ProudMary

Lunatics Welcome

Two years ago one of the drawbacks of moving here was leaving a perfectly good hairdresser behind in the city.  She was from New Zealand and had hair the color of Kool-Aid, and she was awesome.  I miss her.  In the meantime, I've vacillated between letting my hair sadly slump beyond where it should, sort of bad-70s-school-picture-esque, and infrequent visits to a woman who was very cool and nice, but who, like most hairdressers, wanted nothing more than to give me the dreaded anchor woman hair.  Boring, one-dimensional, bobble-headed ickiness. 

Then last week I gathered the courage to ask someone where they got their hair done.  I hate those sorts of personal questions of strangers, but I had to do it, or start planning trips back to the city every eight weeks, which seemed silly.  There must be good people here too.  Anyway, unfortunately, her excellent cut was from a talented-but-retired hairdresser girlfriend (drat), but she recommended a guy downtown, though I sensed there was a backstory that I wasn't getting.  I went yesterday and I have to say, I don't know if it's moving to bumfucknowhere, or my advancing age, but lately I've really come to enjoy the occasional exposure to complete characters.  This guy didn't stop talking or touching my head until I was back beyond his doors and on the street.  He was unashamedly full of himself, and somehow yet very welcoming and endearing...clearly enjoying himself and it was infective.  And, he executed that fast-action flourish haircutting thing with great skill.  Truly, he really did know what he was doing. It's sort of asymmetrical, edgy, and definitely interesting. 

Though, I have to say that I do sort of wish he hadn't used my head as a discussion tool amongst the various people in the salon.  He was in the heat of talking about what he "does," really taking center stage, when he grabbed the clippers and pressed it to my temple, saying "And we can do THIS!" shearing the hair and leaving an odd, high, severe spot of a bang, and I visibly winced.  The first thing I did when I got home was run to the bathroom and knick that spot up a bit so that I didn't look like backup singer for Bowie.  But other than that, it was all fun and flair and I had a good time.  And I (think I) love my hair.  I just need to let it...um...grow on me.  I can only assume it will.

Little Update

Amazing how a few months can fly, ain't it?  If it's any consolation, I've been unbelievably busy.  Add that to my increasing ambivalence about continuing to write here and ninety days goes by unremarked upon.  But, I'm upset that I've left this thing languish, this running commentary on my life now has a significant puddle, and I'm going to try to make it up.  Plus, I think my vocabulary is declining by the day, and it's scaring me.

So, the most significant event by far has been the arrival of our new and most precious daughter, whom we've named Eve.  She arrived as the tiniest of tiny babies (ok, not really, but to me she was minuscule) at just six pounds, and has been nothing but a delight ever since.  It appears that we once again lucked out with a mellow and charming baby.  She's smiling and beginning to laugh now, which is such a relief, I was starting to think she was a permanently stoic little thing.  I'm still working on the birth story, and I'll post it, or a mercifully abridged version of it, here when I'm done.

The other stuff is just a mishmash of coping with new siblings (Poopies is doing really well with all of it, though his poor over-sucked thumbs may never recover), a seemingly endless stream of customers (we're very busy, and so very tired and looking forward to September), visits from relatives (thank god for the help, particularly since our babysitter was MIA in Germany for the first six weeks) and general readjusting to our new expanded family unit.  I was frankly overwhelmed with it all for the first couple of weeks, but I'm doing better now.  My only wish is that Eve had arrived when we weren't busy, so we could spend a few quiet weeks all getting to know each other.  Instead, it feels like we're doing it in daily five minute increments.

So that's it for now, just stopping in to say hi and how are you.  Time to head out and work in the heat and humidity.  I hate August.