I had the hairs on my head cut on Saturday. The last time I got them cut was last November, a week or two before Thanksgiving. So, it's been a while since I've seen my entire ear without having to brush my hair back.
I waited this long because I can't find a barber in this town that doesn't charge less than fifteen dollars. Let's see, I only want my hair cut. I don't want any sort of styling. I don't want any "product" put in my hair. I just want the clippers to buzz away some of the excess on the sides and in the back and the scissors to trim down the top and front. Oh, I'd also like it to be fairly even so I don't look anymore lopsided than I normally do. (Most of the time, I don't care what the hair looks like because in a week, it'll look totally different.) Usually, if the person cutting my hair doesn't try to hard to chat with me, the hair cut takes between fifteen and twenty minutes from the time I sit my butt in the seat to when I'm through paying for the cut and my time is usually on the lower side of that scale. That means, if people take that amount of time on average, these barbers are expecting to be paid between $45-$60 dollars an hour, plus tip. It seems like too much money for me to spend.
Recently, my hair's been driving me nuts. The weather has been warmer and that leads to misery. Especially during nights when there's no breeze through the window and the oscillating fan only blows warm air at me. The worst thing, and the weirdest, that happens to me with long hair is getting it caught in the magnets when I snap on my sunglasses without realizing it and I push up my glasses and my hair gets pulled. Long hair is just annoying to me.
I think that this is the longest I've ever had it, too. If I pulled the front part down, it came to my chin. The side part covered my whole ear, including the lobe. And I have pretty big ears. I don't really know how long it got in the back because once my hair gets long enough it starts to do this weird curl thing, like it's trying to grow toward the sun.
In the end, mostly because of my growing frustration, I went to the SuperCuts. Yeah, I know the jokes, but it's close to where I live, just a walk away. The rest of the barber shops, the places that aren't full of "stylists," are all a drive away. Plus, on weekends at least, they have a very small window to go in. From 11-2? How many people do you really expect to get through in 3 hours?
An odd thing happened during my hair cut, the woman doing it decided to keep a chunk my hair for a project she had to do for work, or whatever. She said it was the perfect color. Then she kept a second chunk. And she took a third after a little more buzzing. I felt flattered at first. Then I felt confused. And finally, I felt a little creeped out. Well, once it's off my head, it's not my concern, but she paused in her trimming a few times to finger the hair she had set aside or to take a long look at the hair on the floor. Part of me want's to know what she was thinking when she did that. Most of me is glad that I got out of there with my head firmly planted on my shoulders.
This morning, I walked into work with my hair way shorter than it's been in a long time. The first thing I heard after I said good morning to the two ladies was, "You got your hair cut?" "Yeah," I said. "It looks good." I rolled my eyes and sat down. (I've complained about your-hair-looks-good compliments in this post.) I think I've heard "Your hair looks good." or some variation of the sentence twenty times today. It's driving me nuts.
I don't take compliments well. I never have. I don't require my ego to be stroked by people. I especially have a hard time accepting compliments that have to do with the way I look. See, I exactly have a positive view of the way I look. It's not so negative that I'm working toward surgery; it's just that I know that I don't fall into any kind definition of handsome at all. I look the way I look. I'm fat and wear glasses. I'm not so vain that I think I looked any better before I got my glasses and therefore should be looking into contact lenses. And then there's the fact that, quite often, people notice something about the way you look and without even thinking they tell you that you look good with the change and that makes the compliment meaningless.
How do I know the compliments are usually meaningless? Well, at least today and in the story in that link, one person says the haircut looks good and without even looking someone else says, "Yeah it does." Obviously, I'm supposed to be so caught up in the first compliment that I'm not supposed to notice that the second person hasn't even looked at me. At least look and pretend to take a second to decide whether or not you like it. I'd rather hear nothing at all about some change I made in my appearance than just have meaningless compliments thrown my way.
At least, when someone on writes a compliment about a blog post, I can expect that the person has actually read the post and thought about what to say before writing a comment and that actually makes the compliment meaningful.
In other news, last Friday was the fifth, I think, anniversary since Johnny Logic and Heels were married at her parents house. Congratulations you two.
I think it's funny that it's so recognized that tomorrow is the birthday of the United States. Personally, I think the real birthday of the United States is September 17, but that's just me.
1 comment:
I gave her a tip. I hope that means I'm safe from the vodoo doll thing.
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