The Calm Before the Perm

I haven’t updated this blog in a while. Not for the usual reason, which is that I have nothing of value to say. Rather, I’ve been too busy to update it with the various nothings of value that I have to say. But now that the subway system is grinding to a halt and I am trapped in Queens with only a limited amount of electricity-fueled Arrested development to sustain me, I thought now would be the perfect opportunity to take a few minutes to share something that happened while I was out and about preparing for the impending storm.

First, though, let me start by saying that I’m not one to quickly adopt ridiculous terminology like “Frankenstorm” every time that something more severe than a light mist descends on the city. Call me old fashioned, but I have a bit of a hard time believing that a cute hash tag somehow makes death from the sky acceptable.

That being said, I figured I should play it safe stock up on a few of the essentials in case I find myself without internet access long enough for my own thoughts to bubble up to the surface and start occupying my attention again. And on my way back from the store, six-pack and jug of water in hand, I came across a sight that nicely summed up my feelings on New York.

The weather was far from brutal at this point, but it was certainly becoming ominous. The sky was gray, the trees were swaying and shedding their leaves. My neighborhood looked like the movie Twister just before everyone stops fast-forwarding. Everything seemed more or less exactly like what you’d expect just before a major storm hit.

And then I passed a local salon, which was still open. The simple fact that it was open wasn’t all that surprising. People need their paychecks now more than ever, and you can’t expect a business to close just because of an impending apocalypse. But what surprised me was that, just like the grocery store, hardware store, and Duane Reade, the beauty parlor was packed. Apparently, highlights are right up there next to batteries and water on the list of post-civilization necessities. In fact, the beauty parlor was so packed that not only were all the chairs inside occupied, but they’d dragged an extra one out onto the sidewalk where a woman in a surgical mask was typing on her iPhone while her hairdresser tried in vain to work a blow dryer on the woman’s wildly flailing strands. It was like watching Indiana Jones waving his torch at a snake pit, he kept them moving, but couldn’t pin any one of them down long enough to have an impact.

So let’s recap. The day is cold, the wind is whipping, and the air is too poisonous to breath. Everyone around you is scrambling like rats to find nourishment. But at this moment, nothing is quite as important to you as making sure you impress all the single fellows who made it to the fallout shelter. And that seemed to perfectly capture my feelings about New York as a whole. It’s not just the triumph of style over substance, it’s the triumph of style over common sense.

The fact that all this was taking place next to a life-sized, plastic, anthropomorphic bee didn’t exactly help either.

-TC