Say you’d had a really bad haircut. A haircut so bad, in fact, that even now, months later, you’re still growing it out, and while it may not look too bad to the naked eye, only you (and now the five or so people who read your blog) know how much time you have to spend trying to wrestle it into submission every morning. (Clue: a LOT of time.)
Say you know that, at the current rate of progress, you still have quite a few months to go before your hair will return to anything like “normality”.
Would you:
a) Say, “To hell with it!”, make an appointment with the hairdresser and have it cut to shoulder length (or, OK, maybe just below that), thus getting rid of most (but not all) of the mullet-like layers in one fell swoop, but leaving your hair the shortest it’s been since you were about 14. And you’re really not sure how you’re going to feel about that…
b) Say, “To hell with it!”, leave it to continue growing out for another month (even although some mornings you’d like to rip it clean out of your head) and spend the money on shoes instead.
c) Take the sensible-but-boring approach of getting it cut, but only having a couple of inches taken off, so you will continue your progress towards normal, non-layered hair, but slowly.
d) Get a fringe.*
Your feedback on this most important of issues would be appreciated.
*Note: I’m kidding about the fringe. Probably.
Tagged hair
One morning, back when I was a teenager, I woke up with more than the usual amount of heads.
There was my original head, of course – the one on my shoulders, that had been there when I went to sleep. But now there was another, second head, rising triumphantly out of the exact middle of my forehead, a little like an illustration of Zeus giving birth to the Goddess Athena.
Of course, I rushed immediately to the mirror, where I was only slightly reassured to discover that this was not, in fact, a second head, but merely a spot. Oh, but what a spot it was! Although resembling a head in terms of its size and general shape, it had no head of its own, which meant that it couldn’t be deflated by means of squeezing. (Not that I would do such a thing, I hasten to add, for the beauty magazines are forever telling us never to squeeze spots, and of course I do EVERYTHING the beauty magazines tell me. Ahem.)
Instead, it just rose up out of my forehead, loud and proud: it was as hard as a rock, and there was nothing – and I do mean NOTHING – I could do to disguise it. Concealer only seemed to make the spot more prominent, and although I did seriously consider just slapping on a sticking plaster and pretending I’d hurt myself (after all, people are used to me being a clumsy fool, but a second head is just plain alarming), my mum talked me out of this course of action, and so it was that I was forced to go out into the world that day, and for the two or three days that followed, looking like a genetic experiment that had gone badly wrong.
(After two or three days, the Second Head deflated slightly, leaving me merely looking like Buddha, with a red dot in the exact centre of my forehead.)
As traumatic as my time with two heads was, I comforted myself with the knowledge that it was unlikely to happen again. Obviously, though, I was wrong about that, and from that day forth, every time I had a special event of some kind to attend, I could absolutely guarantee that the Second Head would return to attend the event with me, always appearing in the same position in the middle of my forehead, and each time looking even larger and more alarming than the last. The most notable occurrence of the Second Head: my first day in my new job as a journalist, when I was introduced to my future colleges looking like there were two of me.
(Strangely, my method of dealing with these situations has always been the same: I point out the Second Head to people before they have an opportunity to notice it for themselves. And, I mean, I would HOPE no one would actually be insensitive enough to mention it, but on the occasion of me starting my new job, the Second Head was SO prominent and bizarre looking that I felt I had to go around introducing myself to everyone with the words, “Hello, I’m Amber, and no, I’m not deformed, that’s just a massive spot on my forehead. Horrible, isn’t it?”)
Anyway, so birthdays, parties, dates, holidays – all have been marked by me having more than the usual number of heads. In fact, there are some people I only ever see socially who probably think I was born like that, such is the reliability of the Head. Lately, though, a powerful new player has entered into the game I like to think of as “Let’s Spoil Amber’s Fun In Any Way We Can”, and if you’ve been reading this site for the last couple of months, you’ll probably know of what I speak. No, it’s not the Haircut O’ Doom, (although that’s fairly reliable too), it’s the fact that I am guaranteed to get the cold or flu the day before any event I’m expecting to enjoy. See “Our Honeymoon“, “Christmas” and “That Time We Went to Tenerife and I Thought I Had Pneumonia” for evidence of this.
