Where do good hairdressers live? On another planet? I go to the hairdresser's every second YEAR. I don't have time to go there, I don't feel like it, I can't be bothered to go through the hassle all the time. But every once in a while, like now, when my hair gets to 2 meters, I have to go and ask for the impossible: layered with bangs. What is so hard to understand? I went to the hairdresser's today, a new guy in town. Everybody is like "Oh my God! Did you know that he could have been a world famous professional but he didn't want to leave Komló?", and I'm thinking, okay there is something seriously wrong with this dude to begin with, if he doesn't want to leave Komló but anyway let's give the rumors some credit and arrange for my hair to be cut.
I woke up in the morning, at 10. I washed my hair because it was in an ungodly state and I want to be nice at my first appointment with the new guy, right? I pull on my most alternative clothes, PURPLE chucks, leggings, a dress with psychedelic artwork on it, my grey sweater that has a crampon pattern with my mother's brooch and a Palestinian scarf, so that he can get the idea about my style, and I leave for the bus stop. Something bad is creeping on me mentally. I feel too good. I don't feel good about myself at all most of the time. The bus rolls into the stop and I look at my reflection in the window. I look fabulous. Like someone out of a fashion magazine with my huge waterfall of hair billowing behind me like some flag or whatever. I get on the bus. By the time I'm in downtown I'm hysterically clutching at my hair, it's long, it's thick, it's everything any other normal human being is dreaming about and I'm going to cut it. It almost feels like self-mutilation.
Anyway, I get there, describe my second thoughts about cutting my hair but expressing my intention to go through with it anyway because it did some good way back when I went to the hairdresser's 3, or was it 4, years ago. Then I say the magic words: LAYERED WITH BANGS. Needless to say in the end I didn't get ANY bangs. There's not even a part of my hair at the front that is shorter than any other part. Actually I laugh when I think about it now because it's so absurd it's ridiculous. Oh and I only got one layer. Wow. That's really layered. He also blow dried it in a way when your hair gets all bouncy and your head looks like it's 3 times bigger than it really is and you turn your neck 1.8 centimeters to the side and you can feel it bouncing. Bouncing. Around your head. So in the end I look like some chit off the road where the Desperate Housewives live. I was wearing purple shoes! And a bag made of green leatherette! A neat, bouncy housewife style is just what I was aiming for. Right.
But why is it that you can NEVER tell the hairdresser that something is wrong? Why can't you be all cool and composed and go "No way man. It looks like shit. Redo the thing. This is so not gonna happen. Got it?" No. Ha ha. No. You smile, you try to be really nice, and it's not because on the inside you are screaming and breaking things and stabbing knives into faceless forms. No, that comes later. It's because you are confused. You don't know what is happening at all because you never know when they are done and when the very last finishing touches take place, and you don't want to be rude and kind of hope that he's going to jump at you with a scissor and cut you the best bangs ever made while you're handing the money over. It doesn't happen. You pay the money, keep on smiling and you even THANK the person for dooming you to another 2 to 4 years of self loathing and ridicule. And you also lost a meter of hair and you didn't even get any bangs in exchange. You only realize what you just did and what has been done to you when you close the door behind you and it all rushes back to you and then come the things that happen on the inside. It is not fair, I tell you.
I leave. Thankfully it's a quiet neighbourhood so no one witnesses when at first I start laughing hysterically. I mean, hey! I look like a Desperate Housewife! How hilarious is that? Then I feel there's something wrong with my breathing, maybe it's just that I'm laughing the laugh of someone who just doesn't believe *it*. No. I'm hyperventilating and I still don't know if I should laugh or cry but I guess hyperventilating already decided for me. I caught a glimpse of myself in another window and now I almost feel sick. I'm wearing Janis Joplin's clothes but I went to Jackie Kennedy's hairdresser. Where could it have gone so horribly wrong?
I try to find a hidden place and a bench because in the beginning I imagined myself with my new alternative hair in a park in the midst of falling autumn leaves reading High Fidelity and listening to Thommy, my iPod. I make a few phone calls first, freaking out during the explanations of my absolutely fucked hair. Then I tie it in a ponytail. A ponytail. Have you seen me wearing any other hairstyle in class other than a ponytail? A ponytail is what I was trying to avoid from the beginning.
I switch on Thommy and put on some Cat Power but somehow even her voice is not as raw as it is on any other day. I mumble "Come on Cat, what's gotten into you today, too?" to myself and forcefully press down on the 'volume up' button and a moment later I note with satisfaction that my ears are close to bleeding. I take out the book but can't really concentrate on it, fortunately I've seen the movie so many times that I know the dialogues by heart and am vaguely aware of what is happening. The bench is entirely uncomfortable and the wind is starting to pick up. At one point it pushes a bunch of leaves into my face and clunks me on the head with a chestnut but I just can't take a hint, can I? I always have the urge to finish the chapter I'm in and I can't leave without doing so. I look at my cigarettes, all lined up in their box like soldiers, waiting to be sent out on a mission and their comrades under my feet who already did their job of putting another nail into my coffin and decide to go home.
I already know what will happen. My mother will not try to console me at all. She'll get mad at the guy because he got it all wrong and me because I was unable to explain what I wanted or tell him this isn't what I wanted at all, AGAIN. I can't wait for one of my friends to turn out to be a hairdresser. Because I'm starting to realize that's my only hope. Until then I have some 're-decorating' to do with a paper scissor and my mirror...
At least the weather was really nice.
