Begin Intrductions

Begin introductions.

05.31.04 12:24 pm



Tamara's mother gave her up for adoption, when she was 16. Apparently, the woman/monster had 10 kids and wanted to remarry unfettered by responsibility, so she unceremoniously gave all 10 up to adoption/foster care and moved on. I found this out the first week of school when I walked Tamara to the Keybank on first hill to cash her financial aid check. She is a thin white-looking girl (she insists that her dad is black, but if its true, there is NO telling it by looking at her) who began the year with 3 inches of brown roots at the bottom of long yellow bleached hair. She swoops her bangs down over her forehead almost to her eyebrow and renders them immobile with an outrageous amount of gel. Her teeth are crooked and she tries to hide them when she laughs, which is loud and frequent. She is an interesting mixture of obnoxious and painfully shy. She prides herself on being ghetto, with things like hair and style but doesn’t realize the ways she really is disadvantaged by her class. At the same time as she really wants to fit in and have everyone love her, she has moments of real self-direction and independence. She was released from jail the day before school on promise that she would stay in her group home and have regular attendance at school. So far, so good. She is really dedicated, she comes on time every day on the bus from greenwood and although neither the written part nor the practical styling part come easily to her she sticks with it. Another thing she sticks with is me. She discovered me the first week of school and would call across the room for me to be her partner in every exercise. I think she knew I would always be sweet to her. Of course I will. She’s adorable, and reminds me of my kids in the Checkpoint program. She and Jazmine, another 18 year old girl in our class, got in a Springer style fight all up in each other's faces outside the school. It wasn’t really about anything, just that Jazmine thought Tamara had been acting different since Jazmine had started hanging out with Bintu. Really childish. THESE ARE MY PEERS HERE PEOPLE, MY CLASSMATES. I went into work mode of course and intervened, pried them apart from each other, etc. It didn’t really work and I realized it wasn’t my responsibility, nor did they think of me as an authority figure, so I dipped and watched Ms. Belle try to settle them down. To their credit, they’ve never beefed since that day and are very civil to each other. The next day we all changed seating arrangements, and Tamara and I are, mysteriously seated next to each other. Its good though, I don’t mind helping her and it killed me to see her getting the cold shoulder from Jazmine, or not getting picked as anyone’s partner. Plus she talks to her mannequin heads as she’s doing their hair like she’s playing with Barbies. It’s adorable and more than a little sad.
Bintu is 24 I think. She is ½ Ethiopian Christian and ½ Eritriean Muslim, and completely beautiful. I remember she took the stupid, stupid placement test at the same time as I did and sat right across from me. Her hair is pressed, she is about 4’10” and weighs about 95 lbs. She has a perfect heart shaped face, big almondy eyes and perfect teeth. She smokes Newports, has Vitilago and wears pointy black stiletto boots almost every day. Of all the girls in our class, she and I get along the best. She is really quiet but when she speaks up, she’s right on target and very incisive. We go out to Ethiopian food after school sometimes, she drives this huge explorer type SUV and it makes her look even tinier. She was showing me some of her pictures in the car once, and when I got to the back of the album there were all these soft porn modeling shots of her. One was of her in this sparkly bikini top and jeans from a hot rod calendar, she was checking the oil on a 66 mustang. Then there were some red panties shots. I said something about how it wasn’t fair that someone that tiny could be so well endowed in the boob department and she looked at me like I must be kidding and said hilariously matter-of-factly “They’re fake, did you think they were real???” I had thought they were real, or maybe I never thought about it. I don’t know, they looked real enough. She said she had it done when she was 19. I asked her if she ever regretted it. Yes. “I’ve already had them made smaller once,” she said. It killed me, how unaffected she was about it. She is a really talented hairdresser already. She and Jamilah taught me how to braid. She did Nathan’s long hair in perfect cornrows in about half an hour and already does flawless fingerwaves.
More introductions next week. Until then…xoxoV