Lucky, I am not. At least, not when it comes to getting through supposedly happy occasions without either feeling like hell or looking like hell.
This Saturday, then, Terry and I had decided to throw a little party for some of our friends. We were both looking forward to seeing everyone, so naturally, as the day approached the main question occupying my mind was this: what would it be this time? Would I be either:
a) horribly disfigured by the coming of a Second Head?
or
b) almost totally incapacitated by the cold/flu/other illness?
Can you guess which one it was, folks? That’s right: IT WAS BOTH OF THEM! A double-whammy! Not only did I wake up on Friday morning with a raspy throat and runny nose, I woke up on Saturday morning with my old friend The Second Head in its customary place in the middle of my forehead! AAAAAARRRRGGHHHH!
I was fairly lucky in that the cold didn’t really get into its stride until yesterday, the day after the party (and I think the wine probably helped to numb my senses a little), but as for the Second Head… well, I can only hope our guests were distracted by the fact that all the heating downstairs decided to break a few minutes before the first of them arrived. Hopefully the Arctic temperatures helped distract everyone from the state of my forehead and if not that, well, surely the fact that we were giving them triple shots of vodka for every inch of mixer would’ve done it. I hope so, anyway.
Luckily Terry did manage to fix the heating halfway through the night, and my Second Head packed its bags the next day, meaning that I’ve now entered the “Looking a Bit Like Buddha” phase of my affliction.
I’ve still got that cold, though…
Tagged the cold, the second head, The Ugly
So, yesterday I went to the hairdresser and had a big ol’ chunk cut off my hair.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those entries, where I end up screaming and crying that OMG, it’s SO UNFAIR, and I HATE MY LIFE. No, this is actually a good hairdressing story – or as good as a hairdressing story can get for me considering I’m still growing out a MULLET, obviously.
Anyway, as you know, after my last brush with hairdressing hell, I had sworn to never let a pair of scissors near my head again, and to just let it grow until it got so long I had to employ a team of small children to walk behind me at all times, carrying it. I believe the name “Rapunzel” was mentioned. And the thing is, I totally intended to stick to this plan, but a few weeks ago I suddenly realised the plan was fatally flawed, because while it is true that the front part of my hair has, indeed, been growing, SO HAS THE BACK. At the same speed. So if I just let it grow I would basically never be free of the Mullet. I’d just have a super-long mullet instead. Yeah.
Gradually, then, the unwelcome truth became evident: if I ever wanted to hold my head up in public again, I would have to just bite the bullet and submit to having large chunks cut off the back of my hair every few weeks, so that eventually the front and back would meet in the middle, so to speak, and I would have “normal” hair again. Maybe.
Well, for the last few weeks, each day I have faced an almighty battle not to just pick up a pair of scissors and hack it all off myself. It is THAT BAD. And yesterday morning I woke up, looked in the mirror and realised that I could not tolerate it ONE DAY LONGER, and that if I couldn’t get it cut right that very day, I would be doing it myself. Given that I am the clumsiest woman alive, the second option didn’t sound good even to me, and so it was that I found myself in the car and driving towards the only salon I knew might be able to squeeze me in on a Saturday afternoon, repeating the mantra, “I will not ask for a fringe, I will NOT ask for a fringe” over and over again. In fact, I repeated that mantra so many times I’m actually amazed I didn’t just walk into the salon and shout “NO FRINGE!” at them.
I didn’t, though. And they told me, yes, they could fit me in, so, with fast-beating heart, I sat myself down with the stylist and told her the tale of The Mullet, after which she moved in for a closer look at the offending hair.
“OH MY GOD!” shouted the stylist, jumping back as if stung. “This is… this is a MESS!”
Now, I have to admit, I felt ever so slightly smug about this reaction. The thing is, no one has ever really believed me about how bad this haircut was. For the past two months, I’ve mostly tied it back, cunningly trying to disguise the fact that I now looked a lot like Billy Ray Cyrus, when viewed in a certain light. And, you know, there is the fact that I’m a known drama queen, and I just know most people have listened to my tale of woe and thought, “yeah right, whatever. Bet it looks exactly the same.” But it was NOT the same. And this New Stylist had instantly seen it for what it was.
“There’s a really big difference between the length at the front and the length at the back,” she said, staring at the hair as if it might bite her. “It’s almost like…”
“Like a mullet,” I said. “Yes, I know: you can say it.”
