Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Marble Poundcake Mullet, Part 2

If you are new to the blog, I'm sorry.  My mom thinks I'm funny, but she's a functioning alcoholic, and they think everyone is funny.  I'm kidding.  My mom is a meth addict.

I am a low maintenance person.  I don't wear much makeup, or shower every day, or even shave my legs during the coldest winter months.  This makes me sound more "clinically depressed" than "low-maintenance", but really, I would rather get another chapter read in my book than apply makeup.  And I'm married, so the farce is over.

The one thing I do get a little uptight about is my hair.  I'm not even talking about MY maintenance of my hair, I'm talking about the quarterly upkeep of my hair by a paid professional.  Left to my own devices, I would just put my salt and pepper mane into a clip or a ponytail and be done with it, but I have children to embarrass with my need to look younger and listen to their music and throw gang signs at them when I kick them to the curb at middle school in the mornings.

So spring, summer, fall and winter, I fork over about $150 for the ability to convince myself that I look less gray and more tragically hip.  I also have my Frida Kahlo lip waxed so I can walk around town with a swollen pink mustache, convenient when I want people to avoid me.  As I explained in too much detail yesterday, my hair ended up with drastic layers cut into it, with the end result looking like a Marble Poundcake Mullet.  Like Billy Ray Cyrus and Rachel Green from Friends had a baby they didn't like very much.  But how do you tell the sweet gal who just did this to you that you don't like it?  What exactly is she going to to about it?  The hair is gone.  You just think, "It will grow back, and I can wear a wig or some Jessica Simpson hair extensions."

But when Oldest Daughter got home, she called me Two Tone, and that is when I lost my shit.  I called my stylist and asked for a mulligan.  She told me to come in today at 11:30 a.m.

Tell me you see it -
Blondie on the top, Brownie on the bottom.
(And I notice the shower curtain rod is getting rusty.)

It was awkward, and she couldn't have been sweeter about it.  I said, "Hi!  I bet you think I'm completely psychotic!" and she gave me a nice smile and patted my arm and said "Come on back".  We went to the back room where the women are incrementally blonder or redder or caramel-er and everyone talks smack about Dancing With the Stars or That Asshole Jesse James/Tiger Woods or the Hawaii/Florida/Scottsdale/Mexico Trip from which they've just returned.  I read a book called "Stuff White People Like" and thought about my upcoming vacation extravaganza to Dayton, Ohio.

As she foiled my hair, I read my book.  I realized I'd read about 50 pages and she wasn't done.  I started to panic.  Was she going to turn me into Pam Anderson just to make a point?  How angry was she?  How much Reynolds Wrap was going to die because I have an aversion to two-tone hair, Bump-its, and Jersey Shore?  I tried to start talking in apologetic tones about what a pain in the ass I am, and she shushed me, smiling.  Oh no.  This was going to be bad.

As she was rinsing my hair out, I thought, "What do I pay for this?  I've taken up her time.  Do I compensate?  Was it her mistake in the first place, or mine for not saying anything yesterday when I was here?  Was it my turn to drive for orchestra this morning?  I have to get out of here."

I said "Don't blow me out, okay?" and then thought it sounded sexual, and while I don't actually want her to blow me, I don't want her to think I'm rejecting her color AND her sexuality.  "Um, I mean, I don't need it dried, you don't need to style it..." and she looked at me incredulously.  "Really?  You just want to walk out with it wet?"  I didn't want to be a bigger pain than I already was, and if the color was off this time, too bad for me, because another roll of Reynolds Wrap and chemicals would make my hair fall out.  "Yep!  I brought a clip!"  I'm sure she thinks I'm the biggest soccer mom in history - I'm leaving this nice salon and spa, and insisting on walking out with wet hair in a clip.  Fashion Don't.
All day in my fancy clip -
zig zag fuzzy hair, but it's uniform in color!
Vogue Hands automatically give me style.

She fixed my hair, but not my mental issues.  She just smiled and said, "You're done, you can go!" and I said, "Can I at least pay you for a Drive By?" which is actually called a Drive Thru and means you get your color touched up for a low price in between appointments, but she probably really thought I wanted her to drive past my house and shoot at me because I was so clearly freaking out about making her re-do my do.  And I had made it apparent I wasn't one of her "Easy" or "Stable" or "Coherent" clients.  "Nope!  You're fine!"  I left her a $20 tip and the sense she should make herself look booked before my next appointment in July.
But I still have my hot clip, and my mojo.
And you can't take that away from me.

I am also wearing my Jen Lancaster pearls - not an appropriate topic for Whoreticulture Friday, so I'll address which authors I will be stalking next week in Monday's post, and tell you about the THREE e-mails I've received from The Governor of Jennsylvania in the past few months! 

Thanks for your support during this difficult time.  And Mom, I'm sorry.  You are not a meth addict either.  I'm an entertainer, not an historian.



11 comments:

GrandeMocha said...

I don't see that much difference in the colors of the before & after, sorry. My hair grows so fast it needs color every 4 wks.

Why dear God do you have to go to Dayton??? Significant amounts of my family, dead & alive, are there. Not much else. The Air Force Musuem rocks.

I'm dying to hear about Jennsylvania. Love her. She's coming to Detroit in May. I'm taking the day off if I don't get fired first.

GrandeMocha said...

Your blog ate my comments.

GrandeMocha said...

Ok maybe not. It is late & I need to go to bed.

Unknown said...

LoL.....hilarious post and glad to see your color fixed!!!

Brenda said...

Mwahahaha. Hilarious as always!

Wendy Ramer, Author said...

Looking good, and goofy, and cool all at the same time. How DO you do it?!

Julie, The Wife said...

@GrandeMocha - I wouldn't put it past my blog to eat those comments. I'm going to Dayton for the Erma Bombeck writing conference so I can stay in a hotel and tell my family it's for work.

There isn't really much difference in the hair. The bottom two to three inches were a darker brown, and I thought it looked trashy, so now they match. It looked a hell of a lot better when she styled it, though!

Cool, Wendy? I think that's pushing it! But thanks!

Hi Brenda and Erin! Good to see you both!

Brittany said...

This cracked me up - and nice color!

Wendy Ramer, Author said...

Uh...Julie...at our age, "cool" is relative. I think I look my coolest while making weird faces. It freaks my daughter out, so I tell her, "When you're my age, you'll do this too...if you're cool."

Julie, The Wife said...

I'll call you cool if you call me cool.

aleigh said...

I have soooo been in hairsterics before. I feel your pain. But you did the right thing marching back in that salon with your fancy clip. Way-da vogue hands and pink pearls rock it!

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