Rediscovery
Well, I did it. I've gone back to my roots. On Friday, I called a local hair salon and set up an appointment. I have no money right now while I wait to collect my bonus that's already a quarter spent, but I don't care. I never take the time to do anything with my hair. Ever.
I looked up the salon on the internet and it was described as "the secret you hope never gets out or you'll never get an appointment." Lucky for me, the secret wasn't out yet because they squeezed me in for a 10 am slot on Saturday. The website looked a little more edgy than I am (think rainbow bright or even trix cereal style, purples, oranges, lime greens and electric yellows), but then I didn't really care at this point. It's been a year and a half since I moved to Boston and I've only had my hair done in Rochester (once) and Virginia (once). Talk about neglect.
You forget, too, that while I've pretty much always been straight edge, I've had quite the lineup of best friends. I'm speaking mainly of the ones that aren't around anymore. From Meg Murray, to Nicole Shapoff, to Katie Walsh, to Sarah Stover, etc. I'm well-versed in different types of people. I've always thought of myself as decent to good at most everything, great at relatively nothing. It's the same with my interactions with people. I can talk to you about anything and everything for a decent amount of time, but there are only certain topics that I feel so passionately about that I can talk about them at length. And be weary of those because I get so fired up that it's hard to get me to stop.
So I never dread alternative types. Because while I'm clearly not one of them, I'm not too far removed from their world. Plus, my hair was such a different colored disaster that any hairdresser would take me into their heart for the sheer reason that I was hopeless and would let them experiment on me. "Hi, can you fix me?"
So Rachel loved me. And so did the borderline gay, Ben. They were quirky people. The type who listen to bands I've never heard of, people who have watched the wizard of oz with pink floyd's dark side of the moon, spouted movie quotes in all of the voices, and doted upon cats. Needless to say, my main contributions to the conversation were lots of questions and polite laughter.
So I'd passed the basic test of okay we won't burn her scalp with chemicals. But then I made it to level two after Ben was making fun of this british client who'd called to push back her appointment. "Ben dahling, can we please delay our tete-a-tete this afternoon? I loathe 3 o'clock. I simply loooooathe it, dahling. Now wouldn't 8 o'clock be better?"
He made me laugh and then started quoting monty python lines. Which I happen to know after watching monty python with megs and her brother years ago. And so I broke out in my crap british accent with "You've got no arms left!"
Aww. They loved me.
Thank god for Meg and movie marathons. Thank god for Katie Walsh and movie quote quizzes. It's always fascinating to me to observe different people. It's what people who want to write do. Not consciously, I don't think. But if I ever wrote anything, commentaries, short stories, a novel, whatever, you can be certain that my writing would consist of compiled vignettes of the people of my past, present and future. Probably with a combination of characteristics, but still.
My hair looks amazing, she did a great job. I always forget how pretty I could be if I actually tried. And by "try" I mean "invest a whole bunch of money and time into it." Rachel only got the color done before her next client came in so I'm heading back on Tuesday for a cut. A real live cut. I'm excited. I've finally returned to my natural color. A brown that I'd always thought was boring, but it really isn't. She toned down what was on my hair before making them chestnut highlights and then dyed the rest my natural color.
And my transformation didn't stop there. Because once I get going, it's hard for me to stop. Definitely party of that generation of plastic. I can't wait to pay the credit card bill off come bonus time. But in the meantime, I'm pressing on. I went to the mall since I won "Nursing Trivia Jeopardy" down in south beach and received a $20 gift card to Sephora. As a result, I got Dior mascara for only $3.65. Then I went to Banana and dropped $70 for a pair of jeans. I had my outfit for later planned in my head and decided I'd need new earrings from Jasmine Sola. And cocoa bean lipgloss. It's heavenly. Then I wanted new shoes because I'm sick of my boots and the saleslady sold me (easily) on a pair of rosy pink shoes from Enzo Angiolini. Only $40 on sale and they're just so cute and so not me that I said well why not. So I walked out Laura Gell style with 5 big shopping bags.
It felt good. Like a giant step forward and back at the same time. Or maybe a diagonal slide upward? I don't know.
No Jim. I text messaged him once to give him my final guilt trip. I'm really not good at being disappointed in people. And I'm not very good at not having the last word. A pointed word too. I have a rather biting tongue sometimes. Or maybe a biting pen. I usually fuck up the delivery if my mouth attempts it.