Scraps

The closest I came to wetting my pants this week was on Friday. They’ve recently decided that, in order to insure that all the students on the clinic floor (and thereby the teachers, which I think was the real impetus) get a break, they will be closing the salon from 11:30 to 12:30. This puts all the students on lunch at the same time. Before the fifth and third quarter students just took breaks when they didn’t have clients, now we are all in the severely inadequate break room at the same time. The other classes, 4th and 5th quarter students are primarily made up of African American women. All of them, save I think two, have kids. All of them, except Miss June who I love, are younger than me. They are hilarious, loud as hell, purposefully intimidating and very stylish. Most of them have classic La'Amaraquah type names. In fact the only boy in their class is a white boy named Casey who wears those roller-skate sneakers as a regular mode of transport, he said he's gonna change his name to La'Casey to fit in better. That killed me. Also, between you and me, he has a really, disproportionately big head. Ms Dolores gave him a haircut on Tuesday as a demo and I couldn’t stop staring at it. Anyway, these sister's hair goes from fades with curls on top to waist length cascades between the time we go into the back classroom at 9 to the time we come out at 11. I’ve seen more speedy glue-on weaves done in that break room . The other thing about the break room is that people eat the most shockingly crappy food on a daily basis. Burger king, deep fried burritos and jojos from the QFC deli counter, ENDLESS fried chicken, ENDLESS Coke and Fanta, buffalo wings, Doritos (the computer knew to capitalize Doritos! Ha, It did it again!), Snickers, M&Ms, donuts, and the Top Ramen, my god the Cup of Noodles! Heavenly Father, I can’t imagine what I would look like, let alone how I would feel. No wonder people get angry so fast. You could be talking to someone, thinking they’re totally normal, maybe even attractive, and the truth is they haven’t consumed one nutrient rich calorie in the past ten fifteen years.
So, Me, Bintu, Noelle, and a few others from my class are sitting around the huge round tables that barely fit in the room, you have to get up for anyone to get in the fridge or use the microwave. Samirah is a really beautiful light skinned young woman who has an eight year old daughter and an amazingly scary way of chatting and joking with you one moment and cutting you to the quick with some well thought out and perfectly unkind comment the next. She and Abena and La'quara and Shannisse were all sitting around another table. Abena is a larger, drop dead foxy dark skinned sister from the east coast. I could listen to her talk for days, she is quick as hell and I know she's the kind of girl who will throw down in a minute. So Noelle is saying something about her husband and Samirah, loud and across the table says "I thought you was married, I didn’t think you were a lesbian!" (Obviously she did though, everyone thought Noelle looked like a lesbian, but Jesus, no one had said anything about it!) Abena: "Now why would you say some shit like that?" Samirah: "Because, I mean I knew she was married and then also I was thinking, she Canadian too so that's why! She aint gay!"
Noelle was like "People have thought that before, I guess it’s the short hair." Which was equally funny, that she didn’t really even know how dykelike she looks. I tried not to make it worse by laughing but I couldn’t help it. She could so easily have just said I thought you were married, and left it at that. So hilarious.
Also funny is Ms Dolores, who taught us clipper cutting and razor cutting this week in Ms Kendra's absence. She talks so much that by the time she is finished telling us the rationale, detailed history and her part in the invention of what she wants us to do I have no idea what we are supposed to be doing. I take direction well, I pride myself on it, but NOBODY (and certainly nobody in my class) could listen to a half an hour lecture on the nature of a cowlick vs. the nature of a whorl and pick out the simple assignment "cut from the top of the brow down, with a #2 guard." It’s inconceivable. She talks fast and as soon as we get started on something she stops us in that "and another thing" style, to add some detail in that we would have found out for ourselves in about ten seconds. She was telling is in detail about how glasses make hair bulge out over your ears if you don’t “plan for them in the sculpture,” i.e. cut the hair a little shorter to go under the earpiece. Understood? I mean I think anyone can envision that without too much mind prep and background. So she takes off her glasses, which are on the end of her nose all the time, I cant imagine how she actually looks through the lenses if they’re that far from her eyes, and goes to put them on the mannequin, so we can all have a visual for the aforementioned, mind boggling “when you put something under something else it can stick up” concept. The thing is, she moves so fast and so erratically that she jammed one earpiece part of her glasses into the side of the wighead, it broke off and fell on the ground. She bent down, examined it, threw it in the trash and put the glasses back on her head, crooked and with only one earpiece, without even slowing the stream of her lecture. I had to leave the room to collect myself. She wore them like that the rest of the day. Clipper cutting is hard and unforgiving, but by the end of the day it was starting to be fun. Nathan is already really good at it, and he sits next to me now so he helped me a lot. He has been clipper-cutting hair since he was in sixth grade. He can still learn a lot from Ms D (according to her, she invented the concept of carving designs into men’s hair, took it to NY where it “took off”) but he is way ahead of the rest of us. I imagine Romy would have been too, but I heard his female stole all of his school supplies and tools, so he couldn’t come in to class. Now he’s missed so much at this point that he cant even make it up. He’d have to start over and he wouldn’t be eligible for financial aid. Another one bites the dust. Its deep how we keep each other down.
Oh yeah, to practice the clipper cuts we had to take these rubber mask head things with crew cuts and stretch them over the bald mannequin heads so we didn’t waste our long haired ones practicing. I can tell you now, surveying the scene of everyone stretching these unbelievably creepy peeled head looking masks over the faces of these disembodied heads was surreal. They didn’t glide on easily either, talc was needed as was great force and at least half an hour. I need a smaller head , you dig? That’s what Nathan said. Fun-ny. Besides that, the week was short due to our heavenly day off on Tuesday (the only day all week the sun wasn’t out, thanks so much), and the rest of it crawled by anyway. I got a tremendous amount of stuff done on Tuesday, including paying $175 smackers for Sizzla’s new tabs. Goddammit, Tim Eyman! What was all that $35 noise about anyway?
I did give frigmate and birthday twin Jason a haircut and beard trim on Thursday in anticipation of his sister’s Saturday wedding. I did a uniform layer cut, as he wanted to keep some of the length, but fend off his family’s complaints that he looked to have “gone native.” I could have taken off more length or added some more texture, but decided to keep it on the conservative side as it would be immortalized in the wedding photos forever and I could easily see some sort of Seinfeldian scenario unfolding about the bad haircut before the wedding. Maybe next time? His hair looked great anyway and we followed it with a fab night on the town in belated celebration of our birthday. Despite all Seattle constraints, it was fun. The Chapel has a cool upstairs part that I never knew about. If you like screaming over house music, you’ll love it.
Next week I think we’re starting to learn color theory. I can’t wait! Ready girls? I’ll need guinea pigs, I mean models!

Finals, Finals, It's Finally Hot.

