The End Of Hair (Promise)

So here's what my $60 different-but-not-too-different haircut looks like:



The pics are kinda crap; however, I hate flash & am too damned exhausted to get my tripod & use more suitable settings. If I have time, I'll take some shots in the daylight & replace, but I wanted to document it before I pass out & ruin that fresh-from-the-hairdresser loveliness. Basically, Scott "textured" it (which seems to mean subtle layers), cut it short in the back, started to angle the front, & then did that fringe-y side bang action (which I LOVE). It's not colored...yet...though I may actually skip that for now. I think the style is rather well-suited to my natural color.

I love the salon, I love my hairdresser, I love the cut, although we're gonna grow it out a bit over the next few months. What really sealed the deal, however, was that afterward I was strolling down Hawthorne, rockin' my new hair, when a random cute girl smiled at me & said "You look great!" as we passed each other on the sidewalk. How often does that happen? Unless I've been missing out on a world of strangers haphazardly handing out compliments to each other with no ulterior motive.

And, y'know, it was true. I did look great. The ensemble overall was nicely put together if I do say so myself, but the hair was definitely the buttercream on the genoise.

You're A Silly Little Goose

1. Song of the week: Caetano Veloso's lovely rendition of Irving Berlin's "Let's Face the Music & Dance", as performed at his 1997 tribute concert to Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina. Download here.

2. I've turned into a buy-local organic/natural hippie freak in the past three weeks. Luckily, I happen to live in the most perfect place in the world to be a buy-local organic/natural hippie freak. My quest to fulfill this unexpected destiny recently led me to the Alima Cosmetics website. It's a Portland-based natural mineral make-up company. But the best part? They sell samples of all their cosmetics online, so you can try them out before you commit to dropping $8-$18 for full-size jars. Oh yeah. They're a buck to a buck-fitty a pop & shipping's under $5. I ordered 19 different samples of foundations, powders, eye shadows, eyeliners, & lip balms yesterday afternoon - & they shipped this morning! Check it out. I'll update once I've had a chance to give 'em a whirl.

3. Hair - I finally made an appointment here to get a cut'n'color from him, on Friday at three. Which is apparently going to cost me at least $125. Plus tip, I presume. I am alternately horrified & amused that I am prepared to throw that much money at my freakin' hair. Also, I'm curious to see what Mr. Kane suggests, considering the overall strictness of my prerequisites: 1) absolutely no shorter, 2) not too much longer, 3) not radically different & 4) ease of styling & maintenance - my patience level for the amount of time I'm willing to spend on the rituals of girl-ness tends more toward deficit than surfeit. I've got about a five-minute attention span for that shit.

4. A friend & I are planning to go to Mexico to wander Mayan & Aztec ruins. Well, the ruins are my plan, anyway. And to get some tasty, tasty food. Mmm. Anybody wanna come? It's going to take me a little while to brush up on completely re-learn my Spanish & do some decent historical & cultural research (you know me, I can't just go somewhere without reading about it like a fiend &, if applicable, teaching myself how to botch the language). So I'm thinking of going sometime in the upcoming 12 months. Most likely during next fall/winter, for the warm sunny escape factor. Tickets look super-cheap into Mexico City - about $350 round-trip from PDX, anyway, so this international trip might actually happen. EDIT: Apparently Powell's entire stock of books on Mexican & Mesoamerican histories is on sale; this evening last, for $9 each, I picked up Mexico: Volume 1, From the Beginning to the Spanish Conquest by Alan Knight; Mexico: Biography of Power by Enrique Krauze; & A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya by Linda Schele & David Freidel. They all look like nice solid texts, so I'm pretty excited to read them. It barely begins to cover what I want to know; but it's a start. Project!

5. Ooh, Lars von Trier's The Kingdom 2 is FINALLY out on DVD! No joke, I just about ran out & bought a VCR last year for the sole purpose of renting my video store's bootleg VHS copy of this. Only it's been so long since I've seen part the first that I'm not sure whether I really liked it enough to warrant my severe excitement or whether it's the unattainability of the thing that's made me so hot to trot for it all these years. Eh, who cares.



6. Speaking of hot to trot, my girlfriend's coming back to town on 23 February! Sweet. It feels like only yesterday, or possibly late October 2007, that she was gazing at me & touching my arm. I can't wait.

Jumping The Shark

So, my hair has been pretty much the same for six years. At least as far as length goes - I've worn it straight, curly (my hair is the follicular equivalent of ambidextrous), blond, brown & a brief ill-advised auburn. The bangs were added for a Halloween costume in, I think, '04 & I decided to keep them, even though my then-boss told me I looked like Donna Reed. I could never figure out if he meant that in a good way or a bad hausfrau way, but I was pleased with 'em in any case.

Regardless, my first inkling that perhaps it was time to say goodbye to the predominant hairstyle of my 20s (new life-decade, new hair, etc.) came when I recently watched the Wong Kar-Wai, or Kar-Wai Wong, or whatevs, film Fallen Angels. And totally coveted the lead actress' hair.


So hot, right? It looks even better when she moves. She also inspired me to get all dolled up & clean my apartment in red fishnets. Seriously, how could she not - this is what she wears to clean up after her hitman cohort:


Cleaning & hosiery & fantastic hair. Does it get any better?

Moving past my own odd proclivities, obviously there is no way I could pull that hairstyle off. Besides, I don't really want long hair again. I like it short, & that's the problem with new hair - I don't want it any shorter than it already is, but I don't want it much longer either. Plus, I want to keep the bangs, because my forehead is ginormous.

Here's the thing. I never thought I would be in this situation, ever. But today I saw a celebrity's hairstyle & I actually thought, I bet that would look really great on me:


It's exactly what I'm looking for - something different, but not radically so. Longer but not long. And, bangs!

I want an opinion, because I am not going to march into Bishops, with their complimentary beer & their waiting area pornography, with a picture of fucking Katie Holmes, & tell them that I want my hair to look like that, unless it's gonna turn out fabulously. So whaddya think - am I smoking crack, or could this be teh awesome? It looks cute in back too:


Also, I did some research, & I'm not going to Bishops, so no tattooed pierced hipsters can mock me for getting Katie Holmes' haircut. I read really great reviews of this place that's right next to my neighborhood watering hole (Side St. Bar 4ever!) called Propaganda the Salon. Having received one haircut from somebody who was not me in the past 15 years, it feels like a waste of money. But I don't think I can do this one at home. And shit, you know, I think I might even get it colored. Look out!

Y'know, for the record, I wouldn't be a boy for all the vanilla beans in the world.