Jeri Smith-Ready

Two roads diverged in a salon

Yesterday I went to the hairdresser for the first time since (checking date of best friend's wedding...) July 2004. I normally cut and color it at home, and it being huge and curly, it's pretty forgiving. Any mistakes sort of blend in. But with the big convention coming up next week, I decided to take the plunge and get (DUHN duhn duhn...) highlights.

OK, pretend you care for a sec.

My previous stylist, Dave, the one I'd been seeing since 1995, was long gone, either into the Witness Protection Program or some salon in Mt. Washington, no one was sure. Coincidentally, I'd just gotten a $10 gift card for the local Regis salon.

(Note to vendors: I cannot resist a gift card. If you send me a gift card for a turret lathe, I'll buy one. I don't even know what a turret lathe is, but I'll find a use for it, if I can get ten bucks off.)

So I took a chance and headed to Regis, where I spent four hours, which is approximately twelve times longer than I spent in the dentist's chair last month.

The end result? Wow. Gulp. It's...different. Dramatic. I'm not in Kansas anymore. Or if I am, my hair has left and gone to Vegas.

(Still pretending you care? Good job!)

Keeping my basic dark brown (which may or may not be my actual hair color--it's been so long I can't remember what that really is), I had them add chunky burgundy highlights, giving me a quasi-Goth-y look that I am, frankly, way too old for. (Luckily I appear a lot younger than I really am, so who cares?) Then she layered it and straightened it with a flat iron.

Walking down the mall hallway later, I passed myself in a mirror. With my long black coat, long straight taillight-red hair, I no longer looked cute. I looked cool. Kinda tough.

At the salon, the next chair held a woman with an elementary school-age daughter. She might have been my age (the woman, not the daughter), but her choice couldn't have been more different. She went with a straight, shoulder-length cut and kept her dull, ash-brown/blonde color. I guarantee her husband did not have the same reaction to her day at the salon as mine did.

Like I said, we might have been the same age, but in contrast to my arrested development, she was contentedly settling into her middle years. I didn't know whether to pity or envy her. In two decades, will she be the graceful grandma, bouncing babies on her knees while I, the pathetic aging Goth hag, will still be squeezing my pudges into junior wear?

Maybe it doesn't matter, as long as we're both happy in our skins right now.

A-Z Update: "Darshan" by B21

Labels: life

• posted by Jeri @ 8:44 AM
• 3 comments