beauty school

I need to go to Beauty School. I have no interest in cutting hair, styling hair, and certainly I could do without washing other people’s hair. But I need to go. If for nothing else, I need to learn to use the blow dryer.

My stylist can blow out all these kicky styles with just a flick of the wrist. She uses the barrel of the dryer like a second hand, somehow hoisting and holding the hair while she brushes the underside. She parts my hair quickly with the left hand and the right hand – holding the blow dryer – is already up and under and smoothing it out. It’s a thing of beauty.

Myself, I can only create frizz. And static. And sweat. After blow drying my hair, I often look like I was in a fight in the jungle and I have lost miserably. Sweat droplets are running down the small of my back. I am out of breath. My face is read and blotchy. And my hair is a frizzball with kinky little pieces reaching to the heavens, that catch the light to accentuate my failure of a hairstyle. No amount of conditioner, crème, gel, or tonic can redeem this … abomination of hairstyling. And you can bet your ass that if I have just spent 30 minutes melting the bristles of my hairbrush and my deodorant is working over time, I sure as hell am NOT going to pull that shit back in a ponytail. Nuh uh.

I probably couldn’t be admitted to Beauty School. They’d review my transcript and scoff. I can see them sitting, the panel of stylist judges. Vidal Sassoon, Paul Mitchell, Toni & Guy will both be there, even Augusten Burroughs will make a surprise appearance. They’ll look at my History of Hairstyling, and question me line by line.

“Is it true that you once left on a hair dye so long that it literally turned into actual petroleum jelly?”
“Yes, sir, but… well I was trying to achieve a lighter blonde and I thought…”
“You’re a natural dark brunette, are you not?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“I think I have heard enough, thank you.”

“Is it also true that you routinely bleach your own hair – to horrific shades of golden orange and blonde?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“And again, for the record, your natural hair is dark brown?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you attempt home lightening?”
“Yes… yes, I do.”

“The ten shades of red currently on your head – are any of those natural?”
“Maybe, I mean, I don’t know. I have certainly dyed my hair this color, but it might be near to a natural color -- stop laughing! –- because I used to get these -– I mean it, stop laughing!! –- auburn highlights from the sun. And anyway, I don’t want your permission to color other peoples’ hair – I just want to learn to blow dry.”
“But you have colored other peoples’ hair, haven’t you?”
“Well, yes…”
“I see here, “ he says, flipping through the documents, “a bleach-out job done to a certain David Walters. And after achieving a white blonde color, you then applied hot pink color to the head in a leopard pattern?”
“Yes. I did that. But please… about the blow dryer, you see…”

Augusten Burroughs adjusts his ballcap and leans in, across the high oak desk, “Yes, yes… about the blow drying.”
“Thank you, sir –“
“- no ‘sir’ is necessary. I see here that you like to hold the dryer just inches from your hair. And that, on occasion, you burn your own hands – is that accurate?”
“Well, yes, I suppose…”
“…and that last year when you were still wreaking havoc on that bleached out highlight across the crown of your head, that you actually used the dryer so close to your head that your hair melted?”
“It didn’t melt, exactly… I mean, the heat was… I was…. Well, there was a swatch of hair that sort of singed and then stuck together.”
“And when you attempted to brush the hairs apart, what happened?”
“The section broke and fell off. About 3 inches from my scalp is where it broke off.”
“And I see here that the section of hair was approximately 3 inches wide? And was not at the time disguised with other layers cut into the hair?”
“Yes, but… wait, aren’t you the one who used conditioner to –“
“- I think we’re done here.”

invasion

I realize that in my life I have absolutely no privacy. I work in a building with 3,000 other people. Just inches away from the person at the desk next to mine. When I pee, there are always someone else's feet in the stall next to me.

