Scissors + Chemicals = Power, My Friends

I got my hair cut and re-blonded last night. And so right before I left the office for my hair appointment, I started putting on make up. My colleague Eric, who has seen me through such things as the emergency shoes asked if I had a date.

"No! I'm getting my hair done! I want my stylist to think I'm pretty!"

"Is he cute?"

Yes. And he's gay. It's not that I'm interested in him. It's that I believe no matter what you ask for, you get the hair that your stylist thinks suits you. Don't you think?

And they've got all the power. They have the scissors; they have the chemicals. You are stuck in the chair and have no real idea what's going on up there. Until they're done. Someone once gave me bangs and then denied it when I asked why. But what can you do but go home and cry once you already have surprise bangs? You're just fucked. Right?

So anyway, it behooves you to show up at the salon dressed as the person you want your hair to look like, if that makes any sense. I learned this in San Diego. I absolutely believe this is true.

In San Diego, Maude and I went to the same stylist. Her name was Amber. Amber was just the most beautiful blonde, blue eyed, real live Barbie we had ever met. I really, genuinely liked her. But you looked at her and could only think "Barbie." She once described her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend as a Barbie, and it made my head spin. When you have a real-live Barbie describing someone as a Barbie, what does this mean? Is there such a thing as a double Barbie? A mega-Barbie?

In any case, she used to give me very cute haircuts. But Maude would always come home looking like a librarian. At some point she got very disgruntled - why did Amber do this to her, when clearly she was capable of giving hip haircuts? And I pointed out that Maude always schlepped in to Amber's in her dowdy painting clothes. So she got frumpy haircuts.

Once, also when we lived in SD, I dyed my hair dark brown. Maude, who is an artist, helped me pick the color. I love dark brown hair with blue eyes. It's a nice contrast.

Except that I looked dead. Nobody, not one person, liked how I looked. It made my skin flat and pasty and awful.

And so I decided that I had to fix it. But Maude and I had dyed it at home, and so I was too embarrassed to go to Amber and show her what I'd done. Because how can you go in to your stylist and tell her you were stupidly playing with dye at home?

So I went to another salon. A very spendy, trendy one. I told the guy what I'd done and asked if he could fix it. He said there was absolutely no way to go back to any kind of natural looking blonde.

He backed a couple feet away from me. He looked me up and down. He put his hands on his hips and cocked his head to the side. He said the best thing to do would be to strip all the color out and go platinum. Platinum! He said that only because I had on a hip outfit and the right shoes did he know I could pull it off. Otherwise, he'd never try.

And so I did. And platinum, platinum was great! I don't know if any of you have ever tried it, but when your hair is that damaged and really short, oh, you can do fun stuff with it!