1:40 p.m. - 2005-05-28
My hehrkehht, the bar, some darts, and a dream
Okay, so on Thursday I did get my hair trimmed, and I love it. It's just a skosh different, but the difference made a big difference to me. If you're not incredibly picky about how your hair is cut, I highly recommend going to a haircutting school. It's cheaper, the student really pays attention to what you say, and everything has to be run by a teacher first. Big plus: people spending about an hour and a half playing with my hair just to do about 15 minutes of work. Awesome.
There were a couple of drawbacks to my experience, but I'm still going back there when my hair grows out. I think these were mostly unique to my visit.
Apparently, there's a big risk of overcutting involved. This is why I say "if you're not incredibly picky," since I honestly have about 4 inches of leeway before I start getting nervous. I mean, I'm the girl who cut her waist-length hair behind her own back without looking at it for 7 years, and I still got rave reviews. It curls back up, so no one was ever the wiser. The girl who cut my hair, Casey, seemed worried that she was cutting too much off, but I assured her that as long as it was well below my shoulders when it dried, I'd be happy.
My hair is so long that Casey made me stand up so she could cut it. I *HATE* that. It totally breaks me out of the people-are-playing-with-my-hair reverie, and it's uncomfortable because everyone else starts staring at the chick who has to stand to get her hair cut. She let me sit down while she evened everything out and cut around the front, and lucky for her, I really liked how that part turned out. She's forgiven, but just this once.
The teacher wanted Casey to cut my hair dry, but ultimately left the decision up to me. I told her that I'd skipped washing my hair that day for the sole purpose of getting my hair washed there, and that it seemed unholy to get your hair cut dry. The teacher knew a whole lot about everything, and said that some of her friends were stylists in New York and L.A., and some of them absolutely refuse to cut curly hair when it's wet. I understand that it makes it easier to judge where you're cutting it to, but I've cut my hair dry before, and it seems to get split ends a lot faster when I do. I opted for the shampoo.
I got to listen to Casey talking to her friends for a while, and I tell you, if my hair hadn't turned out fabu, I would have stabbed her in the throat right there. Every single clause or sentence she uttered had the same inflection pattern, almost like a microwave on defrost, and she had that habit of trailing off the last syllable for an extra beat, and of changing almost every vowel to an "eh". Observate:
Casey:
Hey, ROBehhhhn,
I forgot to TELL youuuu...
I FOUND someone to pay my TEHCKehhht! [ticket]
Yehhh. [shutup, Darren]
Robyn:
Oh, really?
Casey:
It was Ro-o-ob.
[pause] He LOVES mehhh.
Yehhh. He really DO-O-ES.
And it was only senny-sex DOLLarrrrs.
I'm gonna tell my Mo-o-om
I got a TEHCKehhht for lake a hundred DOLLarrrrs
and keep the DIFF-rehhhnce if she HELPS mehhhh.
[to me] Your hair is so PRETTehhh.
I'm going to keep all these CUTTENNNNGS
and lake glue them to my HEEEEEEAD.
Yehhh.
At one point, the teacher asked me about my family, if curly hair runs in the family, and I told her yes, and explained how my sister's hair is way curlier than mine, but that she has it straightened and it looks gorgeous. Casey's response to that: "RULLEH?"
Then afterwards, she asked what I usually use to style my hair. I said mousse. Lots of mousse. I mean, lots. Astounding amounts of mousse. So Casey got a big handful of mousse and started putting it on my hair. It was much more than a hairdresser usually uses on me, and even the teacher kind of made a face like she was supposed to pace herself or something, but then I realized that was all the mousse I was getting. I said, "If that's all the mousse you use, then I'll have to go home and wet my hair again just so I can put the right amount in."
Casey handed me the can, and I was like, "FSSSSH! [scrunch} FSSSSHHH! [scrunchscrunch] FSSSH! [scrunch]" while she resumed her conversation with Robyn. A few seconds later, she told me, "You should totally use the whole KEHHHN [can]. I would."
I did feel bad for using so much professional-grade mousse, but Casey was cool for letting me mousse up my own head, and she did a great job, so I gave her a good tip and bought a can of the mousse for myself. It's a little crunchy when it dries, but it smells terrific.
Annoying and grating as Casey's voice was, I was very happy with the way my hair turned out, and hey - if she's got the talent, English will come later.
Afterwards, I headed over to the bar to begin drinking in the name of breast cancer research. I started out with amaretto sours, which are really good, but the funniest thing happens when I drink them: I get a little tipsy after the first two, then I start getting more and more sober. Not that I'd automatically trust myself to drive or perform brain surgery; I'm just saying, no buzz. Buzzless after about the third amaretto sour. This has happened before. When Darren showed up, I switched to Jack & Coke, which packs a much nicer punch (and yet, tastes less like punch than the amaretto sours).
Not a whole heck of a lot of people showed up, but I'm pretty sure Susie made over $100. It was $5 at the door, and $1.00 each for a slice of incredibly old pizza (drunk people will eat anything, though), a chocolate-frosted brownie, or 3 chocolate-covered strawberries. Some of us played cornhole, some sat around, some played pool, and when Darren showed up, he and I played darts.
A worthy opponent he is, but no match for a tipsy Kristen. It made me want to find my old dartboard and put it up, but there's nowhere to put it - the old apartment had brick walls, but this one just has plaster. I was so surprised at how well I did (using those plastic darts, too, not the real ones with the pointy bits) that I started calling my shots. That seemed to mildly annoy Darren, but that was fine, since I was drunk and doing really well.
And so I throw down the gauntlet: should I ever meet up with any of my dear readers, we will play darts! I promise, I'm not a sore loser, but I can be a little obnoxious if I win. Just a smidge, though.
I had a dream last night that Darren and I were in an old house. We went to the grocery store, where I found a bird that I liked. I put it in my mouth so we could get it home safely. When we got home, I couldn't find it - it wasn't in my mouth, and it hadn't flown out. I was afraid I'd swallowed it, but I didn't think I had. I did find a different bird, though, while I was looking at my open mouth in the mirror. It was one I'd forgotten about from the week before. I let it walk out of my mouth and fed it a Ritz cracker. It seemed happy to see me.
Later, I was feeling playful and started hiding from Darren. I ran downstairs and found a secret room. There was a mirror in there, and when I looked in the mirror, there was half a fly buzzing around my head. When I looked away, the fly was gone, and when I looked back in the mirror, it came back. Then I heard Darren coming to look for me so I turned off the light and ran out of that room, into a crawlspace between the walls, up some stairs and back into a regular hallway. Darren either knew about the secret room and crawlspace or could hear me running around, because he caught up with me right after I stepped into the hallway. DANG.
Then I woke up.
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