get a haircut

Last night’s sweet mostly-hawk with just a touch of the faux. #3 clipper all around and the crest cleaned up with a few scissor snips. Pretty good for a bathroom trim. Second time in 3 weeks, big props to L for being so generous with her time and skills. (:

Just got back from the office where they issue pool passes. The cam they use to take your photo is a small point and click, and the lady taking my pic was having difficulty with it. Thought to offer "Can I just take my own photo?" but no, let her do her job.

In other related news I got off the phone with the girl who cuts my hair and the soonest I can see her is 7 tonight. You can see the state it’s in, my hair I mean. Been very busy with, oh, everything, and the item on 43 things about "getting a haircut regularly" is out the window. I can still get away with putting quite a bit of product in it (we’re still on about my hair), but in this weather and with riding I end looking quite dishy and that just won’t do.

Dishy? Yes. Short for disheveled. The heat and hair products maketh not for a good combo – never does, actually – and it doesn’t do to look like one of those troll dolls when you want to keep things all right in the workplace. Not that they mind.

If I phone ahead and discover that you’re back in town! and finally I can cross get a haircut off my list of things to do because you tell me you can fit me in, yes do come in, I’m there in fifteen, we’ve exchanged cursory hello howareyous and I shan’t be too comfortable in the lounge because you and I are gonna catch up in a few and by catchup I mean you’re going to cut my hair like you always do and there’ll be bits of idle sparkling chatter because you’re an even bigger charmer than I am – then what I don’t understand is you bumping me off because someone else comes in with an appointment to see you, supposedly, and you aren’t even done with the person you’re working on right now and you already don’t know what to do with me. Holding the bag, is that the correct expression? And this isn’t the first time either, that you’ve done this to me. It’s the third. Even the other barber who eventually cuts my hair tsk-tsks and rubs it in by saying, “Oh but you waited for her too long the last time.”

I don’t get it.

Your utter lack of professionalism is appalling. Given, I didn’t come away from the requisite first visits with a so-so haircut because you already know what a fauxhawk is, and I’m even more thankful that you seem to possess a natural grace with your tools that enabled you to give me a haircut that we’re both satisfied with. And this is why I stuck with you. I didn’t have to cultivate another barber to replace the one I used to go to. You already knew what to do and how to go about it with ease. But is it my luck to find craftsmen who are on the top of their game, that they are so skilled that they’re very much in demand, and it is this demand that gets me pushed to the very back of the queue …because I don’t know, darling. Don’t I rate with you?

It’s sophomoric, and I cringe at having to use this analogy: We went to a pahty and have been enjoying each other’s company for quite a record bit, but someone else comes along with their gleaming teeth and ohsoedgy! look, flash a bit of rhetoric and before anyone else knows whatever, I’m not going home alone – the jagged part about all this is, I don’t even know where to go.

There’s a barber who doesn’t have anything to do right this second, and she’s looking at me. So I put down the book I’m reading (who brings a book when they’re looking to get their haircut!?), approach her and she says, not a problem. I’ll be with you in just a second.

I miss the old days, when my Dad used to take me to get the business done. We didn’t even have to phone. We’d just saunter in and the only two barbers who knew how to cut and style hair like noone else did would drop whatever they were doing to accomodate us. The short neck massage to get things started, how’s the family doing?, and another short massage at the end. No frills no fuss. We’d get out of there looking sharp and satisfied with the services, but even more so, it was the ease of the transaction that made it worthwhile. It was quite the pleasant experience.

Quandary now, because you’re rather the possessive type and you announce loudly to everyone within earshot that I’m such a good friend (not a client, not a nameless random nobody) and that you’re the only one who cuts my hair – and look at it, whoa, doesn’t he look like he just stepped out of a magazine! Sure. Maybe you’re just lucky every time. And the fact that you’ve been cutting my hair for just about a year and know all my idiosyncracies with how long or short I want where and the knots and bumps on my head and who else would know these things, except of course, one’s own personal barber? But now I wonder if you were ever that, because you discard me at a moment’s notice when you know very well that if not for you I wouldn’t even be sitting and waiting in this place – and you make me wait, for fuck’s sake, and you apologise and apologise and grin at me because you’re so sure that I won’t let anyone else handle things. No.

Farhana, shukrīā. To the girl who was in the wings and saved me time, effort and all that, I appreciate you saving me from another tsk-tsk tongue lashing. I don’t have 3 hours to squander. I was lucky to restructure my early schedule but in just an hour my shift begins and other things to take care of. And as it turns out, the rest of the day was a mixed bag. Yes, I was able to get to work on time. Yes, my lovely coworker snagged me a salad – oh she’s a thoughtful and wonderful person, without me having to ask her. No, my prints from last class’s toning have taco’d themselves into unrecognisable bits (that just entails even more work in the darkroom, ffs), BUT yes! the replacement hot press seems to be working…

It all boils down to time. Or lack thereof. There wasn’t any to spare and wait for you for 2 hours so I could stop looking like a troglodyte. I miss having sharp style, a well-defined haircut. Is that so much to ask? There was no time to babysit the prints in the wash and hang them up in the air dryer and warm up the hot press that takes forever. That’s if it even works in the first place. There was no time to lollygag at work, like I usually do.

The day wraps itself up all right, I suppose. The hot press has something on it that leaves reside on my prints, it’s not the end of the world… but that’s just more work on toned prints that already take 2+ hours to produce. Two+ hours to produce ONE usable print.

I usually hop on the bike and ride the (frustration? angst? what!?) out of me, but it is very, terribly cold and I do the next available thing. Shoot. In just 45 minutes I manage to get my fingers nearly frostbitten. The cam’s not taking below zero degree temperature kindly, not at all, and the tripod’s literally frozen. Frost on the extensions. No other recourse but to call it a night. Give up the fight. Tomorrow’ll give us another chance to make things all right.

I miss my fauxhawk. :(

High five!!!! (the way Borat says it).

Checklist:
1. Get a haircut
2. Get a real job …because IT isn’t.