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May 10, 2006
Thickening Hair
I have a lot of hair. The strands themselves are deceptively fine, but, when marshalled together into a ponytail, the resulting diameter is about the size of a golf ball. And, thanks to my mom, it is also very Asian hair: straight, slippery, and stubborn.
All this makes getting my haircut a surefire adventure. In Hawaii, little grandmothers would scoop my hair off of the salon floor and stuff it into plastic bags, excitedly telling me that they were going to make a lot of pin cushions out of the dark brown piles. The first time I had my hair cut on the mainland, the hair dresser almost had a nervous breakdown; no matter how carefully she pinned and snipped, there was a never-ending, tumbling procession of layers. My best mainland haircut came at a Vietnamese-owned salon in Houston, where the head barber snipped delightedly, the blow-dryer took twenty minutes to dry the heavy thatch, and the floor-sweeper discarded four dust bins full of my tresses.
But unlike Noel's hair, which is immediately intimidating, the dread of my locks develops slowly, building to a frightening peak throughout the duration of the haircut.
I sit down in the swiveling chair and begin a mental countdown. Within three seconds of sweeping my hair up and draping me with the black haircutting cape comes the inevitable: "Well you have quite a bit of hair, dontcha?" The tone is confident, touched with something like bemusement. "Yes," I reply evenly, "I do. I have a lot of hair. It probably needs to be thinned and texturized."
It is my warning.
Ten minutes into the haircut, as the hairdresser resorts to using two clips where one would usually suffice, she remarks again, "You sure have a lot of hair." I smile.
Fifteen minutes into the haircut she is tackling my head with her spray bottle. "That's a lot of hair," she says, spritzing energetically. "It's wet on top but dry on the bottom." And then she laughs a little, but with tension.
Twenty-five minutes in, another hair dresser walks past and stares at the shaggy brown stacks on the salon floor. "She has a lot of hair." "Yes," replies my stylist, "she has a lot of hair."
Thirty minutes. The stylist is warning me that "it's still really heavy." I'm not sure what she means since my head feels significantly lighter after shedding four and a half inches. She clarifies: "I mean, you just have so much hair."
By the forty-five minute mark, the cutting is finished and the stylist is using twice the recommended amount of pomade to coax my hair into some semblance of order. "You have a lot of hair," she kindly tells me, "probably enough for four people."
After I pay her, she hands me her card. "You'll need to get this trimmed regularly if you want it to work," she says. "You just have so much hair."
Carefully Dramatized Life Accounts | By elissa | 02:37 PM
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Comments
Yeah, that pretty much sounds exactly like the interaction that happens every time i go to get my hair cut. and then the last line from the hairdresser is "You'll be so thankful for this in 30 years." and I always refrain from saying, "Just make it manageable now, please!!!"
Posted by: brynne at May 10, 2006 04:17 PM
I have to admit my jealousy. Since developing a hypothyroid (fun stuff, let me tell you - there's nothing like being always tired and always cold), my pony tail diameter is slightly larger than that of a sharpie marker. A couple of months ago, one of my students remarked, "Gosh Mrs Rausch, your hair is really thin!" Thaaaaanks.
Posted by: Jeanne Beanne at May 12, 2006 12:41 PM
oh my gosh.
i miss you so much.
i'm coming to see you.
right. stinkin. now.
Posted by: 'shine at May 16, 2006 01:00 AM
regardless of the obesity of your hair, they did a nice job trimming it down.
Posted by: matthew gillikin at May 18, 2006 10:58 AM