Firstly, we got a new air freshener in the U Village Management bathroom. Its like being pelted with vanillabeans and cookiedough. Now I miss the sharp, fetid lemon Verbena that confronted me as recently as last weekend. Don’t know what you got 'til its gone.
The last two weeks, essentially, of shcool were our final exams. I believe I told you about the written. Well, the practical ones were awesome. Not only was I excited to bring in my friends and have them see where I am all the time and meet my classmates (!) but to see who everyone else brought in. I was going to use Zana Tsutakawa for my rollerset model, but Ms Kendra said her hair would be too long and take forever to dry. So...I chose Sarah? Almost as long, twice as thick; not a great replacement. This I realized as I stood two feet away to put in the rollers. Nonetheless, even though she had to sit under the drier for over an hour, her set was really beautiful. I got a 98% and in my personal advising Ms. Belle told me that she and Ms Aminah had conferred that they both were impressed, they thought it was well done and well conceived. Its the little things these days.
Its about 110 degrees in the back classroom, the first quarter class room. There are huge windows that dont open, which is really fine since they face out on to a very smelly, garbagey, urine-alley. With all the hairdriers and curling irons and manniquin drier cabinets (all kinds of things I never knew existed) it creates a sort of greenhouse effect. As I finished backcombing poor Sarah's hair, (she looked terrified as her hair went from smooth Catherine Zeta-Jonesey curls to matted rats nest a la Vince Neil, I assured her that there is an awkward stage to any good roller style. Not to worry, its called relaxing the set) Carrie showed up for her haircut. Most people had done their rollersets on their mannequins so their first client was their haircut client. I wanted to work with real hair and real people so I recruited. That weird permed, tinted relaxed boiled sterilized Chinese hair that’s on our wigheads is not the truth. Anyway, point being I was the only one bringing people into the back classroom at the time. Carrie really got the ol' once over from my classmates. I don’t know if I noticed it more with her because she was less comfortable with the staring, or if they stared more at her cause of the tattoos or something but man, Tabatha pretty much stood right next to the chair and looked at Carrie like a freaking painting. Anyway, Carrie has great hair. Fine, blonde and thick. I gave her a bang trim and long layers with some face framing. I got an 85%, Ms Belle said I chose a hard haircut, so I feel pretty good about it. It looks really good, and I think Carrie likes it. It was fun too, I love haircutting, its so satisfying. I was glad we got out early because I had to be in Tacoma for a dance performance at Jason Lee middle school at 4. It went well, in case you’re wondering. The floor was cold, and I’ve got a killer hole in the callous of my right foot, but they liked us as much as its possible for middle schoolers to like anything and it was fun to dance them down the aisle to the stage. It reminded me of my kids at Madison and made me miss looking at all their forward facing faces.
The next day, Gul came in at nine thirty (chosen because she has nice feet and I knew if I told her to be there at 930 she would be, which, with the exception of my sister, and possibly Jess, is not true for any of my other friends...kind of a shame really) for a pedicure. I laughed internally when Ms Pixie told me I got a perfect score because I skipped the scrubbing step and did all the other ones in my own personal order. Everyone else was muttering to themselves "ok, check, spray, soak, check, file buff slough, scrub, soak... like some kind of mantra, I just couldn’t do it. Besides, it had already become pretty clear that the instructors couldn’t watch us all, all the time, and that I was not their priority one to keep an eye on. So, I give a good massage and I think they were satisfied with that. As an aside, when Ms Aaliyah taught pedicuring, she pronouced slough wrong, now everyone in the class says "sloff" instead of "sluff." That drives me up the wall.
Rachael Peacock, my dear friend, ex roommate and tortured artist extraordinaire, came in next for a manicure. That was fun, she has cute, pink, little hands that she always jokes look like she soaked them in hot water and they shrunk up. My hands looked long and yellowy holding her tiny fingers. I kept finishing each service before everyone else which made me a little nervous, but, then again, I’ve never had a mani or pedi last more than half an hour in the nail shops. so I figured it must be ok.
For Rachael’s mani I was sandwiched between Kai and Camille. Kai is 21 and Filipina. She and I sat next to each other from the first day of school to about an month and a half into the quarter. She is really sweet and good natured. She is not, however, particularly quick witted. She never knew when I was joking, or didn’t think my jokes were funny, one of the two, but there is nothing like a completely blank expression to make one's comedy an immediate, embarrassing failure. Often she will take a full 10 or 20 very quiet seconds of looking you in the face to respond to a simple question. Its odd. She has very, very thick black hair that she styles in a purposefully messy, spiked up sphere. Its cute. She is a swimmer, and has that athletic swimmery body with broad back, shoulders and arms and a very tapered torso and legs. I cant imagine that she wouldn’t have had that physique anyway, but its certainly nice for her to have am explanation for it. She is constantly, constantly saying how tired she is and amazes me with her ability to fall asleep at anytime in only a few moments.
Camille may have been made up of all the parts left over from making Kai. She is average height, very thin and curvy, and white as a ghost. She has very blonde hair with even blonder streaks, wears adorable shoes, all the time, and smokes Dunhills which she transfers out of the box into a silver case. She wears light pink in some fashion most every day. Her style is very consistent and she does a terrific updo, especially the 60's bouffant look. She is 19, acts about 40 and is (or was in high school) all about musical theatre. I can perfectly see her sucking herself into a corset and belting out "everything's coming up roses and daffodils," or even in a sandy wig and nose prosthesis "Papa, can you hear me?" She tried to teach me some braiding technique once and I couldn’t even tell what she was doing, her hands moved like nervous little birds. That looks hard, I told her, "No,it isn't" she said, "its just that I move so much more than you have to. I have a lot of nervous movements. "Do you feel very nervous?" I asked her. "Yes, very." She is an only child, actually she has one sister who is a lot older, but she has lived in a capitol hill studio apartment with her mom for many years which has resulted in a very only child temperament. She is the kind of girl who will rest her head on your shoulder in class when you’re really not good enough friends to justify it, but, I think she kind of wishes you were. She brought her mom in for a Manicure, she was so cute setting up, and wanting everything to look professional. Her mom was just as cute as her, with the short "cancer growout" haircut, resulting from a brain cancer battle last year. Mom had very hip colored heart tattoos on her arm and a short army skirt. She looked young, and though Camille's natural hair color is dark like mine, her mom's blonde was a perfect match. I wanted to time my manicure to hers and follow all her steps so I'd be sure to do everything in the right order, but she took over an hour and, merciful heavens, I can't make filing and buffing take that long!
Kai brought in her friend Esprit, who was an African American girl with a loose weave who spoke in this nasal valleygirl way and, as Rachael so eloquently put it, could have talked a dog off the back of a meat truck. Really though. Even if i didnt have a profound aversion to overhearing people's conversations (a neurotic quirk acquired from years of riding the metro route 43. Its debilitating, I almost want to start rocking and singing to myself to drown it out. Ive really laid myself bare here,people) it would have been overbearing, a real blue streak. It was pretty tortuous sitting between them. From the never-ending, droning details of Esprit's nighttime plans and Kai's conspicuous silence (we are supposed to be absolutely quiet during these exams btw) and Camille's nervous, focused, perfect, professional buffing and filing, I couldn’t wait to get out of there and I’m sure Rachael felt the same way. Hardly a relaxing spa type setting.
Romy was absent starting the day before the written exam. I am pretty sure he decided not to come back. Its sad, I’m sure his stupid petty girlfriend has a lot to do with it. Apparently she called Amber to ask who I was because she found my # in his cell. Romy had told her I was some girl who was following him around at school. Bless his heart. There has been some commentary on the term, THE BLACUUM that I used in my last entry, and I intend to explore it further later. I hope that Romy allowing himself to be drama-ed out of this program and out of his barber dreams by all this bullshit doesn’t put him a few rungs closer to the sucking vortex. Our class will miss his presence.

