The other weekend I went to my favorite hairdresser in Erie - I happened to be in town and she happened to have a last minute opening. As always, she gave me the best haircut I've ever had, knowing as no hairdresser has ever known before what to do with my excessively abundant, incredibly fine (if my hair were pasta, it would be three pounds of angel hair), slightly wavy tresses. I left feeling light and sexy as the air around a supermodel, but it took over a week for the New Haircut Honeymoon to set in because a.) she blow-dried it straight since it had been manhandled too much to wave, and b.) I haven't washed my hair more than once a week since the romance went out of the last haircut, so I didn't appreciate the differences until I gave my hair the grudging bare minimum of attention (I relate to my hair in much the same way as a retired couple relates to each other) and ran it under a faucet a week after the cut.
And oh. my. god.
It's fucking beautiful. I like it so much I've been wearing it down. I like it so much I went to the store on vacation in another state to buy headbands so I can wear it down while keeping it out of my goddamn face which is why I've always hated wearing it down. I like it so much I've been, if not washing, at least wetting it every day in the shower to reapply product afterward to compensate for the end of the day when I give up on the headband and put my hair in a ponytail. I like it so much I've started letting it air dry so it can wave naturally...and with NO FUSS.
I like it so much.
It's a new lease on life. I went out today and savored the joy of buying new shampoo and conditioner too (the last bottles lasted over a year, and they're too expensive for my unemployed budget right now, so I selected something different off the cheapo shelves of Wal-Mart - the Wal-Mart near my apartment looks even more like a picked-over flea market than even most Wal-Marts do, why), and decided I might as well wash my hair today to see how they work. (So far: satisfactorily.)
Yep. Haircut. Renewed view of all of everything. One of life's strange mysteries.
"So how do you observe the sacred and bring joy into your life?" (asks the imaginary, and also judgmental and rudely intrusive inquisitor.)
"Well, judgmental and rudely intrusive inquisitor, I solemnly observe that most holy of human duties by paying someone to apply scissors to the dead keratin strands produced by my scalp."
Total recipe for spiritual joy.
Thoreau wept.
