The Time I Got My Haircut (Part 2)

She starts the shampoo routine and seems competent, until the cutting begins. She has trouble gripping the hair and starts cutting off about 1/8^th of 1/8^th of an inch at the time. Amounts so incrementally small that I’m not even sure she was cutting hair. At the 20 minute mark, Buffy nicks herself with the hair razor and has to stop the cut to tend to the open wound on her finger. ( My immediate reaction was not for her safety, but if there was now blood in my hair. That shit does not come out.)

She returns, and now my hair is drying out, but instead of re-spritzing with water, she just keeps cutting dry hair (a no-no). At the 40 minute mark she switches to shears and starts butchering the side of my head with the tips. At one point, I swore that she cut through my skin like it was plastic wrap on Perdue chicken. She takes too much of a sideburn off, cuts the hair unevenly on each side and then considers the work done.

She calls over her supervisor again, who tells her that she missed a bunch of spots and needs to “connect” all the sides and top, after re-wetting my hair. Buffy does not re-wet my hair, instead opting to cut dry. 2 minutes later the supervisor sees that she has not re-wet my hair and scolds her (as I sit her thanking the stars that the supervisor recognized her error). Buffy openly scoffs at having to be told to do something twice and complains to me that she doesn’t get along with the supervisor. I silently plead for her not to take it out on me.

At last, at the 1 hour and 15 minute mark, she finishes, calls over the supervisor, who cleans up some spots and asks me if I’m happy. I say yes, just so I can leave. Buffy walks me to the front counter, where I go to pay (hoping for somewhere between the $10-15 range. The final total: $27. TWENTY SEVEN, which is $2 MORE than I pay for a real haircut from the professional.

I’m not sure why I included a $5 tip on something that was terribly done, but I suppose I felt bad for Buffy (who by the way, looked suspiciously like a post botox Janice Dickinson). But the fact that I gave her written down instructions (there were only 3 steps) and she still battered my head like a red headed stepchild, means that I’m obviously a sap. The lesson here is that you should never ever participate in hair experimentation.

The Time I Got My Haircut (Part 1)

For over 2 years now I have been getting my haircut by one person. I do this for 2 reasons, the first (like anyone else) is because she great work. The second is because one of my greater anxieties in life is trying to explain to the stylist what I want my hair to look like. So when you go to the same person for over 2 years they have a pretty good idea of what exactly you need. We got the process down to a science, and made each appointment less than 30 minutes (depending on if I get a mini facial, of course).

But this had to come to an end, I am moving to Chicago and I needed to grow up, so to speak. Luckily my stylist works for the Aveda branch of salons and theoretically, they all learn the same techniques and can use them. I asked my stylist to tell me exactly what to say (which it turns out, is an incredibly complicated, almost medical sounding system using words like occipital and paretial). Anxieties quelled.

So today I made an appointment at the Aveda Institute (where my stylist TEACHES!), but where students practice cutting hair. I entered to what seemed more like a laboratory than a salon and was quickly confused as there were two front desks (one near the door and one in the middle of the room). I choose the one near the door, and they looked puzzled as to why I was checking in there. So I was sent to the other. As this was happening, a friend of friend saw me, yelled for me to come over and basically confused me to the point of retardation.

I finally recognized her, said hello and went to check in. I sign a form that says (essentially) “THESE ARE STUDENTS, IF WE DESTROY YOUR HAIRCUT, WE ARENT TO BLAME.” I signed, thinking at least this is cheaper and I have instructions, how bad can it be. I was told to wait by the benches (which were hidden). After finally finding the benches, my new stylist (we’ll call her Buffy) came and got me and shook my hand with what seemed to be a limp (possibly artificial) limb. Weakest handshake ever.

She asks what I need and I tell her about my instructions and she immediately cringes and calls a supervisor. The supervisor comes over, looks at the instructions and tells her “you know how to do this.” Buffy’s face says otherwise.

The Time I Had My First Drink (Part 2)

We headed back to my friend’s luxurious studio apartment on the 15^th floor of a high rise in Philadelphia. Which was fun, because I’m deathly afraid of getting stuck in a metal elevator (Sidebar: not a clear one, just the metal deathtraps, where you can’t see where you are in an emergency, and which will surely mean you will die in an enclosed metal coffin.)

With a 6 pack of Smirnoff Ice’s in hand, I was excited to use a bottle opener for the first time in my life. No dice. Twist off cap, but at least I was able to show off my brute strength as I used the bottom of my t-shirt to rough up the bottle cap. I immediately took a swig and everyone was right. This was Sprite. Delicious, alcoholic Sprite. I’m pretty sure I went through Smirnoff Ice 1 in less than 10 minutes, followed by number 2 in another 30. I was starting to feel buzzed, but I didn’t want to get drunk, so I stopped.