Nathan and Romy vol 7

Nathan and Romy

06.12.04 04:10 pm



There are two African american young men in my class. They are both pretty serious cats, with a lot of composure for their young years. Nathan is 20, played football basketball and whatever other ball you could play, for Rainier Beach High School. His dad is Jamaican, his mom African American. He has deep brown skin that we all assesed to be cool toned but I still think it looks warm and rusty. His hair is long and always perfectly braided. This really (for lack of a better or more accurate word) ghetto looking white girl who picks him up from school a lot who he swears up and down isn't his girlfriend (I would go toe to toe with him on the swearing that she is,) braids it beautifully and diffently every few days. This week it was crisscrossed like a basket all over his head, her skills are impressive and if theyre not sleeping together, he must be comin w/ something good for her to spend that much time on his hair. He speaks in a very unique and hilarious way, he always puts the emphasis on a different syllable. Once when we were all walking around central on a break, a bird shit on his puffy down coat. He did an unbeleiveable impression of the sound of bird poop landing on a down coat and then proclaimed that he "Needed a nap-kain with some of that good ol' wa-tare." He calls Tabatha "Young Tabs," and refers to clothes that are too tight or short as young as well. He raps and is constantly seeking inspiration from different sources. Once I gave him and Jamaa a ride home, but he lives in skyway so he came to my house for a min while I ate, packed my dance bag and went to drop him off on the way to Franchesska's house, also in Skyway. He and I sat on my couch and he drank a pacifico (sorry mom) and told me stories. He was one of three boys both older than him. His mom wont let him borrow the car to get his drivers license. He supposes she's protective of him, seeing as how both of his brothers have been killed. More specifically murdered. He Sat on my sure fit slipcover teal blue couch and told me that he was eight, spending the night at his favorite brother's house. His brother was 20 at the time and big time into drugs, dealing yes, doing maybe. He heard something in the night and got up to see what it was. He didnt see anything, so he went in the bathroom, probably because the light was on. He could see the top of the showerhead, and there was something wrapped around it, he said it was a belt but I imagine he didnt know what it was at the time. He pulled back the curtain to see his brother hanging. He was still alive, Nathan said, he could see him tryng to breathe. He remembers it like it was yesterday he told me, and I know what he means about those mind photographs that are a wholly different kind of remembering, its like an eye memory, a retina memory. What killed me is that he said he still feels like there was something he could have done, he should have tried to get him down, he was still alive. I heard myself telling him that there was no way an eight year old could lift a dead weight like that and that even if he could have gotten him down, he would have already suffered severe brain damage. How did I think of those things so fast?? What in God's name do I know about dead weight and brain damage. Anyway, he actually seemed a little comforted by what I said, like he'd thought of those things before and it was good to have them confirmed. I asked about his other brother. He said he was stabbed, but It wasnt as bad cause he hadnt been there. I guess its the lesser of the two evils. We agreed that we could see why his mom was overprotective. Then he asked me if I had any poetry books he could borrow and I lent him my favorite dog eared Rumi translation and told him it would change the way he thought about everything. I never talked to him about his stories again, but we have a kind of unspoken closeness, like a young auntie, that we both acknowledge quietly.
Romy is 21 and looks like he could easily be videomorphed into a balinese cat. He has a chisled jaw, deep set eyes and everything tilts down towards a longish aqualine nose. He presses his short hair to his head with grease and a do-rag so it gleams and has smooth ripples like a summer lake. He has coffee yellow skin, flawless rhythm, beautiful hands, and a really poor attendance record. He once told me on the subject of social services and the court system, "once you get them in your business, its really hard to get them out." He knows from experience. His downstairs neighbor called the fuzz when he and his girl were arguing and claimed that she SAW him hit her. She couldnt have seen anything as they have curtains on the windows and even if they didnt she would have had to have a periscope through the toilet or something to see from directly below them, anyway,when the police came, his girl said there had been no hitting, but since they had a witness they booked him anyway and he has been in court on a near weekly basis with his totally innefective public defender ever since. I guess he has the best chance of getting off if he pleads guilty, but its killing him to do it. He cant understand how he can get up there, promise not to lie, tell them he did a crime he didnt do and end up serving less time than if he told the court what really happened. Its a hurter. He is a very serious young man, with real insight into our serious social ills and how he is affected by them. His gave me a very dark and perfectly articulated description of young lawyers who come in to the system raring to make some positive changes and either quit disillusioned or joint the ranks of wage slave defenders who try and forget why they wanted to be there in the first place. Really, I can see that when he gets older, if he manages to avoid the Blacuum, he will be a force to be reckoned with. His beatboxing is off the hook. Id give my eye teeth for rhythm like that. He and Nathan sit in his car at lunch and freestyle. His girlfriend is a future medical assistant and a crazy bitch. A couple weeks ago, I was walking out of school laughing at how my hat dwarfed Melashu's little peanut head. Apparantly I was laughing in the general direction of Romy's girl's car cause she leaned out and hissed like a viper " I see you smirkin' at me you fatass bitch." I walked a few steps before I realized she was talking to me at which point i walked back to the car and leaned in over romy who couldnt even look up at me, and said were you talking to me? She replied that she was sure she saw me smirking at her and her man. I assured her, while she snaked her head from side to side and narrowed her eyes, that I hadn't a thought of her in my head and in fact didnt even know that she was there but that even if i had godforbid, smiled in her general direction it was no cause to be using that kind of language with me as I have no interest in you or your man. She inauthentically apologised like she would let me get away with it this time. The next day I asked Romy what was up with his female attacking me like that. He said he didnt want to talk about it. I can understand why not. We used to have really good conversations but we havent really spoken since then. I guess she got what she wanted. Bintu told me that when she was pregnant she stabbed Romy's sister, i can't remember why but then again, is there any good reason to stab anyone? Poor Romy, too bad about their adorable three year old daughter or I'm sure he'd be long gone. I wonder if that woman downstairs didnt mistake her blows for his, i wouldnt be at all suprised if the wrong party were on trial and never said a word. It takes all kinds.
This week was our written final, it was 200 questions. It was easy, I got a 95% and feel a little ashamed for missing any of them. But I studied for about 20 minutes total so that's what I get. Next week are our practicals. I have to give a mani, pedi, wet set (thats a rollerset, for any post 60s kids, the aforementioned big ol' Texas hair) and a haircut. Sarah has generously agreed to be my wet set model and Carrie Steel will be recieving a version of the friends haircut, but longer and with bangs. I'm sure it will be foible filled.
Stay tuned my dears.

