The Wasteland as Expressed through a Salon and Hairstylists

Ever get the feeling that the person who cuts your hair has stopped seeing you?  I mean, really SEEING you? You've been going to them long enough that they now think of you as an assembly part on the conveyor belt: their eyes are tired, they've been looking at heads of hair all day long, and your hair is just another batch they have to cut?

That's how I start to feel if I don't change things up.  

A few years ago, in college, I went to this chick, let's call her Kimberly (most girls who cut hair have names that end in a long /e/ sound, am I wrong?).  We always exchanged the usual pleasantries.  She told me the names of her kids in the pictures surrounding the mirror at her station.  I pretended to care.  Maybe I did care, I don't know.  It's hard to get attached to a picture.  Pictures tell you nothing about a person, especially posed pictures.  I mean, a picture of someone doing something, like walking along railroad tracks?  That tells you something.  That tells you the person is trite and uncreative—the exact opposite of what they intended the image to express: thoughtfulness and depth, an understanding of the intricacies of transition and the movement of life (the railroad tracks are a metaphor!).  

Anyway, Kimberly was great.  At first.  She listened to the vast and deep desires I had for my hair.  I explained my long prestigious college career with her.  I cracked sarcastic jokes about the vagaries of college towns.  I talked about my misgivings concerning hair and highlights.  She listened with her fist to her chin, nodding at the appropriate times, scissors clenched in her fist (safely) away from her chin, brow furrowed.  I came away looking like a New Woman.  

Two years later, after keeping that relationship with Kimberly and never diverting much from the hair style I'd developed with her, I had a mullet.  I had become Redneck Woman.   

Mullets weren't yet back in—oh they're in now.  I see women everywhere with the old mom Brady do, looking real stylish in their skinny jeans and tattoos.  But that hadn't come into vogue yet.  I got a lot of razzing for my mullet from my chic coworkers before I finally accepted that they were right, I had unintentionally developed a mullet.  

Presently, I have a new hair person and that person is a guy.  Our relationship started out great.  It was almost love at first sight—hairstylist/client love, that is, a variety all its own. Communication regarding hair has now broken down, however, and I have no idea how to veer away from the path we've trod.  When I try to steer him differently, he blinks and says, "Uh hmm, uh hmm," hands poised over my head, scissors ready to lop off two inches here and there until . . .  unintentional mullet.  AGAIN.

I say, "I want this part to be slantier.  Pretend I'm going to wear it straight, not curled [I have naturally curly hair], and then cut it like a pixie."  He feigns understanding, and I sigh inwardly, knowing it's going to look the same way it did the last time, but not the way I long for.  

I love my hair guy, but I see no way to break through this stalemate without hurting his feelings or finding a new stylist.  I start to feel like we're just voices talking through each other, not hearing what the other is saying; our laughter is forced and false; the hug when we meet again is cold, merely a token of friendship intended to mask the reality: that I am just another detached head of hair and he a robot with scissors.  

Change is futile, it seems.  I have learned the hard way, through my relationships with hairstylists.  If you and I should chance to meet after a few years of separation and I still have a mullet, know that I tried to break out of the cycle but the Universe has found a way to trap me in this rut.  Thank you Universe!  Thank you.  

Get Me a Whig or Something

It just dawned on me. All this time I’ve been saying my hairstyle hails from the 80s, but really, I look like an elf. Or a Julia Roberts-Tinkerbell a la Hook. Just give me a green tunic and some earth-toned tights, maybe a bow and arrow (if we’re going with the elf look. I don’t think Tink bore arms, not in the versions I know, anyway), and some pointy ears. Actually, my left ear is already pointy, so I’m half way there! [Insert clever comment about fairy dust.]

Does This Mullet Match My Moustache?

Last night I dreamed that I had a mullet. I tried to cut it, in the dream, while looking in the mirror. Some of the clippings fell onto my face and made a moustache. Great, now I have a moustache. A crappy one, too. A scraggly, sorry excuse for a moustache. Surprisingly, I looked like this man I’ve sometimes seen at my church. Need I say: a redneck man? No, I needn’t.

I had a mullet once, in real life. It happened while I lived in Logan, during my post-graduate work. I kept going back to the same stylist, Stephanie (is that a stereotypical stylist name? I think so. Much like Kimberly, Tiffany or Chrissy), for the same haircut, because that’s the kind of girl I am. I find something I like and because I’m not a prissy girl, I stick with it, too lazy and uncomfortable to branch out. The problem was that Stephanie couldn’t have a real conversation with me as she cut my hair and pay close attention to what she was doing. Never mind the inherent fact that stylists in general can’t have decent conversations, Stephanie was, at the very least, a stylist with whom I didn’t have to resort to the initial banal conversation required to get through a hair cut. She knew enough about me to make it so I didn’t have to engage in the silly pleasantries of a first meeting. And I knew enough pointless information about her.

So we’d talk about her daughters and her ridiculous boyfriend while she snipped the hair around my ears. We’d talk about my pathetic love-life as she took a bit off my ends. And we’d talk about my sorry love-life as she thinned my “layers.” And viola! A mullet. But I couldn’t tell for sure if it was a mullet. At least, not until I got home and styled it myself, which is to say, not styling it (how can I be as beautiful as I am EVEN though I never style my hair or wear make-up? It’s called natural beauty, folks. I have it, yes I do, heh heh heh. Beautiful even with a mullet, but that doesn’t mean I want one). And to be honest, it took a few months before it dawned on me what Stephanie had created through her constant, ignorant snipping.

Now, if I had gone into the salon and asked Stephanie to give me a mullet, I couldn’t blame her. I know that. But if I said “a little off the sides, trim the layers, blah blah blah,” then, isn’t it Stephanie’s responsibility to NOT give me a mullet? And if it’s starting to look like a mullet, doesn’t the burden of telling me that it’s beginning to resemble a mullet rest on her shoulders? I think so.

OR, say Stephanie wants to get rid of me. She’s sick of me as a client. Tired, oh so weary of hearing about my pathetic love life. What’s a stylist to do? A good way to get rid of a client is to casually, slowly give them a mullet. Each month, take off a little here, a little there. The next month, same thing. Gradually, the stylist shapes a mullet and is ultimately blameless. Right? That’s what happened with Stephanie and me. I’m not sure if she was hoping to lose me as a client, but it was inevitable. My friends had started noticing that I had a mullet—or at least, they didn’t protest when I joked about my mullet, and silence is a form of consent. And what can you do at that point? Change your stylist? I’m sure as hell not going to tell Stephanie that she needs to do something different—I have a mullet for pete’s sake! So I went to Derek, the male stylist who wanted to date me. Date my stylist? A bear’s ass!

Anyway, thankfully I no longer have a mullet, but maybe it’s time for a haircut.