At some point in the last week, I passed that magical point where I no longer have short hair and officially have ‘long’ hair. Personally, I’ve been paying attention, and I knew that it was finally getting longer. At least six people have independently said ‘Wow, Weet, your hair is getting really long!’ as though I’ve been trying to pull one over on them, or maybe there’s a lever in my back that you crank to make it grow. After two years of struggling with the length, at my last appointment, my stylist Stacy agreed that I look acceptable with long hair, and suddenly there is progress. I had suspected that she was surreptitiously hacking away back there and this change of heart coinciding with the appearance of inches of hair is very suspicious.
Aside from the weirdness with the secret cutting of my hair, Stacy has also taken liberties with other things, namely hair color. I don’t know if she’s unnaturally distracted or what, but at the end of February, I asked for medium brown with lighter caramel colored highlights (like J.Lo, because apparently I was smoking crack that day), argued with her for about five minutes about how I didn’t want red because she really thought I wanted red and then when she was walking back to mix the color, she even said ‘And no red? Just a little red? I’ll put just a little red in too, to warm it up, yes?’ Arrgh. Then she ended up inexplicably foiling my entire head and then didn’t do the back portion at ALL because she had already used a hundred sheets of foil. I think she was sick of doing it. Finally, instead of the closely blended browns, I ended up with muddy espresso and crazy platinum blonde streaks. It was so very wrong. My sister Mo had pointed and laughed at me, but then went to visit Stacy also and ended up with exactly the same hair, despite her request for the normal warm brunette.
So tonight, I’m cheating on my stylist. I’m going to the Aveda salon I visited while Stacy had a broken foot. The Aveda salon gave me extraordinary color that was soft and lovely and flattering and exactly what I wanted, and with the exception of pushing their products a little too strenuously (because, man, it’s not like I’m not going to buy the stuff. I’m thisclose to being a serious Aveda snob, and even when Stacy stopped working at an Aveda shop, I still crossed the picket line to pick up their Purefume hairspray, so cripes), their atmosphere is calm and austere and they offered me fancy coffee, so yeah, my loyalty only goes so far. And actually, I’m still going to go to Stacy to get my hair cut and not mention that I had it colored elsewhere. She won’t even realize it for months and months, because she didn’t notice last time.
I should have the Aveda girl cut my hair too, because I trimmed my own bangs (Stacy gave me weirdly crooked Betty Page bangs) and you know, I really should not trim my own bangs. I think I’m going to put up a Post-It in my bathroom that says, ‘You think you can handle it, but the truth of the matter is that you cannot. It seems like a good idea when you’ve got the scissors right there and a mirror and a well-lit place, but in actuality it’s one of the worst ideas that can ever come into your head because you will close your eyes when you snip so that the hair doesn’t get into them and when you open your eyes you will have turned into Pugsley Addams. Sincerely, Crooked Bangs Girl’ which I’m sure would confuse Esteban and also the transient spiders that seem to want to live in our shower (what is up with that?) but if it stops me from taking matters into my own hands again, so be it. Right now, there is hair in my eye, but then a hank of it is sticking a little askew because it’s too short to hang right and has some impressive Mohawk ambitions. It’s good to dream big, I guess.
In other fashion mishaps, last week saw the demise of not one, not two, not three, but four mofo pairs of sunglasses. My Nine Wests lost a lens when the rim cracked, my DKNYs and my Mizrahi for Targets both lost earpieces and my CK’s seem to have committed seppuku, leaving me with one impulse purchase of a bug-eyed pair of Baby Phat’s with rhinestone BP detailing (that left this member of the fashion police to respond ‘Oh honey, you didn’t.’) I am somewhat aghast myself, as it’s like being stranded on a dessert island wearing high-heeled sandals and a velvet ball gown. The BP’s had their time and place, when I felt like being fun, wearing too much lip-gloss and my bedazzled DKNY t-shirt. They were the fashion equivalent of a one-night stand with a punk rock drummer’ great fun while it lasts but not someone you want to go antiquing with on rainy Saturday afternoons. Had I realized that I would be down to one pair in the space of three days, I would have chosen a bit more carefully. And honestly, I am entirely too picky about sunglasses. It takes me months to find a pair that I am happy with. Maybe even years. And they are not just a fashion accessory for me. I have a theory that people with blue eyes are more sensitive to sunlight, or maybe I am part vampire (which would explain the nearly translucent skin during the winter months and the wisps of smoke that waft off my unprotected flesh during the summer when I forget sunscreen), but if it is sunny outside, I need to have something. It is non-negotiable.
After making due with the BP’s giant Zsa Zsa Gabor lenses for a few days, I found myself standing before a cheap sunglass kiosk in the mall. I found a pair that were cute and then decided to load up because my goodness, if my personal version of a sunglass rapture happens again, I don’t want to be stuck trying to drive while looking through a Viewmaster. Watch out for the Tyrannasaurus, Scooby Doo! So now I have three brand spanking new cheap pairs of sunglasses to surround and taunt the Baby Phat’s. There’s a pair of fake Burberrys, a pair of fake Dolce and Gabbana’s and what is clearly becoming a disturbing trend, a big squarish brown pair of fake Chanels. When I wear them I suspect that the resemblance between me and Kim Cattrall is striking. Only that I’m younger and cuter and not a ho.
You would think that I would be happy with this trove, but I will tell you that this is not so. Tomorrow I am trekking to Chicago, where I will go look at oceanic animals and inside-out corpses with Chiara and have martinis with Tobermory and also have a delightful evening of sangria and tapas. Nothing says fun like a weekend with some of the prettiest girls on the internet. And I’ll also be looking for some more sunglasses. Because you just never know, people. You just never know.