I Gave My Wighead the "Friends" Haircut Vol 6

I gave my wighead the ' Friends' haircut!

06.06.04 04:06 pm



Did you hear me? I can give any one of you the Friends haircut!!! Mahdis Aniston!!! Sarah Cox!!! It's commonly known as the increase layer cut and its fun to do, I can see why all the stylists went a little layer happy. It looks good, and is flattering on almost everyone. Even my weird looking rubbery wig head (mannequin, whatever), Erica. Its much more satisfying than the Dorothy Hamill cuts we worked on last week, the graduated form cuts. Pro skating has never been the cutting edge of style, and it certainly isnt now. Although, the ratty bleached Tonya Harding pony has never lost popularity in the outlying areas of America's major cities...
We have also been working on rollersets. Rollersets gove you big hair. Really big hair. Ms Kendra calls it " Big Ol' Texas Hair" everytime she says it. I really like putting the rollers in and doing the dos, but I cant imagine anyone really wanting their hair to come out like that. Picture Loretta Lynn, or Bret Micheals (of Poison mini-stardom.) I think itll be useful for art and runway hair. And for Halloween costumes of course. God I love Halloween. Anecdote: A few Halloweens ago I had this Gambian boyfriend (A mistake intend never to duplicate) who was supposed to be coming over to my house. I was waiting, but in my usual fashion, doing 10 things at once in the house, plus he's African so I didnt think twice that he was 45 minutes late. I thought I heard his car pull up but I didnt hear a knock so I assumed it was a neighbor. Finally I came downstairs and I could hear him and his friend talking to each other animatedly in Sarahoule. I opened the door to see him and his friend, both large, grown men, held at bay on my patio by the two glowing jack-o-lanterns I had placed on the first of the three little stairs leading to my door. They were not amused, but that was alright because I was amused enough for the three of us. They were convinced it was some voodoo spell and wouldnt even step over the damn things to get to the door. They had been standing there for half an hour. Probably the most fresh air either of them had gotten since trading their lives as Gambian shepards in for new ones as African/American drug dealers.
Anecdotes aside: School seems to be going well. Amazingly enough, we are approaching the end of the quarter. I have a 91% even after missing two solid weeks of school. We are doing a lot of practical work and less "theory" which is great. Unfortunately, the social element gets more and more annoying the longer everyone knows each other. Ruby is 20, there are 3 other Rubies (one of them being Rubhie...black people and the naming!)so she had to make up a name so they wouldnt get them confused on the floor. She chose Ginger. She has strawberry blonde, just above shoulder length hair with lots of red and blonde streaks. She laughs a nervous laugh whenever she speaks in front of the class, even if there is nothing funny going on. She has absolutely alabaster skin which she claims "tans really good" after she gets that good base tan in. I shudder to think about the process of the base tan. She wears thick black eyeliner in that smudgy way and tons of black mascara. It doesnt look bad, per se, but I think the idea is to make her small blue eyes look bigger and smoky, and it doent acheive either of those things. She smokes newports or marlboro lights, has a very curvy body and a big ass which I think she feels puts her closer to being black. She has those kind of arms that become the arms of women working at stores in Sequim or even smaller towns on the olympic pennisula, where you can buy beer, marshmallows, kindling and maps. She is still young, but you can imagine them thick and hanging. She affects black speech patterns, but her inflection belies a small town Oregon upbringing. She dates predominantly black men. (theres a theme there that I think deserves, and may well receive further examination) All in all, though she is sweet and I have feeling for her youth, she grates on my nerves like a dentist drill. Most recently her boyfriend was picked up running from the cops. Apparantly he has several offenses from which he has been evading arrest for the last 2 years. She feels really badly for him, as he has been trying SO hard to turn over that new leaf ( not hard enough to not be buying herb on the street and get caught but...we do the best we can). Anyway, he's locked up which has resulted in her having a whole lot of new free time. She had never been to a party or a club before as of this year. Now that her man is in the clink she, Jamila, Nathan and Monica, all under 21, have been hanging out all hours of the night everynight, and coming in to school exhausted, of course, falling asleep in class asking even more moronic questions than usual, and worst of all, going over every detail of every night out at the all ages clubs like no one had ever gotten drunk, groped and danced like a damn fool in a club before. She and Monica both have crushes on Nathan and laugh constantly at everything he says and does. Hes a funny cat, true enough but come on! No man wants you follow him around like a blue heeler. I know they're young and I probably did the same thing (noireallydidnt) but, Jesus, I never went to school with people like this before in my life. Not even in middle school. I never wanted to shush someone so badly while the teacher was talking. COME ON KIDS!!! THIS IS BEAUTY SCHOOL, its just not that hard. The other day as they were kvetching about how hard the concept of pincurls was to grasp, Marc (the frosted ex-military gay boy)said "God, you are all such a bunch of whiners. Did I say that out loud? " I wanted to hug him.I have to take frequent deep breaths and smile a big smile to try to get my inner feeling to match my face. Im telling you , I have had to trick myself in many ways throughout this process.

Haircutting, and Fingerwaves Vol 5

Haircutting, and Fingerwaves.

