tried to grin and bear it. I even wore this hemp necklace in the shower. The shower! Gross. I'm not sure now how long the necklace lasted, but it wasn't much more than a few days. So maybe wearing hemp jewelry wasn't for me, but I did enjoy making it!

Sometimes I think I get why carpenters do what they do. They get to work with their hands all the time, and they just kind of work it out and make something beautiful without hemming and hawing. It can be therapeutic to create something with your hands. It's a different kind of therapy than writing because you have to think about and choose words to get your point across. A cabinet or a stool really speaks for themselves. So does hemp jewelry.

Long story long, I started to work on my hemp outside of the hanging out time with Megan and Beth. I have long struggled with irregular and crazy sleep so I am always on the lookout for a new sleep aid, be it a book, an herbal supplement, or just something to do to wear my ass out. There really is something therapeutic about working with your hands that leaves you tired and exhausted, and clears your mind right out. It can also be hell on your fingers. As was the case with hemp, sometimes I would be working my hands on necklaces until my hands were a little raw. I guess this is what it's like being a child necklace worker in Caribbean. Your fingers really start to take a toll after six hours of weaving and knotting. But you ended up with something so beautiful, like a necklace with one giant wooden bead in the middle, and you just knew all that hard work and blistering was somehow worth it.

I took to making hemp things that summer when I couldn't sleep. I would lay there for a little while and decide that my time would be better served creating a hemp belt. This belt would come to symbolize my trials with sleep and stress. My fingers would be a little raw, the strings would be flying all over the place, but I would still be working that belt. It never really amounted to much more than a few inches because it's tough working trying to weave a belt in the middle of the night when you're also trying to watch Cosby Show reruns. Sometimes I couldn't hear Cousin Pam because I would get so into making that belt that I would eventually shove the belt in the drawer and just cuddle up to her voice.

There was definitely something bizarrely soothing about saying to myself, "I'll just do a little hemp work tonight before I go to bed." It seems like this went on for a while, but it was probably just a couple weeks. But it really became a thing I was into whenever I was feeling stressed out or anxious. I wonder what might happen if therapists would just hand people a ball of hemp string and told them to have at it. Actually, that's probably how all this began: a couple stressed out hippies realized they needed something to wear with their tye-dye caftan and they just turned to the one thing they know--crafts.

This sort of makes me want to ask people who sell those weird designer-y bird houses at craft fairs to say more about their inspiration. I hated wearing hemp necklaces, but making them felt so good. I wonder if they actually hate birds, but love making bird houses. Some things we'll just never know.

Jon

1.12.2011

Dear Rachel Dratch,

I once left a comedy show with toilet paper flying out of my pants. I mean, I know exactly how it got there but I'm not so sure about how long it had been there (or I guess I actually know the answer to that one, too) or why no one said anything until they did. It wasn't as if I planned on the tissue being an accessory, like some sort of flowy scarf flying from my pants waist or as if it was a white flag to the world that my pants had finally given up, thrown in the towel, and declared they were done fighting me. I guess I just didn't pay enough attention when finishing things up. The bathroom was rickety and I didn't trust the door to stay shut, and there was only one stall and what seemed to be a room of four hundred people, about half or so of which was other men who may need to use this bathroom. Oh, I don't think I mentioned that I couldn't get the toilet to flush and had to leave everything just sort of there. Except for the piece of toilet paper that escaped through my pants.

The little things that happen like this, like walking around for hours with your pants fly entirely open or realizing at the end of your eight-hour shift that you had a piece of romaine lettuce stuck in the side of your mouth that no one over the course of the eight hours told you about, that should make you take things a little less seriously. Because I know there are certainly some people who take themselves entirely seriously, I try to do my part to help them not look a little crazy, even if it would be hilarious. I will often stop a customer and tuck the tag of their White Stag blouse back into their shirt. Or I will say, "Hey, you have a little something hanging out of your nostril." All just to help a person out.

Then there are times when I see something like this, but I don't or forget to say something. There was once when a boss of mine lit into his wife for not telling him that he regularly suffers from stinky breath. It must have been a severe problem because he had like super-strength toothpaste that offered to blast off plaque and stank when you also combined it with what seemed to be almost pure alcohol tooth wash. I liked to think that he was really just drinking to make it through the day and that was what caused that weird alcoholy-smell, but I think it was probably the hippie Listerine. He got so mad at her, and I can sort of now understand why.

Sometimes in the evening, I too suffer from stanky in the mouth. And most of the time, I don't even know it. My breath will be part dragon and part old wet garlic feet and I am just yapping and yapping, getting all up in your face, trying to be cute and not even knowing what I am putting out there. Sometimes, like we all know, we can taste it when our mouth is probably erupting some stank. You know, like after you've enjoyed a nice long night of Thai food. It tasted so good, but sometimes that comes at a price.