“Yeah,” said the hairdresser, warming to her theme, “But the thing is, I bet even YOU don’t realise how bad this is. I mean, you can’t see the back of your head. Seriously, YOU SHOULD SEE THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD!”
I just nodded at this, as if I hadn’t spent hours in the bathroom over the past few weeks, holding up my little Sephora mirror to try and view the back of my head. And then weeping. And drinking.
“I mean, I’d have hated to have seen this when it was first done,” continued the stylist, who was actually starting to enjoy herself just a little bit too much at this point, really. ”That must’ve looked TERRIBLE.”
Then she tried to persuade me to let her cut it to shoulder length. “It won’t fix it,” she said, “But it’ll make it look less like a … well, you know.”
Readers, I held firm. I know she was right, but I was nervous enough about being back in The Chair (“You must be terrified!” said the hairdresser cheerfully as she started snipping. “I would be!”) without adding the pressure of a Dramatic Change into the mix. So we compromised, and she cut it to just a couple of inches under my shoulders. This actually still feels like a Dramatic Change to me (when I brush it I get that horrible sinking feeling when the brush suddenly encounters air and I’m all, “OMG WHERE IS MY HAIR?!”), but I realised a long time ago that when you have long hair, no one ever notices the fact that you suddenly have four inches less of it than you used to. This theory was proven last night when we went to visit my parents and neither of them noticed, even when I swished my head around ostentatiously. They just thought I was having a fit or something.
Anyway, it’s still going to take months to grow out the mullet completely, but the point is, I have at last had a haircut that didn’t make me cry afterwards, and I think this could be a turning point in the career of my hair. I feel like maybe the ancient curse has been broken, and there is new hope that the mullet may one day be defeated. And I was going to blow-dry it and style it all nice, then get Terry to take a picture of it, but then I thought, “Why do that when I can just sit around on my ass letting it dry naturally and get all frizzy first?” So I did. Then I remembered that when Terry takes photos of me, they generally end up looking something like this:
 windy! He took this while we were out walking the dog today. “Take a picture of my hair,” I said. “Try not to make me look like a lunatic,” I said. Gah. So it looks like this is about as good as it’s going to get in terms of photos of The Hair:
There were others, but I swear to God, I had my eyes closed and was frowning in every. single. one. So, um, yeah.
Maybe I’ll ask for a fringe next time?*
(*joking!)
Tagged hair, haircut, red hair, redhead
Yeah, I know, I’m totally running out of clever titles for posts in which I go to the hairdresser and return with a headfull of crazy layers that don’t look any different AT ALL to anyone else but me. Sorry.
And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “The hell? Didn’t we just do this not so long ago? Surely it can’t be time for another disastrous haircut entry already? And also: what the hell is wrong with this woman? WILL SHE NEVER LEARN? What was she doing back at the hairdresser when she knows it always ends badly?”
Well, you see, it needed a trim. And I had this idea that if I keep getting the back trimmed, but not the sides (mullet), then the sides will surely catch up with the back quicker than they would if I just let sides AND back grow unrestrained. See, that made sense when I said it in my own fool head, but … gah. You know the luck I have with the hairdresser. I should really just stay at home, and trust me, this time I really think I will. I think I’m just going to let it grow until people start shouting “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” at me. I figure then, and only then will I be rid of these freaking choppy layers that, oh my God, make me want to PULL MY HAIR RIGHT OUT OF MY HEAD. Because GOD, this is getting old.
Anyway, so I went to the salon, and I asked, as usual, for a trim. To be fair, that’s exactly what I would’ve got: I mean, the stylist had sympathised with me about the mullet job, had gently warned me that there was no quick fix for this, and that it was just going to have to take its own sweet time to grow out. He agreed with me that I was doing the best thing by keeping it trimmed, otherwise it would start looking even worse, and he took only the tiniest amount possible off the mullet part, so it wouldn’t look any shorter.
So, it was all going pretty good, huh? I was sitting there silently congratulating myself on at last getting a good haircut, and then, all of a sudden, my mouth snapped open and I heard myself say, “Also, you could just cut in a fringe at the front.” Seriously, it was like a scene out of The Exorcist or something – like some other, malevolent being had taken over my body and started asking for FRINGES. Because hell, it’s not like THAT’S ever worked out before, is it?
