korean annals of sojunetic medicine
I finished work early yesterday thanks to my cosmic skillz (client: "You are a posing genius!" haha), and, walking out of the studio into the sunlight of the Cheongdam 'hood, I turned to loathsome manager Hendrix and said, "You don't have to take me home; I'll just go on from here if that's cool. I want to walk around this neighborhood for a while. See you tomorrow?"
"No," quoth Hendrix. "Must back to apartment. Mandatory party tonight."
So we rolled in besnitted silence back to the agency, where I went into the office, collected my voucher for the job, and slunk out, but not before the agency owner screamed, "ELYSE! GO WAIT IN HOME! WE GOING SOMEWHERE."
UGH! Deodorant to buy, Cheongdam 'hood to explore, fabulous Mauritius wardrobe to shop for, bosintang to eat, I went back to my fucking apartment and clawed the curtains angrily as the sun went down and the last of the afternoon went to waste. I ate a dinner of fucking dry toast, a slice of sub-Velveeta petroleum processed cheese (the popular models' apartment sandwich that we optimistically call "grilled cheese") and an apple.
7:00pm, the agency called. "Please come to the office immediately." We went down, sat there for fifteen minutes (as The Canuck, who'd just come from a job and had her eyebrows coated in pink lipstick, wondered aloud, "Why are we just sitting down here? I could be taking off my makeup right now!"), then straggled off to our still-unrevealed destination, which turned out to be a soju bar (soju = Korean potato'n'chemicals liquor; bar = more like a restaurant here; food is served, though copious soju is served alongside).
We all sat down and busied ourselves pouring and distributing glasses of water.
The agency owner started screaming, "CANUCK! YOU SIT HERE. SIN! MOVE THERE! ELYSE! YOU SIT HERE!"
It became evident that he was shuffling us around into a model, manager, model, manager configuration. HIs opening remark, in so many words, was that the purpose of this surprise mandatory enforced-seating journey to a bar was to foster feelings of love and friendship between models and managers. Then all the managers began chatting across us in Korean as the models sat in silence.
"ELYSE! WHY YOU NO DRINK!"
Some tempura arrived; I had a crab stick; the "grilled cheese sandwich" and apple in my stummy were like, "Go away! No room!"
I've had a cold; baroque swags of pollution-laden mucus festooned the ole larynx. After yapping away all day at my job, my voice was a hoarse whisper.
"ELYSE! WHY YOU NO DRINK!"
I couldn't even scream back.
OK, let's move this story along. I left. Went home. It was already 9:00pm and any independent plans I might have had were fucked. Roommates straggled in one by one: "Oh, my head hurt!" "Not much, we just sat there the rest of the time, not really talking. But I tried kimchi and didn't hate it!" The last roommate to arrive had actually lasted beyond the bar and made it to the afterparty at a karaoke parlor. "It was fine," said she.
1:00am, my roommate and I were enjoying our nightly fake Pilates, where we get out her Pilates mat and Pilates ring thing and pose while we stare at ourselves in the mirror, when we heard the beeping of the door entry code being punched in. We froze; whoever was punching did it wrong and failed to gain entry. Another fumbling attempt. Wrong again.
A knock.
"Who is it?"
"Hendrix."
"What do you want?"
Initiate door entry code punch sequence again. Roomie and I scrambled for our respective bedrooms, slamming our doors just as the code was punched in correctly and Hendrix entered the living room. I assume that my Pilates partner was pressing her ear up to her door and hearing the same crashings and stompings that I was, then silence.
I went out to assess the situation, then reported back in a whisper at the other door.
"Girl, Hendrix is passed out in the living room."
"EW!"
"Well, good night."
"'Night."
Oh yeah, then I took a picture of course.
The final madness: our apartment is a communal area with three bedrooms and a bathroom branching off of it, all in a line. Hendrix must've gotten up for a pee: I heard him reeling around and I sat up cross-legged in bed. Did I mention I've feng shui'd my bed, ditching the box spring in favor of a pallet of quilts on the floor? Damn, been sleeping so much better. Anyway, to the sozzled Hendrix, the four parallel closed doors must have looked like a deranged version of The Price Is Right, and Hendrix chose wrong. Behind Door #1 was a malign, skinny little gremlin crouched in the middle of the floor on a pile of blankets, hissing, "Whatttt the fuxxxxx, Hendrixxxxx? Get out! Get out! Ssssss!"