05.29.04 03:21 pm



We are beginning to learn haircutting and my feet are KILLING me. I stood up for 8 hours at the Alibi and the Dahlia during my ill fitting stint as a restaurant industry lackey, but I was always running around, moving stuff, seating people, hauling heavy boxes of Skyy Vodka and Pilsner Urquell into the dumbwaiter so that Bellevue could get plastered again the next night. Never have I stood stock still for five hours at a time. As you can imagine, it leaves a lot of time for thinking. Not good for mental health. Good for Blog though! Good for blog. Here’s the deal with haircutting; Part, Part, Comb, Comb, Flip, Comb, Pivot, Transfer, Cut. That’s the procedure. You part the hair, comb twice with the coarse teeth of the comb, then flip the comb, shears in hand mind you, we spent a solid two hours practicing flipping our combs while “palming” our shears. SHEARS now, not scissors. Language (read: lingo) seems to play a big part in this whole industry. I have a sneaking suspicion that it makes people, like Ms. Kendra, feel a little more comfortable with being in a service job to have a vocabulary that you have be in the know to know. For instance, we learned fingerwaves on Thursday. Fingerwaves are really really challenging (Ms Kendra likes us to say challenging instead of hard, and of course, you mustn’t ever say “ I cant.”) So we had a sub named Ms Dolores. She is an African American woman who warned us, almst before she had fully entered the room, that she may call us Baby Girl as she is from the South and we should not take offense. She looks over her glasses, talks at an amazingly loud volume, says things like “what’s wrong with this picture” and makes you high five her when you get something right. She’s barking mad, and I loved it. Totally hilarious, long, weird, partially relaxed hair in her face all day, and a purple salon cape. Everyone else got really annoyed with how abrasive and intrusive she was but I thought it was great. What I didn’t think was great was that instead of saying the words Use, Move, and Form, which you have to say a lot when you do fingerwaving, she said Utilize, Maneuver and Manipulate. Now, once or twice for variety’s sake, I can appreciate. But to say utilize 12 times in 6 sentences is unbearable. “Now when you’re utilizing your comb to maneuver the hair towards the crest of the wave you’ll want to utilize your fingers and manipulate the hair to keep the c shape of the fingerwave.” Listen to that kind of rediculousness for 8 hours and see where it takes you. Where was I? Ah yes, Flip. Flip the comb to the fine teeth, comb again for tension in the hair, transfer your comb to the hand now holding the hair to be cut, pivot your weight (to flatten out your wrist, we’re trying to stay ergonomically sound and avoid carpal tunnels), and cut the hair! Ta Da. It’s hard. It really is. I am a tolerant haircut customer and I’m telling you; if Id gotten the haircut I gave I would have returned it and gotten my money back. Unfortunately, as Maddi knows, there is no returning a haircut. MUSHROOM MULLET. I know I’m going to make some hilarious mistakes in my time, I can only hope for compassionate clients. However, I have to say, mine looked pretty good compared to some of the other students. Marc is like 30, gay, and one of the only other grown ups in my class. He has been an accountant for the last ten years and just needed to break out, and be his artistic self. “I just gotta be me!!!” Since beginning school, his hair has become perfectly messy and frosted. He is not a gifted stylist. (“Yet!” Ms Kendra would add) And he gets so internally frustrated that I can feel it across the room. His haircuts look like a botched pin the tail on the donkey exercise. I’m sure he will improve but, it’s hard to watch. Noelle, the other adult is a total perfectionist. She takes forever and everything she does looks flawless. She’s also the nicest person ever, and Canadian. Nobody’s perfect. She’s married to a pro skateboarder and her last name is Smiley. She said her father in law is a dentist. I almost died.
This week was my birthday. A bunch of the kids, who I have to tell you about, I just don’t even know where to start, got together and bought me a cake (a Shrek cake no less, it was fluorescent orange and green with gummi worms coming out of his nose. They said it was the brightest color one they had and since I love bright colors…), a big bouquet of balloons (including a Spongebob mylar) and a purple rose. They came in after lunch break singing me happy birthday. It was so sweet and they were so proud of themselves I almost cried. I have this egomaniacal need to be recognized endlessly on my birthday, it’s the only time I need proof that people like me, so I loved it. It was adorable. Following in that same vein, I’m having a birthday party tonight to which, like a fool, I invited all of these kids. Some of them have never been to a party or a club before (WHAT AM I DOING?) so it should be interesting. To be continued

Duly Blogged, Professor Jaffee. Duly Blogged

Duely Blogged Prof. Jaffee, Duely Blogged.

05.23.04 04:40 pm



I wrote this whole thing before and it got erased. I almost don’t ever want to write anything again. It’s never as good the second time. WHY didn’t I write it in Word first??? A mistake I won’t make again)