I thought I’d got away with it at first. When I got home and looked in the mirror, I thought it was fine. I mean, it wasn’t GREAT: my hair will never be “great” until grow out these damn layers, but it certainly didn’t look any worse than it had before, and I’m at the point now where “not looking any worse” counts as a good haircut for me.
Then I went downstairs to make coffee and let the dog out, and caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the glass on the back door.
And I hate it.
AGAIN.
It’s a long fringe – in fact, it’s really not so different from how it was before. But it IS different. It is shorter. It’s too long to sit on my forehead, like a regular fringe, but too short to stick behind my ears, like I always wear my hair. And the introduction of yet another different length of hair on my head… well, let’s just say it wasn’t such a great idea, because it has only served to emphasise all the other layers, and this time I have only myself to blame, because the stylist did exactly what Evil Amber told him to do.
Thank God all those Blair-Waldorf-style headbands are in fashion right now, is all I can say. And at least I’ll save money on haircuts for the rest of this year, because as God is my witness, I will not be going back until these stupid layers grow out. Not even for a trim, because clearly it’s too dangerous. If I even mention the idea of getting another haircut here, or on Twitter, please feel free to reach through your computer screen and deliver a good, hard slap, because seriously.
Just to soothe my frazzled nerves, here is a picture of the new shoes I got this week, as a PR freebie. They are shiny. I will wear them when I’m off to see the wizard. To ask him to give me some hair, natch.
“Just a quick trim,” I said to the hairdresser, as I nervously eased myself into the torture chair this morning, Well, we all know the kind of luck I normally have with haircuts, and that’s no luck at all, basically. But today was to be different.
“No problem,” said the hairdresser, smiling reassuringly as she wrapped me in one of those massive cape things. “We’ll just tidy it up a bit, shall we?” (Sidenote: why do hairdressers always speak to you in the plural? ‘And what are we having done today, then?’ is their usual opening gambit, which I guess is supposed to make you feel like the two of you are on a jolly escapade together, as opposed to what’s actually happening, which is more like a trip to the dentist.)
Anyway, this hairdresser seemed to have no problem understanding just what it was I was after, so I relaxed back into the chair (well, I relaxed as much as it was possible to relax with a sink sticking into my neck, which wasn’t very relaxing at all, come to think of it), and basked in the joy of having finally found a hairdresser who, like, really understood me. Then I decided to get a bit daring. This was my fatal mistake.
“Also,” I said. “This fringe of mine. I’m trying to grow it out, but you couldn’t just, I don’t know, make it blend in a bit more with the rest of my hair, could you?”
Well, that’s what I thought I said, anyway. What the hairdresser obviously heard was, “It’s always been my dream to look like Farrah Fawcett, only with less hair, and a mullet. Make that dream a reality, hairdresser!”
That was how it came to pass that ten minutes later I found myself staring into the mirror aghast as the hairdresser chopped huge chunks off hair off the front of my head, apparently at random.
Now, you’d think I would have said something at this point, wouldn’t you? Well, you would be wrong. Here’s why:
1. It was instantly apparent to me that I was in the hands of a madwoman. A MADWOMAN, I tells ya. And she had scissors.
2. Once those first few chunks of hair have gone from the area around your face, ain’t no goin’ back. It’s not like she can just stick them back on for you, is it? So if she’s just chopped four or five inches off one side of your head, there really isn’t a possible scenario which doesn’t result in the other side of your head getting the same treatment.
(Aside: actually, there is. When I was at university, there was a girl in my year who had one side of her head cut into a bob, and the other side cropped, so she looked like a different person depending on which side you were standing on. True story. It haunts me to this day.)
3. I am a complete and utter wuss. And also: stupid.
So, rather than challenge the hairdresser, what I did was, I just sat there grinning inanely, then I drove home, played around with it a bit in front of the mirror, realised that from some angles it looked a lot like a MULLET, then threw myself onto the bed, screaming like a small child.
Then I looked at it again, and realised that, actually, it looks more or less EXACTLY THE SAME as it always has:
Well, sort of. From the front, it looks the same as always, but that’s only because I have cleverly pulled the hair from the back of my head onto my shoulders in this picture. If I pull that hair back, the front is all kind of shaggy. And choppy. And from the side, I’m definitely seeing a mullet. Terry’s comment:
“Well, there’s certainly a…. length difference… between the front and the back.”