I live with 2 men and 2 cats, and I don't know which is worse. 2 poop in the toilet and the other 2 insist on watching me bathe and rolls their eyes when I fart. If I close the bedroom door, it pops open every 20 minutes with questions "where's the hammer?" "how do you say backyard in Spanish?" "did you know the Daily Show is on?" "are you still reading?" "don't you know we're starving and only you have thumbs to open the cans of food??" There is no such thing as a closed bathroom door. Or rather, there is but you have to enjoy the reaching of tiny arms under the door, who then want to pull the rug under the door to the other side. Or worse, you get scratching, then crying, then wailing, which eventually graduates to screeching. And in the end, you turn the knob, disengaging the lock. Then someone barges in and has to stand there and then put their hands in the bath "ooh, it's warm - feel how cold my fingers are" and then be asked ten times "what is it that you wanted?"

fatherly reflections

When I was young, my mother used to travel a lot. Or maybe she didn't travel a lot but that's how I seem to remember it. When she did travel, it was always traumatic to me in a way that even when I was older (8, 9, 10) would still hit me -- even though I knew that I was old enough, rational enough, to understand that she would be back - the next day, in most cases.

The days that she was gone were the only days that I was glad to be at school. If nothing else, it kept my mind busy so that I didn't obssess over my mother's absence and allow myself to be carried away in a panic attack that wouldn't subside until we picked her up from the airport, complete with blue suitcase and a special something for me in her carry-on bag. After school was torture. At the sitter's house, I would sulk and refuse to play with anyone else -- what was the point? My mom wouldn't be picking me up at 5:15pm like everyone else's moms... instead my dad was coming to get me and he always arrived at 3:45pm, like clockwork. This left me barely half an hour to sit on the end of the couch and concentrate -- fixate on something, anything, that would distract me from myself and the black clouds of panic that swirled behind my eyes.

But then 3:45pm would roll around and so would he. He was so fiercely anti-social that he refused even to come to the front door and say hello to the sitter, help me carry my things to the car, toss my backpack on the backseat, ask for a brisk kiss and how my day went. No, he instead would honk the horn from the driveway and not return the friendly wave from the sitter through the front window. I'd slump into the car and he'd say "are you sure you've got everything?" and as soon as I nodded, he'd swerve out of the driveway and rush us home.

Home. Home is where the heart is. The heart that is lumped in your throat and beating like a hummingbird's wings. Here, I am surrounded by my own things -- toys, dolls, books -- but somehow I feel trapped. Lonely. My father is in the den, watching the news on TV and undoubtedly reading the newspaper. It's almost like a game that we play when my mother is traveling - how much of the newspaper can he read before I resurface from my room, inquiring about homework, dinner? I suppose that it isn't really a game, since I always win. The last time she was away, he woke me up somewhere around 9pm and asked if I had taken a bath or made anything to eat. When I shook my head, no, I'm only 7 - I was waiting for you to feed me - he lifted me up and took me to the kitchen where he prepared one of the two meals he was fit to cook.

I watched him from the breakfast table and never offered to help. In my defense, I rarely helped my mother either, but I always stayed in the kitchen while she cooked, even if I was laying across the breakfast table chairs, reading Beverly Cleary. The way he cooked reminded me of a frantic magician, pulling open drawers with brows knitted together then suddenly - abracadabra! There was the spoon that he needed to stir up the pot. And again, where did that pesky little... oho! a slight of hand trick! The salt was on the counter all along. Years later I would watch the show Iron Chef and be reminded of my father's cooking -- not the gourmet ingredients, lobster brains, or presentation, but the maniacal running back and forth. The sweaty assistants chopping feverishly at the side board. Curse words muttered under their breath.

His #1 menu was the standard go-to when mom was away. She did a lot of overnight trips, so this worked out perfectly. Recently, I was talking to some friends about it and trying to describe how it took 2 skillets and 3 sauce pans to make and yet in the end... it was turkey (or chicken, or steak - depending on the leftovers in the fridge) sliced thick, set on top of toast, and then smothered in canned gravy. "Just like my mother used to make," he would beam at me. Clearly, he was a child of WWII, when people recycled their bacon grease and ate everything 'chipped' on toast in a glucky sauce. My friend piped up to say "At least it wasn't always spaghetti with jar sauce - that's all my dad could make" and Ryan topped us all with his father's "college recipe" of ketchup on Wonder Bread - the ultimate budget meal.

just a part -- story in progress

“You know, they’ll make you label the inner parts of a vagina, point out the vulva and such, but for some reason they never teach you kids how to cut your own damn toenails in school. I just don’t understand what is taboo with toenails in this country.”