One reason I don't ask my brother for advice

I'm not loving my hair. In fact, I kind of hate it. I went in for highlights and a trim, and came out with short beige hair. In a weird sort of hair mourning, I'm wearing an entirely beige and brown outfit today. If I were in the desert, I'd be invisible.

I don't tend to get upset about hair anymore - it's just hair, after all. But lately my stylist and I are not speaking the same hair language and it bums me out. I'm willing to stick it out for a couple more haircuts and see if it goes back to good again. Because changing stylists is almost as stressful as changing jobs.

I've been going to the same salon for years. The stylist I go to now is my fourth at this place.

The first had a horrible nasal voice with a Michigan accent and gave me bangs, and when I asked why, she denied it. How do you deny bangs? So I ditched her, although there was that weird flinch moment when I wound up getting my hair cut at the next station. We pretended we didn't know each other. Kind of like when you're out on a date and run into someone you went on one or two dates with. Awkward.

The second stylist was this hilarious woman who had incredible stories and got fake boobs somewhere along the way. She quit to open a salon with her boyfriend, so I started going to a friend of hers. Who told me, among a variety of shocking things, that her friend's boyfriend had the most ginormous penis you could imagine.

Anyway. So I went to her for a while, and then she moved to Miami to live the high-heels-by-the-pool life. Which is how I started going to my current stylist, who she recommended and who I generally really like. We just need to get back on a wavelength (no pun) and I pray that happens. I dread starting over.

When I moved to San Diego after grad school, I asked my brother for a recommendation for a hair stylist. Because you can't just pick one out of the blue. He'd been there several years, and he worked with a lot of women. I figured he could help me.

He said, without hesitation, "Absolutely! I've got a woman I love. A bunch of my friends go to her, too."

And so I went off to see this woman, who was in a nice salon. She ignored everything I asked for and gave me a horrible haircut. Horrible.

Which caused me to call up my brother all kinds of upset.

"She sucks! Your stupid haircut woman sucks! She gave me a terrible haircut. Why do you like her so much? What's so great about her?"

"Oh," he said. "Well, she's really hot. Plus when she washes my hair she brushes her boobs against my arm."

Honestly.