Three incredibly slurred nonsense syllables later, he was out.
Hope he had nightmares about me.
"No," quoth Hendrix. "Must back to apartment. Mandatory party tonight."
So we rolled in besnitted silence back to the agency, where I went into the office, collected my voucher for the job, and slunk out, but not before the agency owner screamed, "ELYSE! GO WAIT IN HOME! WE GOING SOMEWHERE."
UGH! Deodorant to buy, Cheongdam 'hood to explore, fabulous Mauritius wardrobe to shop for, bosintang to eat, I went back to my fucking apartment and clawed the curtains angrily as the sun went down and the last of the afternoon went to waste. I ate a dinner of fucking dry toast, a slice of sub-Velveeta petroleum processed cheese (the popular models' apartment sandwich that we optimistically call "grilled cheese") and an apple.
7:00pm, the agency called. "Please come to the office immediately." We went down, sat there for fifteen minutes (as The Canuck, who'd just come from a job and had her eyebrows coated in pink lipstick, wondered aloud, "Why are we just sitting down here? I could be taking off my makeup right now!"), then straggled off to our still-unrevealed destination, which turned out to be a soju bar (soju = Korean potato'n'chemicals liquor; bar = more like a restaurant here; food is served, though copious soju is served alongside).
We all sat down and busied ourselves pouring and distributing glasses of water.
The agency owner started screaming, "CANUCK! YOU SIT HERE. SIN! MOVE THERE! ELYSE! YOU SIT HERE!"
It became evident that he was shuffling us around into a model, manager, model, manager configuration. HIs opening remark, in so many words, was that the purpose of this surprise mandatory enforced-seating journey to a bar was to foster feelings of love and friendship between models and managers. Then all the managers began chatting across us in Korean as the models sat in silence.
"ELYSE! WHY YOU NO DRINK!"
Some tempura arrived; I had a crab stick; the "grilled cheese sandwich" and apple in my stummy were like, "Go away! No room!"
I've had a cold; baroque swags of pollution-laden mucus festooned the ole larynx. After yapping away all day at my job, my voice was a hoarse whisper.
"ELYSE! WHY YOU NO DRINK!"
I couldn't even scream back.
OK, let's move this story along. I left. Went home. It was already 9:00pm and any independent plans I might have had were fucked. Roommates straggled in one by one: "Oh, my head hurt!" "Not much, we just sat there the rest of the time, not really talking. But I tried kimchi and didn't hate it!" The last roommate to arrive had actually lasted beyond the bar and made it to the afterparty at a karaoke parlor. "It was fine," said she.
1:00am, my roommate and I were enjoying our nightly fake Pilates, where we get out her Pilates mat and Pilates ring thing and pose while we stare at ourselves in the mirror, when we heard the beeping of the door entry code being punched in. We froze; whoever was punching did it wrong and failed to gain entry. Another fumbling attempt. Wrong again.
A knock.
"Who is it?"
"Hendrix."
"What do you want?"
Initiate door entry code punch sequence again. Roomie and I scrambled for our respective bedrooms, slamming our doors just as the code was punched in correctly and Hendrix entered the living room. I assume that my Pilates partner was pressing her ear up to her door and hearing the same crashings and stompings that I was, then silence.
I went out to assess the situation, then reported back in a whisper at the other door.
"Girl, Hendrix is passed out in the living room."
"EW!"
"Well, good night."
"'Night."
Oh yeah, then I took a picture of course.
The final madness: our apartment is a communal area with three bedrooms and a bathroom branching off of it, all in a line. Hendrix must've gotten up for a pee: I heard him reeling around and I sat up cross-legged in bed. Did I mention I've feng shui'd my bed, ditching the box spring in favor of a pallet of quilts on the floor? Damn, been sleeping so much better. Anyway, to the sozzled Hendrix, the four parallel closed doors must have looked like a deranged version of The Price Is Right, and Hendrix chose wrong. Behind Door #1 was a malign, skinny little gremlin crouched in the middle of the floor on a pile of blankets, hissing, "Whatttt the fuxxxxx, Hendrixxxxx? Get out! Get out! Ssssss!"
Three incredibly slurred nonsense syllables later, he was out.
Hope he had nightmares about me.