Is that how you spell Duely? Duly? Dooley? I don’t know. It looks like an adjective, like someone is duely. Ex: “ I don’t know about Ted, I mean he finishes his projects on time, he comes to all the meetings, but he’s always smacking me in the face with that leather glove, its like a challenge. That guy’s just a little too duely for my taste.” The Frig needs a spell check.
At this time, I am going to skip ahead a little bit, both for my readers’ continued interest as well as because the closer we get to the present, the better memory serves.
I knew going into the program that this would be as much an education in tolerance and humility as flatirons and chemical services. I decided that, being a somewhat naturally critical individual that it would be good for me to immerse myself in a kind of bottom up, were all beginners here type atmosphere. I set my mind to staying all positive, all the time in school, even if I felt like I wasn’t on the same level as the other students. If I allowed myself to become irritated by all the things at the SCCC cosmetology program that are genuinely irritating, I would look like Jack Palance in about three weeks. Plus, I’m frickin’ paying for this, I may as well enjoy it to its fullest! The first week (and I think they continued on after I left for NYC) was spent discussing learning styles communication styles and personality types. You know those sort of pseudo psychological tests and exercises that you can do to tell you about who you are and how you relate to who everyone else is and how they relate to you. There is some sort of truth to them of course but they’re no substitute for natural intuition and actual interpersonal intelligence. The whole thing was somewhat tortuous. But, I persevered! I discovered I am an A/D type communicator, and vowed to try and adopt some of the strengths of the C and B communicators to temper my dominant tendencies and become a more well rounded learner or whatever. I participated in the group activities like walking around with a famous person’s name taped to my back and asking as few questions as possible to find out who I am ( I was mother Theresa, and I never figured it out). I am the quintessential good sport at school.
Our primary teacher Ms Kendra (now, this Ms. Firstname business kills me! I have not managed to StayPositive! about that. I feel like a kindergartener.) is a tall, white woman with large blonde wavy hair. She is an Image Consultant. She appears to have gotten her experience in image consulting in a large part by creating her own image from the ground up. I don’t think I have ever spent time around someone who has invented themselves to that degree, and it is weird. Every now and again I get a feeling about who she was, usually from her speech (things like sim-u-lar instead of similar), or the fact that she cant spell to save her life. She says she’s dyslexic but she doesn’t reverse things and it looks to me like she just never learned to spell. Plus she said her brother has no teeth and rides a Harley (She disclosed those 2 things on different occasions but since I’ve become a Hannibal Lecteresque profiler I put them together and now picture her growing up in a Lynnwood tract home and riding bitch in a old pickup.) She wears long, tailored suit jackets or leather jackets w/ the same cut over slacks w/ high heeled boots all the time. It is, statistically, the most flattering thing she can wear for her body type. She wears long, curled pieces of her hair down around her face when she wears it up so as to draw attention from a less than chiseled chin, and curls it big w/ volume on the sides to best flatter her rounded oblong facial structure. Her vocal tone is perfectly varied and her hand motions and movements in front of the class are perfectly executed to keep us all interested, all the time. She really is a good teacher, she’s like roboteacher, but there is something really fake about her that bothers me from time to time. Especially when she uses tricks like “Luke Skywalker wore white” to remember the word Leukonychia (a nail disease resulting in white spots on the nail bed) instead of knowing that Leuk is the word root for white (like leukemia kids!) and telling us that. Knowing all this is not helpful and provides another excellent instance wherein ignorance would be blissful.
Ms Belle is a heavyset, Caucasian woman, with big, redbrown curly hair, smokes Marlboro lights at every break, has 20+ years of salon experience and is a refugee from the Gene Juarez advanced training program. She is a really good teacher and knows her stuff from experience, is totally unpretentious and has a very empathetic way about her. She’s a winker, but it’s comforting, not creepy. I think she could benefit greatly from a total overhaul of her diet and exercise, but to each their own.
Ms Aminah also comes to us from Gene Juarez. She is a young (younger than me anyway. 26 I think) African American woman. She is currently 7 months pregnant (not a small 7 months either) she is very pretty, straightens her hair, always has this “girl, shouldn’t you know that already?” look, and has a large tattoo of her first child’s name on her arm. She is a very good hairdresser. She taught manicuring and pedicuring (which I missed the 2nd and 3rd weeks) as well as updos. She is very good on the floor and can help you with technical questions about specific styles, but when it comes to teaching theory she reads directly from the book and says things like “ you gonna want to remember this one cause its gonna be on your Friday test,” and “you guys don’t need to know this.” She could use some work in the classroom… Nonetheless, she keeps it real and I like her.
Ms V is probably my favorite teacher. She looks like she’s in her late 40’s but is probably considerably older than that. She is an African American woman who keeps her hair natural and short, with the front “lifted” to a strange yellow color. Her skin shines in an amazing way. Like burnished wood. She has strong deft hands and her iron clicks and whirls around like it’s weightless. First off she got points with me because her name is identical to the name of the woman from the diner who calls the police in the story of the famous martyr and boxer The Hurricane. Her name was featured in the brilliant and poignant Bob Dylan song of the same name. I love that song. Ms V introduced herself on the first day as “a Christian woman who loves and forgives unequivocally.” I loved that. While Ms. Kendra was reading about Satori moments from Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (and Its All Small Stuff), which made the subjugated critic within me cringe, Ms V talked about staying motivated and beginning your journey with the end in mind. That, as they say, resonated with me. So far, Ms V has taught us how to press and curl “excessively curly” (i.e. Black folks’) hair using Marcel ovens and irons. So far it’s my favorite thing to do (besides braiding which I have been teaching myself to do) its like sculpture. We get to have her more in later quarters. Getting back to the humility part of the story, before I go on and introduce my classmates, I had a near perfect experience in the parking lot of the Seward Park PCC (that’s Puget Consumer’s Co-op for those of you non Seattleites or Albertson’s shoppers.) An unlikely place for a perfect experience but, God always pulls through in the most unexpected places. I had finished my small marketing errand after working out last week, I have no idea what day it was. It was one of those beautiful Seattle evenings when it’s starting to stay light later and its warm. The light looks pink and our sallow skins get a moment of peach. Anyway, I was leaving basking in the generosity of the checker who couldn’t remember the code for almond butter and threw it in gratis, when I found myself making unusually long and probing eye contact with a bearded orthodox Jewish man in the car passing me. Not unusual for me to be staring shamelessly, but he was staring back, that was unusual. As I drove by, I realized that it was Professor Martin Jaffee. Head of the UW Jewish Studies program and I believe chair of the Jackson School in Jere Bacharach’s absence. Professor Jaffee was my advisor at UW and possibly the most brilliant and intimidating mind I have ever experienced. Why more so than Aron Zysow? Because Jaffee is also a deeply religious man, he manages to be a scholar and a spiritual being which in the university setting is unusual to say the least. I adored him, and always felt dwarfed by the sheer amount of his knowledge and its brilliant arrangement. Nor did he make it easier for us fledgling academics; he was tough as nails. Not mean, but never really encouraging either. I wept openly in his office once, after Ariel dropped a wet hand towel on the outlet the computer I was writing my paper on for his immensely difficult Religion: Nature and Study course, rendering my nearly completed paper into some untranslatable Mac code. Suffice it to say, he was an idol of mine during my brief and only moderately successful academic career and I really wanted him to think I was smart and take me seriously.
I pulled into a handicapped spot and got out of my car to greet him. Suddenly I felt so obtuse and garish. My car seemed more flamboyant than ever and I wished I had worn stockings, or didn’t have bright orange hair. As he limped toward me (even with the five or six inch lift on his left shoe, he has a pronounced limp) from the furthest spot from the store, I even felt bad for pulling up in the handicapped spot and hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Hello Professor Jaffee!” I called to him. “ Its Vivi, do you remember me?” As I got closer to him he said “Of course. Genevieve, how are you? How long have you been back in the country? How was your time in Persia” Someone must have told him about my Pakistan trip, news among Jews travels like inaccurate wildfire. I answered, feeling ordinary, that it was actually Pakistan and it had been about three years and then realized with horror that he was going to ask me what I was doing, and that there in that beautiful light, I was going to have to tell Prof. Jaffee that I was in beauty school, a profoundly unorthodox not to mention unacademic course of study. I considered not mentioning it, or even lying but as I told him about work at the Village and all the dance and everything else, I knew that I have to be proud of what I’m doing, and stand behind my decisions no matter who I’m talking to. I didn’t do this accidentally, and I’m not sorry that I’m not in his grad program talking about the history of the Rabbinate. I took a deep breath and spit it out. “…and, this is hard, I’m in Beauty school at Seattle Central” those were my exact words. “You don’t say, what a wonderful life.” That’s what he said. It was the nicest thing I could think of. Then he told me that he would love it if I’d come visit him at UW. Of course I will. It was a pivotal experience, I told him, my times in your classes, I said, are some of my most precious moments. I thought to myself, moments when I knew why my dad even thought he would want to teach at Columbia. Anyway, I left feeling pretty good, like I had been in the right place at the right time. I called Ariel and told her about it. “ Blog it,” She said. Duly blogged.

