Saturday, I didn’t do any work! None Tuesday evening, either!

So, those of you who have been with me for a while here know all about my crazy hair dresser/stylist/”BFF”. I’d been struggling with the decision to bite the bullet and go back to her (because I desperately needed a haircut AND had about an inch of roots to highlight). I could have done it. I could have lied (sort of) and went on and on about how overwhelmingly busy I am. I could have been evasive and curt. I could only envision bad things coming of it, one of them being vengeful hair cutting/dying. And who needs that?

My labmate came to the rescue and said, “Let’s just go to Julie,” her stylist of choice at a completely different salon. Yes. Let’s. So we made back-to-back appointments with Julie for Saturday. While Labmate was getting her trim I was looking through the books.

Now, I have to explain to you that I have this thing. This thing where I lust after having a cute short haircut that looks all messy and chunky and hip. All the while I know that to achieve this level of girly-ness will require (pause for dramatic effect) the use of product. (Dum dum DUM) I suck at using product. But I always think, “Maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time I’ll ‘get it’ and I’ll practice and it’ll look the way it does in the picture and the world will applaud in unison!”

So when Julie turned to me and said “So what are we going to do today?” I sheepishly showed her the picture of the cute short haircut. “You know it’ll look a little different with your hair, right?” Yes, I know. All the pictures are of girls with ultra thick hair. My hair is not that hair. My hair is thin and wimpy.

“I think it’ll look great!” says Julie.

I’m hooked. I’m convinced. I’m psyched. Let’s do it!

I completely ignore the fact that the reason my hair is in its current state is because I’ve been letting it grow out from a similarly short ‘do. I’d missed ponytails and the freedom to use product at will, or not at all.

I don’t know what it is about cutting large amounts of hair off of people that excites the stylists so, but it gets them all hyper. I’ve never seen a stylist happier than when she’s orchestrating “drastic change.” Anyway, she was excited, I was excited, there was electricity in the air and hair on the floor.

Julie was so focused and intense, we didn’t even chat (bonus!). She explained, “When I get all quiet, it means I’m concentrating and excited.” Fine by me! I’ll be sure to be back.

At the end of it all I watched very closely, I took her instructions, I “learned” how to easily style it. Labmate and I also made appointments to get highlights later in the week. The rest of the day was spent dress shopping for Labmate. I didn’t touch a pipet once!

Despite my crash course, the next day my ‘do didn’t look anything like what Julie had done, but not so bad that I had to break out the baseball cap. I’ll figure it out… I hope. For now nobody is recoiling in horror. Maybe I can go back and ask for another lesson.

Yesterday was highlight day. Julie doesn’t do dye jobs, but Louise does. Louise is a lot chattier than Julie, but thoroughly enjoyed the story of my first stylist. Then she related the story of another stylist she knew, one who said “Sometimes I just want to plunge my scissors into your head” to one of her clients. Shyeah, and I thought I had it bad.

The dye job isn’t *exactly* what I had in mind, but I’ll get over it. She even threw in a 50% off my next color and cut gift certificate! For no reason! Maybe because I wasn’t bitchy about her running late.

I’m not sure, but I think I am in love with Louise.