Sleeping Around

Inspired by the writings of my wicked smart funny friends Jesse Seret (Perfect Calm), Trish Deitch (Distant Dock), Jessica Schickel (Chagrin and Bear It), Jen Sincero (Hey Little Bad Ass), and Janine Schulz (Oiling of a Rusty Mind), and encouraged by people I’ve met here and there, I will now commence the blog. Maybe just about beds. Maybe about other things too. But the beds are a constant. I’ve been keeping record of every mattress, hammock, waterbed, and couch I’ve spent the night on for some time, as many of you know.

Not every bed makes it into the bed collection. Sometimes I forget to take a picture. Once my computer was stolen on a night train in deepest India and I lost an important year of photos. Sometimes the beds in which I’ve slept would cause too much of a stir if made public, so. But there are lots beds in the bed collection. And stories behind each one.

If beds bore you then there is still some hope for us having a blogger/reader relationship. Let’s see how it goes. I’m only about 80% comfortable with this set up and welcome your input.

Love and kusheln from my red velvet bed in Berlin,

Noa
June, 2010
~ Saturday, April 2 ~
Permalink
Gangtok, Sikkim, India (March 25-31) — My host goes out to park the car at 8 a.m. and says he’ll be right back. He is still gone at 2 in the afternoon and my temper reaches my ears. I pace and drink a lot of tea and there are no books to read. I decide to go out and walk the Gangtok mall. I might try to get my hair fixed. Last week the woman in the basement “saloon” in Thimphu butchered my great lengths blindly, snipping away without even looking, chatting with her friend in a husky voice. I’d said two inches off the bottom but when I shook out the apron there were pieces five inches and even longer, parts of me now not parts of me. Since then everything feels off balance.  . The Gangtok mall is outdoors, for pedestrians only, the streets have been bricked over. Thimphu could learn from this. The flower pots overflow with colorful arrangements. There are fountains and tidy trash bins. Families of Indian tourists, here for the cool air, seem to be enjoying themselves, unaware of my foul mood. I try to the first salon I encounter: Women’s World. I was pleased to find a nice cross dresser giving blow outs here when I came last year. But I only make it as far as the puddle in the damp stairwell. A sign is tacked to the cement wall: Women’s World is not open. So I continue down the mall, turning down the steep sidewalk steps toward the fruit market. I buy some glittering bindis from a shop along the way for 75 rupees total, the rhinestones cheer me up a bit. At the intersection at the bottom of the stairs I scan the second floor shops and see a sign for another salon.  . The Nepali woman at the counter glances up from her nail file sneers at me when I walk in. It’s too late to turn back. I don’t like looking hesitant. But it seems okay. Clean, modern, lots of windows, and a glossy red and white motif. She tosses her technicolored braided extensions and points to the reclining chair by the sink. She is dressed like a punk rock Pebbles Flintstone—a fur collared brown tunic belted with a wide hot pink elastic belt, fishnets. She quotes 300 rupees for a wash and dry, lets her girls do the work, then aggressively takes over without listening to my wishes. Yanking at me with a brush and a disagreeable downturned expression. It’s over in half an hour. I still look terrible and now I feel terrible too. It begins to rain on my way back to the house undoing any benefit my 300 rupees may have bought me.  . The room is cold and the car parker is still no where to be seen. I watch Waiting for Superman on my laptop and this does not make me feel any better. The US education system is failing everyone. It’s all about the teachers but the question of HOW to make good teachers is never really addressed. How to punish bad ones, how to weed them out, maybe, but how to create good new ones, that’s the question I’ve been pondering with my bad haircut in Bhutan.  . He finally comes back at 8 pm, twelve hours after he’s gone to move the car and I pretend to be asleep. But he’s brought me some strange salad as an apology and it’s hard to remain angry.

Gangtok, Sikkim, India (March 25-31) — My host goes out to park the car at 8 a.m. and says he’ll be right back. He is still gone at 2 in the afternoon and my temper reaches my ears. I pace and drink a lot of tea and there are no books to read. I decide to go out and walk the Gangtok mall. I might try to get my hair fixed. Last week the woman in the basement “saloon” in Thimphu butchered my great lengths blindly, snipping away without even looking, chatting with her friend in a husky voice. I’d said two inches off the bottom but when I shook out the apron there were pieces five inches and even longer, parts of me now not parts of me. Since then everything feels off balance.

 .

The Gangtok mall is outdoors, for pedestrians only, the streets have been bricked over. Thimphu could learn from this. The flower pots overflow with colorful arrangements. There are fountains and tidy trash bins. Families of Indian tourists, here for the cool air, seem to be enjoying themselves, unaware of my foul mood. I try to the first salon I encounter: Women’s World. I was pleased to find a nice cross dresser giving blow outs here when I came last year. But I only make it as far as the puddle in the damp stairwell. A sign is tacked to the cement wall: Women’s World is not open. So I continue down the mall, turning down the steep sidewalk steps toward the fruit market. I buy some glittering bindis from a shop along the way for 75 rupees total, the rhinestones cheer me up a bit. At the intersection at the bottom of the stairs I scan the second floor shops and see a sign for another salon.

 .

The Nepali woman at the counter glances up from her nail file sneers at me when I walk in. It’s too late to turn back. I don’t like looking hesitant. But it seems okay. Clean, modern, lots of windows, and a glossy red and white motif. She tosses her technicolored braided extensions and points to the reclining chair by the sink. She is dressed like a punk rock Pebbles Flintstone—a fur collared brown tunic belted with a wide hot pink elastic belt, fishnets. She quotes 300 rupees for a wash and dry, lets her girls do the work, then aggressively takes over without listening to my wishes. Yanking at me with a brush and a disagreeable downturned expression. It’s over in half an hour. I still look terrible and now I feel terrible too. It begins to rain on my way back to the house undoing any benefit my 300 rupees may have bought me.

 .

The room is cold and the car parker is still no where to be seen. I watch Waiting for Superman on my laptop and this does not make me feel any better. The US education system is failing everyone. It’s all about the teachers but the question of HOW to make good teachers is never really addressed. How to punish bad ones, how to weed them out, maybe, but how to create good new ones, that’s the question I’ve been pondering with my bad haircut in Bhutan.

 .

He finally comes back at 8 pm, twelve hours after he’s gone to move the car and I pretend to be asleep. But he’s brought me some strange salad as an apology and it’s hard to remain angry.