This didn’t reassure me. Nor did Terry’s later attempts at reassurance, which included the line, “Does your hair actually GROW? Because, really, it NEVER looks any different to me.”
I think he may be right. I hope so. If not, looks like I’m spending the next few weeks with a MULLET on my head.
First: after reading all of your comments on my entry about phobias, I realised that actually, I have WAY more phobias than I had written about, and, indeed, that I had completely omitted some of my biggest, and most all-consuming phobias. Maybe I was trying to suppress the thought of them or something?
Well, because the thought of leaving an entry unfinished makes me break out in hives, I went back and edited it to add them in, and to make the entry in question only slightly shorter than my University Dissertation (On the Road: the American dream as seen by Jack Kerouac, JD Salinger and someone else who I totally can’t remember anymore. So that was a worthwhile exercise, no?). So, yes, you can go back and read the bits you missed if you have a burning desire to delve even further into my psyche. Death! Cancer! People who kind of rumble sweets around their mouths before crunching them loudly! Fun times, people, fun times…
Anyway, this post isn’t actually about phobias. No, this post is about my hair, and how I went all the way to Edinburgh yesterday to have it cut, at great expense, I might add, in a salon that actually dries your hair after they’ve cut it and everything. Fancy! Round these here parts they just kick you out with your hair still wet, and I’m not even joking. Well, I mean, I am partly joking, because they will blow dry your hair if you really want them to, but they will also charge you extra for that service, and will mostly just not bother to do it.
I’m still not 100% sure what it was that possessed me to haul ass into the city and get a super-expensive haircut when, actually, I could just have driven the two minutes to the Little Hairdressing Shop of Horrors and have it cut for less than half the price, even if I decided to get all high falutin’ on them and ask for a blow dry as well as a cut. Well, actually, I kind of do know, to be honest. I think I did it because I’m always reading articles in women’s magazines which are all, “Spend lots of money on haircuts! Haircuts are an investment! You wear your hair everyday, so a haircut is the one thing you should not hesitate to spend a small fortune on!” So, I read these articles, and apparently I also lost my mind and forgot that I’ve had lots of expensive haircuts in my time, and they haven’t been any different AT ALL from the really cheap haircuts I’ve had, too, because yesterday afternoon found me paying the aforementioned sum of money in order to end up looking exactly the same as I did before:
Hi! I am exactly the same as before! I’m also really rubbish at the “taking a photo of yourself in the mirror” thing, I wonder how other people manage to do that?
My advice to you, then, would be this: if you are the kind of person who always seems to end up with exactly the same haircut, no matter how hard you try to change it, don’t spend lots of money on haircuts. Spend a lot of money on shoes, instead. No one will know the difference with your hair, and at least you’ll have lots of nice shoes. < /wiseoldsage>
I did have a good day, though, even although I managed to perform my usual trick of “spending all my money but not actually having very much to show for it”, and will now have to live off water and gruel for the rest of the month. Because I am a workaholic, you see, it’s not often that I get to spend an entire day walking around the shops, and as I walk around shoe shops in the same way other, more cultured people, walk around art galleries, this was a nice little break for me.
The salon I had my hair cut in is located inside Harvey Nichols, so I got there early and amused/tortured myself by spending some time winding up the shop assistants by inserting my poverty-stricken and clearly unworthy self amongst the merchandise and making as if I was actually going to reach out and touch something with my grubby, proletariat hands every so often. By the time I left for my hair appointment, I had a whole little gaggle of them following me around the store at a disdainful distance, and when I made my usual pilgrimage to the Christian Louboutin section and actually dared to pick up a shoe, I swear they all gave a collective little gasp and tottered backwards in shock. So that was fun.
Of course, today on the way to the gym, my car (Terry’s is still in the garage, being held at ransom) started to make a funny whirring noise, which was different from all of the other funny whirring noises it has made, and which probably means that as soon as we have liberated Terry’s car, mine will be incarcerated in its place, and yet more money will be sucked from me. It’s not true that you can’t get blood from a stone, you know – the folks at our local garage manage it just fine.
