Last night I had my hair cut again. This time in Brooklyn. In a salon. The salon is actually on my block, a few buildings down. So, I left my apartment at 5:30 for my 5:30 appointment. I like that.
I walk in and the salon is really nice. One wall is all brick. There are two women waiting for me. Brooklyn women. Seriously. Accents and everything. They were watching entertainment television. The show was all about the Rich. Not so much the famous, I guess some were famous, but the point of the show was to talk about how much money these folks had. It was sort of documentary style. There was a narrator that would voice-over with facts like "These girls are not only rich, they also know how to party hard." And they interviewed experts in the field that would say things like "what sets these sisters apart is not only do they have a lot of money, they are also extremely fashionable, and they have been since they were little girls."
The hair stylists were all disgusted by how much money these people had. And I wondered why they were watching the show.
The hair dresser and I discussed my hair. What I wanted. What I liked and didn't like about my hair. She had great advice and was excellent at her job. She asked me about various famous people and if I wanted hair like theirs. I am terrible at these questions. She seemed surprised that I didn't know who she was talking about and what their hair looked like. But, she worked with me anyway.
I was almost starting to feel embarrassed. I was starting to feel like I should pay more attention to movie stars and the rich and famous so I could keep up in these kinds of conversations. Then I reminded myself: it's okay. I know precious little about popular culture, but I do know about other things. I actually said that to myself, "I know about other things." Hair salon pep talk.
When she finished, I was happy. She did a great job. She had great advice. And I thought, maybe I should get my hair attended to more than once a year. And here, not only do I get good hair care, I get exposure to a whole realm of knowledge that I have little contact with.
And that's not all bad.
5 comments:
I love your attention to detail. Not only in your artwork, but in your stories. I find myself with a perfect picture of what you're describing. There's a store called Paper Source that I love to walk into because it has so many details -- every color of paper organized in a wall of cubby spaces. That's what visiting your blog is like too. Very satisfying.
Thanks Anne!
Ah, to have a hairdresser that knows what she's doing... that's a nice perk of living in the city!
I'm totally clueless about pop culture too, and I think my life is richer because of it. Funny, isn't it though, when you have absolutely no idea what to add to those conversations.
Yeah. Usually I think it's great to not know anything about pop culture. I mean, I am a nerd, I don't mind flaunting that. But, I don't like that that means that I cannot communicate well with people to whom pop culture makes a lot of sense. I don't like throwing aside a large chunk of people. And anyway, it would feel cool to know a little. I like feeling cool. It's quite rare. ;)
One time I went to one of my sister's sorority events and I was trying sooo hard to be cool. I dressed as cool as I knew how to dress. I sat cool. I ate cool. I was feeling pretty darn cool til someone started talking about Brittney Spears and I leaned in and said, "Now...is Brittney another girl in your sorority?" For the rest of the night, that got repeated around about 10,000 times to roars of laughter. It retroactively negated every feeling of cool I'd accumulated throughout the evening. Might as well have stamped "nerd" on my forehead.
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