A new week, a new look, new plans, new thoughts. It could be worse.
I looked up the salon on the internet and it was described as "the secret you hope never gets out or you'll never get an appointment." Lucky for me, the secret wasn't out yet because they squeezed me in for a 10 am slot on Saturday. The website looked a little more edgy than I am (think rainbow bright or even trix cereal style, purples, oranges, lime greens and electric yellows), but then I didn't really care at this point. It's been a year and a half since I moved to Boston and I've only had my hair done in Rochester (once) and Virginia (once). Talk about neglect.
You forget, too, that while I've pretty much always been straight edge, I've had quite the lineup of best friends. I'm speaking mainly of the ones that aren't around anymore. From Meg Murray, to Nicole Shapoff, to Katie Walsh, to Sarah Stover, etc. I'm well-versed in different types of people. I've always thought of myself as decent to good at most everything, great at relatively nothing. It's the same with my interactions with people. I can talk to you about anything and everything for a decent amount of time, but there are only certain topics that I feel so passionately about that I can talk about them at length. And be weary of those because I get so fired up that it's hard to get me to stop.
So I never dread alternative types. Because while I'm clearly not one of them, I'm not too far removed from their world. Plus, my hair was such a different colored disaster that any hairdresser would take me into their heart for the sheer reason that I was hopeless and would let them experiment on me. "Hi, can you fix me?"
So Rachel loved me. And so did the borderline gay, Ben. They were quirky people. The type who listen to bands I've never heard of, people who have watched the wizard of oz with pink floyd's dark side of the moon, spouted movie quotes in all of the voices, and doted upon cats. Needless to say, my main contributions to the conversation were lots of questions and polite laughter.
So I'd passed the basic test of okay we won't burn her scalp with chemicals. But then I made it to level two after Ben was making fun of this british client who'd called to push back her appointment. "Ben dahling, can we please delay our tete-a-tete this afternoon? I loathe 3 o'clock. I simply loooooathe it, dahling. Now wouldn't 8 o'clock be better?"
He made me laugh and then started quoting monty python lines. Which I happen to know after watching monty python with megs and her brother years ago. And so I broke out in my crap british accent with "You've got no arms left!"
Aww. They loved me.
Thank god for Meg and movie marathons. Thank god for Katie Walsh and movie quote quizzes. It's always fascinating to me to observe different people. It's what people who want to write do. Not consciously, I don't think. But if I ever wrote anything, commentaries, short stories, a novel, whatever, you can be certain that my writing would consist of compiled vignettes of the people of my past, present and future. Probably with a combination of characteristics, but still.
My hair looks amazing, she did a great job. I always forget how pretty I could be if I actually tried. And by "try" I mean "invest a whole bunch of money and time into it." Rachel only got the color done before her next client came in so I'm heading back on Tuesday for a cut. A real live cut. I'm excited. I've finally returned to my natural color. A brown that I'd always thought was boring, but it really isn't. She toned down what was on my hair before making them chestnut highlights and then dyed the rest my natural color.
And my transformation didn't stop there. Because once I get going, it's hard for me to stop. Definitely party of that generation of plastic. I can't wait to pay the credit card bill off come bonus time. But in the meantime, I'm pressing on. I went to the mall since I won "Nursing Trivia Jeopardy" down in south beach and received a $20 gift card to Sephora. As a result, I got Dior mascara for only $3.65. Then I went to Banana and dropped $70 for a pair of jeans. I had my outfit for later planned in my head and decided I'd need new earrings from Jasmine Sola. And cocoa bean lipgloss. It's heavenly. Then I wanted new shoes because I'm sick of my boots and the saleslady sold me (easily) on a pair of rosy pink shoes from Enzo Angiolini. Only $40 on sale and they're just so cute and so not me that I said well why not. So I walked out Laura Gell style with 5 big shopping bags.
It felt good. Like a giant step forward and back at the same time. Or maybe a diagonal slide upward? I don't know.
No Jim. I text messaged him once to give him my final guilt trip. I'm really not good at being disappointed in people. And I'm not very good at not having the last word. A pointed word too. I have a rather biting tongue sometimes. Or maybe a biting pen. I usually fuck up the delivery if my mouth attempts it.
A new week, a new look, new plans, new thoughts. It could be worse.