I had an appointment—a meeting, you might say—to have coffee with a friend this morning. I had put it into my handheld and everything. Both of us have been too busy and I was REALLY looking forward to seeing her for an hour. (You know where this is going, right?) Why, I often get up and get the kids off to school and sit down and work for a while and don’t even bother showering until noon or so. But today I had PLANS so I hopped out of bed at some ungodly hour when it was freezing cold in here (okay; I finally caved and turned the heat on, today) and took a shower so that I could go have coffee, dammit. Maybe I was even thinking about having something WITH my coffee, like a MUFFIN. Maybe I was mentally giving the finger to my omnipresent box of Multigrain Cheerios. It was going to be AWESOME.
Well, she cancelled. One of her kids was sick, so she was stuck at home. And I had a meeting (a real meeting, not one involving muffins) mid-morning so I couldn’t even go over to her house and hassle her. It was sad. Tragic, really. Nearly as tragic as me being excited by the prospect of a muffin.
To assuage my despair I skipped my usual cup of green tea and made half a pot of coffee. (I no longer brew entire pots of coffee at home. Too dangerous.) I sipped at a large mug of it while tackling some work and, well, sulking. So great was my displeasure, I never even ate breakfast. Take THAT, Cheerios!
After my meeting, I made a call to my hair salon.
Here is the thing about having short hair: I thought it would be easier. It is easier… sort of. It’s easier on a daily basis, but when I wore it long I never had Haircut Emergencies. Every so often I got it cut. Whatever. With it short, one day it’s awesome and the next day it looks like a poodle died on my head. And there is no predicting when the dead dog moment will arrive. It’s a mystery, each time. Monday: Sassy! Tuesday: Homeless! It’s an adventure, really.
The dead dog moment for this particular cycle of As The Hair Grows arrived the week prior to Labor Day. (For those of you playing along at home but calendar-challenged, that’s two weeks ago.) I made an appointment for a cut and then my stylist had a doctor’s appointment or maybe she just hates me, I don’t know, but my appointment was CANCELLED. I was unable to get in for a cut prior to my trip to see Otto.
So I went to Georgia and spent a lot of time telling Otto “My HAIR is OUT OF CONTROL!” while he looked at me as though there was not only a dead dog on my head, but it had possibly been snacking on my frontal lobe before it expired. I soothed my angst with liberal handsful of sculpting gel and vowed to get in for a haircut the moment I got back into town.
Well, I got back, and I was busy, and I was distracted, and I forgot about it for a week. And then this week I started thinking about it again, but then a funny thing happened where I discovered there is YET ANOTHER stage after Homeless, and it is Maybe Growing It Out Some To Something Still Sort Of Short But Also Cute And A Bit Longer. So then I wasn’t sure what to do, but today I caught sight of myself in a mirror and realized that I needed help.
Cue the call to the salon: When can she see me? This afternoon? Great, I’ll take it. The day continued apace until finally it was time.
I sat down in the chair and opened my mouth and turned into Goldilocks. “It’s too bushy. I can’t do anything with it. But I don’t want it as short as we’ve been doing. Actually, I think I might want to grow it, some. But I hate it. So it needs cutting. But not too much. Well, what do you think?”
Fortunately, my stylist is a magician. A very patient magician. She’s able to tune out my blathering, nod sagely, and then wave the scissors around my head for a while and do exactly what I didn’t know how to ask for. (Granted, that kind of magic comes at about $50 a pop, but what do you expect for both telepathy and skill when it comes to sharp objects near your face??)
So now my hair is shorter but not as short as before. Longer but not too long. Different but sort of the same. Actually, come to think of it… I think maybe I should start looking around for a bridge to buy. Does anyone have one for sale?
Don’t worry. She really DID cut it quite a bit, though most of that cutting was with the thinning shears. I need to be thinned out, you see. I’m too… thick. Um. Yeah. And she was quick to point out that my once-lovely highlights are showing definitely signs of grey. I thanked her for her keen observational powers and asked her if she was wanting to touch up my color for free, and that was pretty much the end of that vein of conversation.
But I think I may have pissed her off, because she insisted on flat-ironing my hair and making it do all sorts of weird, poofy things. Great cut, but bizarre style. Why does this not happen to men, this phenomenon where the stylist feels the need to make you look really stupid right before you leave? I had some errands to run, too, and I actually sat in my car debating over which would be more detrimental: skipping my errands, or appearing in public with my strange little bouffant. (I split the difference, running one errand and skipping the other.)
After returning home, I tried to brush the little bits of hair off of my forehead and wet and restyled my hair until it looked like ME again. So far, so good. In fact, pretty darn good.
Now, if only I had an hour with my friends (and a damn muffin), life would be nearly perfect.
Debate: finish reading the entry, or be all ME FIRST.
Hm.
But I love your hair, just the way it is.
Dang that whole maintanence thing anyway.
Sorry your friend had to cancel. (Or DID she? : )
Do we get to see it? I’ve never been able to get within a mile of a hairstylist because that strange whim they have to make you look really stupid gets almost psychotic with curly ringlety hair like mine.
Wow, $50 a pop. I got out of hair at the wrong time I guess.
My fear of stylists and short dos confirmed! I’ll leave my graying hippie hair alone for now . .
Stylists DO seem to have a knack for making you look poofy before you leave, even if you came in as a total NON-poof person. I always come out looking as if my hair’s been teased within an inch of its life.
Did she really think that you would flat iron your own short hairstyle? Because that sounds like it could end in painful burns and ice baths.
