-Javier Mendoza Band

I’ve been all about Javi all week. I’ve been wandering between “Step into My Place” and “Beautiful,” pausing occasionally to take in “Tinta y Papel.” It’s a phase, I know.

So, the big story today is my hair. Oh. My. God. My hair is a disastrous nightmare. Friday afternoon was the Big Appointment - finally putting blonde highlights back into it. As I’ve gotten older ::sigh:: my hair seems to have gotten darker. This stinks. The last color in my hair was a burgandy for the winter, which was cool. But now.

I searched high and low for a picture of the kind of highlights I wanted. My hairdresser Jill and I seem to have different ideas about what I want. I tell her one thing, and I get another. It always baffles me. Running under the assumption that I just don’t explain things well, I found a picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar when she had largish blonde streaks.

I explained my quest to Jill, and then she asked questions. One of her comments, though, set off all sorts of red flags. I’d dragged in a picture of how my hair used to look (when she cut it) and began to point out how I’d like mine now. She interrupted me and said, “Well, it’s pretty much like that right now.” Um. No. It’s not. The top is different, the sides are different, AND the back is different. And she thinks it’s the same?

Houston….

She vaguely described how she was going to foil my hair, and asked if I wanted four or five foils on top.

Immediately I thought, I don’t ask my clients if they would like a portfolio more concentrated in value or growth funds, or what percentage of their portfolio they would like to have in small- and mid-cap funds. Why would she think I’d know anything about foiling hair?

I told her that was her job.

WRONG.

Houston, I’m starting to sense that there might be….

I sit back and watch her foil the hair. As she picks up a five-inch strip of my hair, I start to relax. She comments that she might be able to just charge me by the foil and save me money. I shrug and say, cool. Whatever. I wasn’t out to save money, I was out to get my hair done. But if they’ll go hand in hand, I’ll take it.

She tucks a foil under the hair, and starts painting. Suddenly I’m uneasy again.

From my vantage point I could see about a quarter-inch section of hair next to my scalp that she’s left unpainted. Okay, what’s that? (On Saturday, I would call “that” a big fat fucking ROOT.) I watch closely as she picks up another scoop of hair, slaps a foil under it, and paints. Nope, she’s not getting anywhere near the scalp.

Houston, we have a problem.

I sit under the hair dryer, with bleach on my foiled hair, and wait. She tells me that when she takes me out from under it, we’ll see if I “need” a toner, and she says, “God I hope not.” I’m all, whatever!

She pulls the foils out and washes my hair, and sits me down in the chair again. My hair’s a mess of brown and blonde, and at this point still has potential.

Until she combs it down.

At this point, I freeze, and panic grips my chest. I have stripes. Quite literally. Like a great big bumblebee. I have four inch-deep five-inch-wide ice-blonde stripes going across the top of my head. Then, on each side of my head, I have one solid blonde stripe. What do you think, she asks! I kind of sat there. She says, what? Oh, she says, it’s probably a little shocking, but you’ll get used to the contrast.

Breathe, Michelle, breathe!

I keep thinking to myself, it’s fine. It’s great. She’s the professional. As she cuts my hair, I realize that the reason I look like a bumblebee is that she didn’t weave the hair before she put it in the foil. Weaving the chunks with a comb is the way to get the “highlighted” effect. She just grabbed a stripe of my hair, and slapped bleach on. No artistry, no subtlety. Just big fat horizontal bleached stripes.

When she blows it dry a little, I’m still numb from shock. Do you like it, she asks. Um, uh, y-yeah, I stutter. She laughs. You’ll get used to it, she says.

Dark brown hair, bleached-out stripes, and hair still not cut into the style I want. All for a mere $75 (usually $125, but we “cut down” on the number of foils “since you wanted it chunky”) and a 45-mile round-trip drive.

Friday night, I pulled at it and played with it, and tried my damnedest to make it work, but there was no way. By Saturday mid-day, I called Jill back. She was all “ooooh, what’s wrong, how can I help?” until I told her that we needed to do this face to face. Well, what’s wrong, she wanted to know, much less sweet. I told her, in the gentlest way possible, that it was a disaster. I think I was too nice.

The soonest she could “fit me in” was Wednesday night. My heart fell. I have to look like this until Wednesday? She was all like, I did what you wanted me to. No, Jill, you didn’t. Thank God I had the picture. I could point it out to her and say, THIS isn’t this.

When Justin saw my hair, he laughed. Then this morning, he said, “Mom?” “Yeah?” “You’re hair is ugly.” “Yes, Just, thanks.” “Okay.”

I called Kristi on the way into work. I told her it’s horrible. When I walked in, she didn’t mince words. We’re calling my neighbor Denise, she said.

And we did.

By 4:30p today, I had stripes no more. Now I have cute blonde highlights on top, and normal-colored hair everywhere else. The girls at the shop kept asking, “WHAT was she THINKING?” and I kept shrugging and saying that I had no idea.

Tonight, the nightmare’s over. Now I just have to figure out how to stop a payment on my credit card.

Human again,

michelle