No one at work has ever told me when my breath may have been kickin. In fact, no one I've ever worked with has ever said anything. Which means one of two things: one, I probably go around reeking havoc on people's faces often because I spend most of my day talking to people; or two, my breath doesn't start needing fumigation until I clock out. I'm not sure which it is. I have had bad breath enough times in the evening to think that it had to have started a little earlier than right as I was walking in the door. Whatever, let those fools suffer.

But maybe it is just a problem I get into at home. Or maybe I do suffer from this all of the time and the people at work are politely suffering through my rants on why not everything needs sequins or why we need to pay more attention to the male customers because they come to spend. I talk so much to everyone that I really hope no one is plotting an intervention sponsored by Crest. If anyone else is suffering, please come forward. I will not verbally assault you or make you feel bad for speaking the truth, I just need to know that I smell bad. I can fix this!

Just tell me that my breeze is blowing and I'll know exactly what to do. Otherwise you may relive my dinner and lunch, and nobody likes old pasta sauce feet!

Jon

1.7.2010

Dear Rachel Dratch,

It's the new year. Maybe it's more like, it's A new year. I feel like we think about new years the way we do about birthdays, that we are supposed to feel something different once the clock strikes whatever o'clock. Or that because that one year of life we just experienced has made us more wise or more something. Sometimes I feel like the old year was basically me just getting more cranky and finding gray hairs in my doo.

I guess it wasn't quite the new year last year when I decided to bleach my hair. I considered it for a while before actually breaking down and scheduling the appointment. Because I am a total fashion nerd I was inspired by these models who were also dying their hair bleach blonde. I figured I could and should look different and fresh. This was around December when I got it done, but it was probably October when I decided to do it. Someone asked if I was an actor and if I did this for a role. Babygirl, I am an actor and this role is called life!

After the first bleach job, I got it done two more times. I wanted my hair white white white. But my hair is regularly dark dark dark, which means I was going to spend a long time with my hair covered in the blue bleach. I was not prepared for this. I sort of knew what I was getting into because I had to schedule like a four hour block of my stylist's time, three or so for the dying and one for the cut. People got this done all the time, I told myself, I can totally handle this.

The bleach was no problem. Even though I think there may have been scabs on my scalp afterward, it never really hurt. I knew it was doing the trick because after the first round, my hair was a bright gold. There was one more bleaching to go before the toner. I survived the first bleach, so the second round was fine. But it was the toner that got me! That was no joke.

She told me it would tingle and probably feel a little funny. That's cool. I had used Pert Plus before, so I was clearly prepared for a tingly sensation. But this wasn't some kind of sensation, this was more like full on pain. Nobody ever talks about how painful this can be! I remember a season of Top Model where that girl Michelle, who also later suffered from that weird flesh disease, got her hair bleached and she damn near flipped her shit, all shivering and shaking. Because I could not really handle letting the toner do it's thing for too long, I never got to that level. I did have to sip on some red wine to help calm my nerves because all I could whisper was, "Julie, this kind of hurts."

I may have been a little over-dramatic because I also think my teeth chattered a little and I also remember whispering, "Is it supposed to feel like my hair is being slowly pulled from my head?" It hurt. But beauty is pain, and I wanted that top model beauty. I didn't quite get the color I really wanted that first time because it hurt too much. The second time was perfect and by the third I was a little over it and my wallet was hurting. I am no dancer for money, so my cash needs to pay my bills.

The blonde was a little intense and maybe not really my color, but it was fun. This past week I scheduled a last minute appointment because I was feeling ugly. I had one scheduled for next week, but the sides of my hair were getting too voluminous and making my head look all round. Not great. I went in with Henry Holland as my inspiration, but I think my cut looks more Jefferson Hack, circa 2010, but with shorter hair on top. I am making these esoteric references just so when you google them you'll realize just how insane my references are, but also know this is really what made me want this look! Chew on that!

Looking back I wonder if my new haircut has anything to do with the change in the year. I don't feel older, wiser or richer. I do feel like I really need to make a commitment to scheduling my appointments ahead of time so that I don't go into hair shock when I feel crazy and my self-esteem begins to dip because my hair is too long. Maybe that comes with age: knowing when you need to get your head taken care of and just how important it really is. This new look may be more influenced by a new fashion project I'm beginning to work on that will hopefully land me in the front rows and in the pages of magazines. I would even do magazines that are free, so if you need some volunteer styling, I got you!

*Side note: I just looked up how often I have written about my hair, and it's kind of embarrassing. Maybe I just realized how vain I am. I think I really only have one or two stories I like to tell over and over. Oops.

Jon