Prima Gallerina

Today on a whim I made an appointment to see a hairdresser. I am a hairdresser whore and cannot return to the same one more then once -- I have no loyalty. Usually it's because I have gotten bored and cut my own hair (often to questionable results) and other times it's because I've done the unthinkable, dyed my hair with stuff from a box. Hairdressers chide me and chide me for dying my own hair and I just can't help but think that most of their reasoning is financially driven and does not really have anything to do with box hairdye being any worse than the stuff they use in a salon.

So, for the past three weeks I've been waffling about getting my haircut. Part of me really wanted to chop it off but it grows really slowly and it is such an ordeal growing it back. Last night I was watching the wonderful show Number 1 Single featuring a love sick Lisa Loeb trying to find romance in NY city. I don't love her music but I like the show as far as reality tv goes (and if I am being honest, I do like RT). Anyhood, on her show last night there was this knitting lady with the most terrifically cute hair and I immediately looked her up on the internet and thought "This is exactly what I want my hair to look like!" To see how unlike me she looks go here.

So this morning I called up my local salon and go in for the cut. What does the hairdresser do? He looked me up and down, shakes his head and mournfully proclaims that my color looks washed out and won't I just let him brighten it up a little bit and give me a few highlights. Being completely and uncontrollably impulsive I agreed, thinking (wrongly) that I understood what he meant by "brighten your color up." So three hours later, I am rushing out of the salon (late for an appointment) with bright, pumpkin orange hair. I shit you not. I went from a nice light summery brown with steaks to freakin' pumpkin.

My mother likes it (my mother has also spent time in a psych ward) as does R (who I suspect has illusions that because my hair is orange I have somehow morphed into the cool hipster punk girl that he has secretly longed from ever since discovering Kim from the Pixies). I can pull off orange hair, probably better then a lot of people, but I think the real question here is why would anyone want to?

So this evening I went down to my local drugstore and bought a nice practical brown to try and tone down the orange. It didn't work and it seems that the orange on my head is made of some kind of powerful agent because even a dark brown didn't budge it. Yes I work in an art gallery and can probably get away with sillier fashions then someone who works in a law firm. However, I am also the youngest full timer at the gallery and am constantly battling to be seen as professional enough and adult enough to be there. Maybe that's a silly way to look at it, but that is how I feel. I can't imagine that walking in there tomorrow with a head that could light a stadium is going to do much to raise me to that level in the eyes of my colleagues. Maybe I'll wear some kind of headscarf, or better yet a burkha. Why do I do these things?

Posted by Bernice Sequin on 17 August, 2006 at 9:39 p.m. | Permalink