Back to the Little Hairdressing Shop of Horrors for me next time, then.
So, a few years ago, as I mentioned in my last entry, I was given a mullet by the Hair Salon Down the Road – or the Little Shop of Hairdressing Horrors, as I affectionately liked to think of it at the time. It was the result of one of those last-minute emergency haircuts that no-one should ever have to subject themselves to: I had some big event or other to go to, and I woke up the morning before it with the certain knowledge that if I didn’t get a haircut THAT VERY DAY, why I would take the nail scissors from the bathroom and I would cut it myself, oh yes I would.
My regular stylist wasn’t available at such short notice, so, with a nonchalance born of the knowledge that I had never in my life had a haircut that wasn’t exactly the same as its predecessor (and this through no lack of trying on my part) I breezed into the Little Shop of Hairdressing Horrors and asked them give me a trim. No, actually, that’s not quite right: I asked them to give me a trim, a fringe and to “just shape it a little round the sides”. Now, to this day, I have no idea what it was that caused the stylist to interpret my “shape it a little round the sides” as “I want it all business in the front, party at the back, my good woman!”. But she gave me a mullet.
Being socially inept, I could only sit and watch in horror as great chunks of my hair fell to the salon floor. “Why, it looks… it looks like she’s giving me a MULLET!” I thought, amazed. And what did I say about this?
“…”
“It’ll probably look better when it’s finished,” I told myself, cleverly ignoring the fact that it could only look better if the GREAT CHUNKS OF HAIR FLEW OFF THE FLOOR AND REATTACHED THEMSELVES TO MY HEAD. And they did not. No, they did not.
It was only at the end of the cut, when my hair had been blow-dried and the stylist was showing me the back of my head (PARTY!) in a mirror that she remembered that I’d also asked for a fringe. “Oh no, NO!” said I, suddenly finding my voice. “No need to cut a fringe! This is just fine!” Just. Fine. That’s what I told her. And I paid. I smiled. I left the store and locked myself in the car, where I peered into the rear-view mirror, hoping that… I dunno, that they’d maybe had magic mirrors in the salon, that made all haircuts look like mullets, and that my true, totally non-mullet haircut would be revealed only through use of a different glass.
It was still a mullet.
I drove home and rushed to the mirror at the top of the stairs: still a mullet.
The mirror in the spare bedroom? A mullet.
The mirror in the bathroom? Mullet.
The mirror in the bedroom? Oh my good God, it was a MULLET! She had given me a MULLET!
“It’s not a mullet,” said Terry, helpfully. “Well, not much…”
Weeping, I climbed into the shower, shampooed my hair and then blow-dried it, clinging desperately to the vague hope that maybe, just maybe it was the way she’d dried it, and that the hair at the front of my head was just… just hiding, maybe, waiting to come out. But no:
IT WAS A FREAKING MULLET.
I am not ashamed to say that I cried. And howled. And tried everything in my meager arsenal of “making my hair look better” knowledge to hide that damn haircut. Nothing worked. (What I did not try: going back to the salon and asking them to fix it. Partly because only a wig would have fixed it, but mostly because… well, can we say “coward”?) And so it was that I went to my Big Important Event with the worst haircut I ever did see. And I swore that never, ever again would I book an appointment at the Little Shop of Hairdressing Horrors.
So, anyway, the whole point of this entry is to tell you that today? I got my hair cut at the Little Shop of Hairdressing Horrors. Oh yes. See, the thing is: it’s handy. And I’m busy, you know? I don’t really have time to drive to no fancy-pants far-away salon. And to be honest, despite the evidence presented in this entry (and also this one), hair isn’t really my “thing”. Shoes are my “thing”. Makeup is my “thing”. But hair? Not so much, really. As evidence, I:
1. Do not own a single styling product
2. DO own a few hair “accessories”, but…
3. Do not ever use them because, hey, washing it once a day seems to work just fine.
As I mentioned before, my hair has looked more or less the same for most of my life, and if I’m ever going out somewhere special and someone asks me what I’m going to “do” with my hair, I’m most likely to give them a blank look and answer that, well, it’s HAIR: I’m planning on having it hanging from my head. Y’know?
So, to cut a long story short, I had convinced myself that it would be FINE, that it was only hair, and that nothing bad would happen. And you know what?
