Haircut

[blinker]

In the 9 months or so since I moved here, my neighborhood barber has gone from warning to gloating.



I live in a mostly Italian, working-class neighborhood. The barber whose shop is around the corner is an older guy with military tattoos. The first few times I went in there, he repeatedly informed me that this was not the kind of haircut you get in a beauty parlor. I hadn't been to a beauty parlor in a few years at this point. I once showed up with slightly damp hair, and got a long lecture on how I should never do that. Hairdressers may work with wet hair, but it's not how you get a proper cut.

A few months ago, I walked in and he cut my hair perfectly without so much as asking what I wanted. After the almost 10 minutes it took him to do it, he smiled and said "a haircut like that would take you an hour at a hairdresser's." Today he did the same thing, and observed that even though this is a very easy haircut to do, beauty parlors can't do it properly. "They get your hair wet, they mess it up with their fingers, and it takes two hours. We used to give haircuts like this to women all the time, after the war." I didn't ask which war, but he says "the war" the way my grandparents do, so I'm guessing WWII.

And my hair looks great. It's properly short again, as opposed to starting to fall in my eyes. And I'm glad I've been able to find someone who doesn't mind cutting it and manages not to make me feel too out of place. The last time I went to a salon, I felt way too butch for the whole thing (walked in to make an appointment that morning, came back in the afternoon, the woman who was supposed to cut my hair looked at it and called for help, someone else came over and said "I'm sorry, when you called on the phone you didn't tell us you had such short hair, can we reschedule you with someone else?", so I walked out).

Today's another telecommuting day. I'm mostly doing research this week, and the haircut delayed my morning enough that it didn't seem worth going into the office. So I'm hanging out on the couch with a cat, and my coffee's almost done. Now to actually get something accomplished...

Comments

[lcohen]

it's great when you find the right person isn't it? i remember the search my ex had--culminating with a terrible haircut and failed perm two days before my sister's wedding. i called all my female friends to see if they had an idea on a place to go for a repair--we picked one, she saved the day, and my ex went there until we broke up.

and in one of life's little foibles, the first time i answered a personal ad and went on a date from it--it emerged in the course of the evening that the woman with whom i was chatting was her new hairdresser. we didn't have a second date.

i think i've had my hair cut professionally twice in my entire life. i cut my own, including the time in 1996 when i cut it off to just below my chin. i think if i ever were to want to go shorter than that, i'd try to find someone...but not my ex's hairdresser.

(okay, one more story: she's now my ex's ex-hairdresser--the way that my ex found her was that she also cut the hair of the woman who my ex was with after me. they recently broke up and her newer ex got to keep the hairdresser. i love being a lesbian.)

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

I get dizzy whenever you start talking about your exes and their exes. Fortunately for me, Kelly has been getting her hair cut at the same place (about an hour north of here, where her parents live) since she was 13.

[lcohen]

i could draw you a flow chart (heh).

[geminigirl]

I put off haircuts until I visit my parents; the woman there has cut my hair since I was a kid and I'm so terrified of bad haircuts...I couldn't cut my own hair; I've got mountains of long thick curly mess that it just doesn't work.

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

I lack the coordination to cut my own hair. Two summers ago, I used to pop over to FJ's apartment every few weeks and ask him to buzz it. But my mother absolutely hated the buzz cut and we had a huge fight over it, the end result of which was that I stopped speaking to my folks for a few months and then gave in and grew my hair out.

[lcohen]

>I've got mountains of long thick curly mess

hey! i resemble that remark! but i just grow it long and cut it off at the bottom--nothing fancy. even i can do that. i also cut ayana's (long, straight) hair--it doesn't come out dead even, but close enough that she's happy and with me on the scissors it gets cut the exact length that she wanted.

[bitty.livejournal.com]

Somehow I never envisioned Ayana as having long hair.

Sheesh. Time to get me to a motss.con.

[lcohen]

she hasn't always had long hair, even during her sojourn on usenet. i've seen pictures of her at i think it was season's 30th b'day party (the hag ball?) and it's middle of the neck length, tops, which is long compared to beth's do, but a far cry from almost to her waist length which is where it was before her most recent trim.