Within the hour I felt an insatiable urge to eat meat in hamburger form (another contributing factor could be that we were watching Top Chef) and asked my friend for the closest fast food restaurant. It was 3 blocks away, but she wasn’t sure if it was open, so I called them and they were. We made our way down there, me not being able to walk as accurately as I would have liked to. When we got there, the Wendy’s looked akin to any fast food restaurant in any city. Workers who don’t care, long lines and scary people. I ordered a burger and chicken nuggets (5 pc) and walked away with a burger and chicken nuggets (4 pc). I was quite angered by this. This is probably how Wendy’s makes their money, shorting drunk folks on 1 nugget per order.

We got back to her apartment, ate our food, watched Season 1 Episode 1 of Party Down and then fell asleep. I woke up at 6 AM, so I could save $3 by leaving the Parking deck by 7 am. After paying $16 to be parked for 8 hours, I headed home to NJ, accidentally woke the parents up and told them I had had my first drink, so that they would be the first to know.

The Time I Had My First Drink

Many people will be surprised to read that I had my first drink. After years and years of being stubborn and obnoxious about the people around me drinking, I finally shut up and tried alcohol for the first time. The first taste was absolutely disgusting, it tasted somewhere in between the inside of a metal garbage can on the city street and berries. Wine was not for me.

But let's back track a bit. I had been thinking about drinking for months upon months now, I felt that since I was moving to Chicago, it might help to be more social, and since the only reason I WASNT drinking these days was because I hadn't done it in the past, why not at least take a shot. So a week ago, while hanging out with an old friend, I sipped this garbage can wine.

The next day, another friend (of the ex variety) wanted to have my first full drink with me (at the 3 in the afternoon). I felt since I had imbibed just a sip of alcohol, I had gotten over the no alcohol bridge and was ready to go. So we tried "something I might enjoy", a Woodchuck Amber Cider. It was definitely the closest thing to urine I've ever tasted (without ever really tasting urine.) It was absolutely awful, but I got the whole thing down by myself! I had to meet a friend for dinner, so I stopped at one, and made sure there was an hour on the clock before I had to do anything. Extremely overly cautious wouldn't even be strong enough to describe how I felt about drinking. Would there be anything worse than getting a DUI in the middle of the day, the first time you ever drink? (Other than watching "Teen Mom," of course).

Later that night, I was in Philadelphia with another friend (I was on a friend tour) and we decided to go to a bar (my first drink at a bar!). I had what she had, a Sam Adams summer ale, and it was also terrible. I knew I wouldn't enjoy something cheap like Miller Lite or PBR, but I had seen commercials for Sam Adams that included words like "rich" and "lager" and showed manual laborers in Boston really enjoying it. They are all liars. Beer is gross.

We decided to not waste any more money on things I would not enjoy and she thought I would enjoy Smirnoff Ice. So we waited in line, bought a 6 pack of Smirnoff Ice and headed back to her studio apartment to party.

Part 2 tomorrow.

The Time I Got Some Luggage

Before I even started my massive road trip my long time "suitcase" broke. The suitcase was finely made AthletiTEK, a genuine plastic duffel bag. The zipper came right off and would not go back on and thus the bag had to be put down (I briefly considered using duct tape to seal it off, but decided that airport security might tase me before I even got through the line.)

So I set off to purchase some new luggage, my mother gave me a coupon to Kohl's, but first suggested that we just ship all of my clothes to Chicago because it would be cheaper than buying luggage. I laughed at this, overzealous about my new found coupons and I was sure I could find some luggage for $40.

Apparently in the luggage world, $40 gets you a glorified plastic bag. In fact, the cheapest luggage the store had was $169, and couldn't even fit a small infant inside. After a solid 20 minutes of searching, I decided that TJ Maxx/Marshalls type stores were the way to go. Perhaps, I could get me some luggage that was so ugly real stores couldnt sell it.

Enter, Jessica Simpson.

Apparently Ms. Simpson has forgone any sort of music career to concentrate on the posh world of luggage making. I have to say, she makes some solid luggage with all sorts of compartments. The bag was the cheapest ($50), it was HUGE, and it had separate bags in bags for laundry (the one with the bikini on it) and shoes (the one with the shoes). Hidden compartments galore! (I assume Jessica added this to hide candy from her overbearing father).

The bag seems like the perfect fit for romance novel level needy women. I instantly thought "Red Shoe Diaries." And I had to have it. I'm so proud of it being a Jessica Simpson brand bag, I may not even take off the tags. I might get dressed up to go to the airport, like they did in the 60's, so that I catch people's eye, and then they bear witness to the greatness that is my bag.

Thank you Jessica, for meeting all of my travel needs.