I woke up in the morning, at 10. I washed my hair because it was in an ungodly state and I want to be nice at my first appointment with the new guy, right? I pull on my most alternative clothes, PURPLE chucks, leggings, a dress with psychedelic artwork on it, my grey sweater that has a crampon pattern with my mother's brooch and a Palestinian scarf, so that he can get the idea about my style, and I leave for the bus stop. Something bad is creeping on me mentally. I feel too good. I don't feel good about myself at all most of the time. The bus rolls into the stop and I look at my reflection in the window. I look fabulous. Like someone out of a fashion magazine with my huge waterfall of hair billowing behind me like some flag or whatever. I get on the bus. By the time I'm in downtown I'm hysterically clutching at my hair, it's long, it's thick, it's everything any other normal human being is dreaming about and I'm going to cut it. It almost feels like self-mutilation.
Anyway, I get there, describe my second thoughts about cutting my hair but expressing my intention to go through with it anyway because it did some good way back when I went to the hairdresser's 3, or was it 4, years ago. Then I say the magic words: LAYERED WITH BANGS. Needless to say in the end I didn't get ANY bangs. There's not even a part of my hair at the front that is shorter than any other part. Actually I laugh when I think about it now because it's so absurd it's ridiculous. Oh and I only got one layer. Wow. That's really layered. He also blow dried it in a way when your hair gets all bouncy and your head looks like it's 3 times bigger than it really is and you turn your neck 1.8 centimeters to the side and you can feel it bouncing. Bouncing. Around your head. So in the end I look like some chit off the road where the Desperate Housewives live. I was wearing purple shoes! And a bag made of green leatherette! A neat, bouncy housewife style is just what I was aiming for. Right.
But why is it that you can NEVER tell the hairdresser that something is wrong? Why can't you be all cool and composed and go "No way man. It looks like shit. Redo the thing. This is so not gonna happen. Got it?" No. Ha ha. No. You smile, you try to be really nice, and it's not because on the inside you are screaming and breaking things and stabbing knives into faceless forms. No, that comes later. It's because you are confused. You don't know what is happening at all because you never know when they are done and when the very last finishing touches take place, and you don't want to be rude and kind of hope that he's going to jump at you with a scissor and cut you the best bangs ever made while you're handing the money over. It doesn't happen. You pay the money, keep on smiling and you even THANK the person for dooming you to another 2 to 4 years of self loathing and ridicule. And you also lost a meter of hair and you didn't even get any bangs in exchange. You only realize what you just did and what has been done to you when you close the door behind you and it all rushes back to you and then come the things that happen on the inside. It is not fair, I tell you.
I leave. Thankfully it's a quiet neighbourhood so no one witnesses when at first I start laughing hysterically. I mean, hey! I look like a Desperate Housewife! How hilarious is that? Then I feel there's something wrong with my breathing, maybe it's just that I'm laughing the laugh of someone who just doesn't believe *it*. No. I'm hyperventilating and I still don't know if I should laugh or cry but I guess hyperventilating already decided for me. I caught a glimpse of myself in another window and now I almost feel sick. I'm wearing Janis Joplin's clothes but I went to Jackie Kennedy's hairdresser. Where could it have gone so horribly wrong?
I try to find a hidden place and a bench because in the beginning I imagined myself with my new alternative hair in a park in the midst of falling autumn leaves reading High Fidelity and listening to Thommy, my iPod. I make a few phone calls first, freaking out during the explanations of my absolutely fucked hair. Then I tie it in a ponytail. A ponytail. Have you seen me wearing any other hairstyle in class other than a ponytail? A ponytail is what I was trying to avoid from the beginning.
I switch on Thommy and put on some Cat Power but somehow even her voice is not as raw as it is on any other day. I mumble "Come on Cat, what's gotten into you today, too?" to myself and forcefully press down on the 'volume up' button and a moment later I note with satisfaction that my ears are close to bleeding. I take out the book but can't really concentrate on it, fortunately I've seen the movie so many times that I know the dialogues by heart and am vaguely aware of what is happening. The bench is entirely uncomfortable and the wind is starting to pick up. At one point it pushes a bunch of leaves into my face and clunks me on the head with a chestnut but I just can't take a hint, can I? I always have the urge to finish the chapter I'm in and I can't leave without doing so. I look at my cigarettes, all lined up in their box like soldiers, waiting to be sent out on a mission and their comrades under my feet who already did their job of putting another nail into my coffin and decide to go home.
I already know what will happen. My mother will not try to console me at all. She'll get mad at the guy because he got it all wrong and me because I was unable to explain what I wanted or tell him this isn't what I wanted at all, AGAIN. I can't wait for one of my friends to turn out to be a hairdresser. Because I'm starting to realize that's my only hope. Until then I have some 're-decorating' to do with a paper scissor and my mirror...
At least the weather was really nice.
7 comments:
No title yet for this hilarious piece? If I can suggest one:
Jackie Kennedy's Hairdresser
sure :)
Do you know David Sedaris? I think you may enjoy his style. He is a New Yorker columnist and author of several collections of short stories, most autobiographical.
Woooow, szoszo, congratulations. That's an extraordinary piece. And let me express my absolute sympathy (oh, no, not with the devil, ha-ha, but with you): I have not met a good hairdresser either. At least not one that actually "performs" what you are asking for. And you are perfectly right about the "bouncy" drying................. it happens all the time... :(
Szoszo, it was hilarious! :D Really-really great! hehe... :D
The story wasn't really catchy for my taste, but the text was eloquent with nice metaphores.
omg i LOVE this one!
ps: i don't really like going to hairdresser's either. It never comes out the way i want it ;)
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