Nothing did. GOD, talk about an anti-climax, eh? No, the LSOHH was absolutely fine. My hair is all still present and correct. I did not cry. I did not have to be persuaded not to wear a bag over my head for the next few weeks.
“It looks exactly the same as it did yesterday,” said Terry. Well, yeah. That too.
BEFORE:
I am rubbish at doing the whole “I am taking pictures of myself in the mirror” thing, so for my “after” shots, I proudly present…
BLURRY WEBCAM PICS! Now with added Rubinman!
 
So, you see folks, it is possible to get a hair cut, and still look exactly the same as you did before. But at least it’s not a mullet.
Oh, and the webcam whence came the blurry pics o’ the day? Came to me courtsy of Shiny Media, who want me to use it so that I – or rather, my disembodied head – can take part in their editorial meetings, in London. Given that I am severely phone phobic as it is, the thought of having to talk on the phone to multiple people while my stupid head floats above the room like the Dark Mark is freaking me out just a little. Hey, at least I got me a new haircut, though!
I need a haircut. Before I get a haircut, though, I need a hairdresser. This is traumatic. Hold me.
The thing is, I already have a hairdresser – or, rather, I had one. She is a friend of the family, and every six weeks she would come to my parents’ house and cut the family hair. (Not Rubin’s, obviously. That would cost more.) As of this month, though, Carol is hanging up her scissors/ shutting up shop/ no longer available to slap the back of my hand and tell me to NEVER CUT MY OWN FRINGE AGAIN.
So, I need to find a new hairdresser. This will be tricky because I’m not very good at having my hair cut. I seem to lack the “explaining-what-you-want-and-making-the-hairdresser-do-it” gene, and this makes every haircut a trial. And, I mean, it’s not even like I ask them to do anything difficult, either. I’ve had pretty much the same haircut since…. well, since always, really… and while I sometimes entertain brief flirtation with fringes/sideways fringes/long fringes, I’ve yet to ask for anything really, you know, out there.
(I’m not mentioning The Perm. Please don’t make me talk about The Perm.)
And OK, sometimes I turn up at the hairdressers with a picture clutched in my sweaty palms, which may or may not be off Sienna Miller (WHY? Why did I do that?) but I could show them a picture of Telly Savalas for all the difference it makes, because they always give me exactly the same haircut anyway. Always. And, lacking the giving-hairdressers-instructions gene as I am, there’s never a damn thing I can do about it. The conversation always goes like this:
Amber: I’d like it to look like this, please. *Shows photo of Sienna Miller*
Hairdresser: No, you can’t have it like that.
Amber: OK, just the usual, then.
Note the complete lack of normal human interaction in the above conversation. This is because I am also lacking the “making smalltalk” gene, so while all around us, stylists and their clients laugh happily together, totally Best Friends Forever, me and my stylist exist in a bubble of uncomfortable silence, broken only by awkward attempts at conversation:
Stylist: So, got any holidays booked this year?
Amber: YES! Yes, I am just back from Florida! Florida!
Stylist: Oh.
Amber: “…”
GOD, I hate having my hair cut. I really need to bite the bullet and find someone to do it, though, especially given that my idiot commenter, Blondie, has totally seen right through me, and deduced the truth: that all of my ranting about the redhead hatrz is but a flimsy smokescreen through which I try to hide the fact that I am actually deeply ashamed of my ugly red hair, and hey, maybe I should do as she suggests, and dye it? Maybe I should dye it blonde, and ask the stylist to make me look like Sienna Miller? Because that would totally rawk, to be sure!
OK, maybe not.
* * *
In other news, the third (and hopefully final) migraine of the season rocked up last night, thus proving something I have suspected for a long time now: that I have a brain tumour and am going to die. Oh, it’s a fun life, being a hypochondriac, and by “it’s a fun life” I mean “It’s absolutely no fun at all, and I am totally going to buy those boots I want now, because what’s the point in denying myself when I might die tomorrow?” Yeah.
Yesterday, for only the second time in my adult life, I went out without my makeup on. (The first time was years ago, on holiday in Florida, and my dad made me do it because he wanted dinner and didn’t want to wait for me to mess around with makeup. And dad, if you’re reading this – still not over it). Anyway, yesterday’s “out without my mask on” episode had nothing to do with my dad, and everything to with the RED WEALS.