You are exactly right on the one day great/next day horrid situation with short hair. Very hard to anticipate! I’m going to a new stylist next week named Bathsheba. Should be interesting!
Every three weeks. Like clockwork. Lets you avoid the dead dog moment and helps your stylist buy her own small island. But dammit, my hair looks good! ;)
I can’t speak from salons, I haven’t been in one in……10 years. I can’t speak from coffee clatches, they frown on that where I work. (something about not paying me to drink coffee and kvetch with the rest of the prisoners – unreasonable, but what can you do).
sorry you didn’t get to see your friend, that seems to be a trend (missing JJ when here). its a poor substitution, but you can call me anytime, I’m always good for some covert gossiping.
What? No picture of the snazzy new haircut? That’s just mean.
I’m used to have SUCH short hair that I can’t go more than 4 weeks without getting it cut. I went in yesterday and she thinned it out and that’s about it. I’m trying the grow it out a little all over thing. I probably won’t make it another 4 weeks without going in to tell her “SHAVE IT ALL OFF!!!!!!!!!” It’s thick. It’s gray. It’s coarse. It’s a hateful head of hair.
I had a hairdresser once convince me to let him perm JUST the bottom half of my hair. “It’ll give you such BODY! You’ll be able to do ANYTHING with it!”
What I think he meant to say was, “I’ve been doing heaping mounds of crack ALL MORNING!”
But BEFORE the Great Idea debacle, he was my telepathic. *sigh* There’s never been another…
I am totally with you on the hair. Ideally, if I were made of millions, I’d have mine cut EVERY THREE WEEKS at the Toni & Guy salon in town for $60-plus per pop. I’m thick-haired also, and since something like 90% of people have thin hair that want it too look THICKER (no!), some stylists have “forgotten” what to do with thickness. Gah. The best way with hair appointments, which I RESIST because I hate making hair appointments more than a few days in advance, is to book the next hair appointment before you leave the salon, for say 4-5 weeks from that date, put the date in your calendar, and keep it. Hahahahaha. But in theory: NICE!
I also believe that your new tag line should be: “Excited by the prospect of a muffin.” It ROCKS.
OMG, my stylist always does that to my hair, too! She cuts it AMAZINGLY, but then she puts in 50 lbs. of styling gunk and flat irons it and make it look downright SCARY! I actually have gotten to where I schedule my annual leave from work in like 2 or 3 hour increments (for a 30-minute haircut) so I have time to go home, wash my hair, and restyle it before I return to work.
I totally hear you on the telepathy thing, too. I’d been growing out my once-short cut to around shoulder length all summer, and I hated it. I finally got into her chair a few weeks ago and said something crazy like, “I want it shorter, but not too short, or maybe I do want it short like Lisa Rinna kinda, or maybe I just want it in some funky type of bob where the back is shorter than the front, uh God, I don’t know, can’t you just make me into someone I’m not?” She totally got what I was saying and gave me the CUTEST haircut I’ve had in a long time. How do they do that? “Here, take all my money, lady. I love you.” That’s what I want to say when she works her magic.
I just got my haircut, too – after a estrogen filled year of pregnancy hair… it was beautifully done and I kept it that blow-dry straight for a couple of days sans shower. However, I also got my upper lip waxed and they completely massacred my face (take a look at the picture on my post).
I haven’t been to a hair stylist in over three years. I think it’s probably too late, now. Whenever I realize I’m viewing the world through a curtain, I get out the manicure scissors and start chopping. Did you know that a handful of mullet can be removed with one fell swoop? Or cut, as the case may be? It probably won’t be even in the back, but I can’t see back there so it doesn’t exist.
You do know that if you ever came to visit me, I would make muffins for you every day. I’d put the good sheets on the guest bed, and I’d think even harder about removing all the stored Christmas stuff in the guest room closet so there would be room to hang clothes in there. I probably wouldn’t DO it, but I’d think about it. Hard.
Then again, who knows? Please come over some time. The blueberries are in the freezer and the recipe card is on the refrigerator door, under a magnet shaped like Bach.
CRACKING UP over “As The Hair Grows.” I can relate, but for different reasons. I am in the process of growing my hair out long so that ultimately I can have hair like Famke Jannsen in X-3 (http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0376994/331.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Janssen,%20Famke&seq=2). Stop laughing, I know how unrealistic I am being.
ANYWAY my hair is making me crazy in the process. I just keep dreaming about how pretty it will look when it is past that awkward mid-length phase and gets to long and lucious…in my dreams, at least…
I passed into Homeless Hair yesterday, just as my stylist had the gall to LEAVE TOWN for TWO WEEKS. Sheesh. Like my hair can wait until her honeymoon is over.
They do it to men too. Every time I get my hair cut (granted,at a salon…not a barber), The stylist insists on styling my hair is some hip, trendy, spiky thing when I came in with a simple part on one side. I just plan my haircuts for the end of the day on the way home and jump in the shower as soon as I get home.
Oh god, I am laughing so hard! I just went short and while cttuing my hair, my stylist (an aging hippie dude) says, “Wow, man…that’s a gray hair. How’d that get there?” That IS a verbatim quote and was uttered in a total Spicoli tone of bewilderment. I am used to this and I love love love my hairdresser, but oh golly, I thought of you and your pretty copper highlights.
I had a stylist that gave me the biggest hair ever. And Texas Big Hair is bigger than just Big Hair. It was truly frightening. I carried a brush in my car and flat out told him that I would brush it out as soon as I left. He didn’t care. He just liked doing Texas Big Hair.