Yes, folks, they are back, and they are back with a freaking vengeance. Yesterday, I woke up with one eye so swollen I looked like I’d gone twelve rounds with Tyson, and the other decorated with an attractive RED WEAL. Did this suck? Oh I’ll say it sucked. And when I say “I went out without my makeup” I should just add “Only because I absolutely had to” and “I didn’t remove my sunglasses the whole time. Sorry to the lady at the supermarket who thought I was going to try and rob her.” Now I understand why celebrities sometimes refuse to let their minions make eye contact with them – they probably have RED WEALS too.
I think it’s stress. It was definitely stress the last time this happened, and I know that my body has this neat trick of dealing with stress by CREATING EVEN MORE STRESS. Because that’s totally helpful, body, thanks. And also: screw you.
The slight problem with this “weals caused by stress” thing is that I don’t really know what to do about it. Hot baths? Long walks in the countryside? Chocolate? Wine? WHAT? Luckily the weal situation is a lot better today than it was yesterday. Maybe by the end of the weekend I will even look like a normal person again, hmmm?
Tagged skin problems, stress
Because I know you’ve all been up all night worrying about the status of my RED WEALS (and let me tell you, I certainly have) I’m taking a break from my hectic schedule of FREAKING THE HELL OUT to update you. You will thank me for this one day when you, too, wake up five days from your wedding with eyes like a crack whore, trust me.
(Also: did you know that the top four results on Google for “red weals around eyes” are for this very blog? And that people search using that term every single day in life? People who do that – I’m so sorry that this blog has been unable to give you the help you need on the red weals issue. To be honest, it wasn’t much help to me either when I Googled “red weals around eyes”. Gah. After this week’s entries I fully expect to get me some more weal-related dominance on Google, which just goes to show that my life has not been wasted after all. Phew.*)
Anyway, suffice to say that, as per this entry’s title, I don’t have Bette Davis eyes this morning. No, I still got me the red, ugly eyes of the WEALS. They’re not quite as crack-whore-ish as they were yesterday, however, which tells me that one of the many potions I used on them yesterday is working. The question: which one is it? We may never know. The general consensus today, however, seems to be that this is, indeed, a stress-related thing, so I’m now trying to remain as calm and relaxed as possible – which actually isn’t all that easy when you have red weal eyes four days before your wedding, and you wake up to find that your dog has been violently sick all over his bed…
Also, I have been having fairly stressful wedding-related nightmares every morning for about a week now, and yes, I know it’s really boring when people insist on relating their dreams in tedious detail to you (“And then the chair turned into an elephant! And the elephant turned into Michael Jackson! And he ate me!”), but I’m going to do it anyway, albeit in the lazy blogger’s favourite format: the bulleted list. Here they are.
Wedding-related dreams I have had this week:
- The morning of the wedding. Terry announces that as a “surprise” he has bought us tickets to see The Eagles in Glasgow, that very morning. We will travel to Glasgow (1 hour), see the band, travel back, then get married. Because that wouldn’t be stressful AT ALL.
- The morning of the wedding. My parents arrive in a helicopter and announce that they’re taking me to visit Loch Lomond before the ceremony. Again: totally not stressful to try and do something like that right before the wedding, although, in their defense, they did have a helicopter.
- The first day of the honeymoon. We arrive at our villa (which now a poky little one-bedroom apartment – surprise!) and suddenly remember that we invited every single last member of both our families to join us on honeymoon. And they did. Doh!
- Continuation of the dream above. Terry and I want to go out for a nice, romantic meal on honeymoon. My dad won’t let us because he has cooked everyone steak pie and mashed potato. “No need to eat out AT ALL on this honeymoon when we can have steak pie here in the apartment every night!” says my dad. Quite.
- On honeymoon. Terry dives into the shallow end of the swimming pool. Terry breaks his neck. The End.
I wonder what tonight will bring? Anyway, now I must go and eat something, then relax. Terry, meanwhile, is currently packing his suitcase, so either he’s getting ready for the honeymoon, or he’s planning to leave me. At this point I have no idea which it is…
* I also rank pretty highly for the search term “pee in the woods”. I’m all about the over-achieving, me.
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