Beautiful, Just Beautiful Vol 3

Beautiful, Just Beautiful. Vol 3

05.09.04 03:43 pm



My sister works at the University Frame Shop and Gallery in Seattle's premeire outdoor lifestyle center (read: strip mall with amazing landscape architecture). She took about three years to frame my diploma, the one you read about in volume 2, the shelf paper? Well, she really did it up, though, when she got around to it. Gilded frame with a purple wash and a three inch purple velvet mat. Very glamourous darling, and extremely self important. Of course we all know the tounge in cheekieness of it but, picture me carrying the damn thing through the halls of Seattle vocational institute, into their advising center, into the recruiter's office and handing it over as proof that I really graduated. Three people,including Marcelina Ortigoza, the head of advising and recruiting for STI gathered around me and the receptionist who was going to try to make a photocopy through the glass. everyone was SO impressed, it was really humiliating. All this ludicrous adolation of something that was doing me no good: Im here trying to get into your program for heavens sake. The other students (all african american teenagers; future dental hygenists, nursing assistants and multiple tradesmen) in the waiting room sized me up and decided instantly that I thought I was better than them and I should be iced out at all costs. I could already see I was going to get the white gloves treatment by the administration at STI. Marcelina (Marcie) Ortigoza struck me on first meeting, as a very sharp and intuitive woman. I think, in my egotism, that I only felt that way because she really liked me and thought I was the smartest thing to cross her threshold. Not a flattering portrait of my character, but, true nonetheless. In any case, as my contacts with her have grown in number, I have come to see that she is forgetful to the point of senility and may actually say the exact same thing to everyone. I somehow managed to progress with Marcie through several identical introductions of myself and my circumstances (most notably that hell or high water i would be taking a two week trip to NY after the first week of class)and throught the initial registration process. You dont really have to apply, they just check you for a pulse and youre in. Now, let me be clear, you DO have to take the placement test. Nothing they can do about that. You could be Noam Chomsky and, Chomsky Shmomsky, you better show up at 2:00 to begin testing at 2:15. They do assist you however, by making the test so easy that you would have to have severe, massive test anxiety or have stepped off the boat within the last couple of days to do poorly. Let me put it to you like this: How do you spell breeze? Multiple choice. Now, anyione who knows me knows that as far as math goes, I might as well be a day old immigrant from Laos. My fear was that I would do so badly on the math section of the "test" that I would have to take a remedial math class at SCCC to be enrolled in the Cosmetology program. Thank god, somehow I guessed my way through and earned a darkly comic "Brilliant!" written on the test. How you could classify anyone as brilliant based on their performance on that test...I dont know, the system there is some really lowest common denominator type shit. I've tried with minimal success, to put the whole experience out of my mind. Especially the rotund, derisive, pseudo-professorial proctor who took his job satirically seriously. Shame should play no part in test taking.

Becoming a Beautician Vol. 2

vol 2

05.01.04 03:39 pm



So. Dad is in Spokane, I'm a sophmore at UW, still studying Comparative religion and Arabic (enter Mahdis and Sarah, and Alex,)living in one of those old creaky houses in the U District that you think you got a great deal on until you realize youre but blocks from the Ave, and you have to live with at least four other people; its a nightmare. Youve got your solid three, but there's always someone moving out. Ask me about Ms. WorstRoomate of 1996, Jackie Adams, someday: bussing it alone to Mr Paddywack's on the weekends, sleeping on wadded up clothes in a borrowed sleeping bag, sitting in MY living room, shades drawn smoking Newports, watching Days. It was archetypal. Anyway, I was sure at this point that my career in diplomacy and international relations, (which I was intensively preparing for by working at Toys in Babeland, that should have tipped me off,) would bring me the personal satisfaction of doing some real good as well as using my degree and my natural charisma to their best ends, and providing me with the fame and media coverage that I've always felt I deserved. This, I believed would insure me to never end up wasting my talents. Several holes in that thinking revealed themselves ( I wanted to say quickly revealed themselves but in truth, it took years.) I graduated, left the world of theoretical political and social analysis and the glorification of NGO and Non Profit work and entered the reality of a system so overwhelmed by beurocracy and workload that it is rendered, at worst ineffective and self congratulatory and at best well intentioned, underfunded and fantastically overworked. Not to mention that I began to feel that working in politics was like being a used car salesman. I didn't feel like there was any thing that my throwing myself on the smoking pyre of American Mid-East relations would do to make matters better (I know, I know, one person CAN make a difference, just look at Mahdis.) And this was even before the fever pitched terrorism madness that has overtaken us post 911. I was flummoxed. I chose social justice here at home on the think globally, act locally principle. I know that if change is possible, we are dependent on kids to want to live, and live well, and know what living well really is. I worked for Planned Parenthood in their education/oregnancy prevention department for three plus years. Honestly for the most part it was fantastic. Wouldnt trade my years at Madison and Denny Middle Schools or with the teen parent panel for anything, even at its most shatteringly sad moments. While the PP administration served to sour me forever on non profit, the work with the kids bolstered my confidence that we have to work with our children, our families and equal access (LINGO ALERT!)to understanding the priorities of a good life (nutrition and rest, excercise, time together, reading, lust for intellectual pursuit and the arts, dance and culture, personal style, personal activism, self esteem and cultural history, environmental appreciation, community representation, ) before we can ever project a healthy political image.
Good grief, this sounds like some kind of manifesto.
Moving on. Beauty school. Ive been studying West Afican dance for three years now. I want to dance for the rest of my life (andithinkeveryoneelseshouldtoo) its provided me with discipline, spiritual fulfillment,enhanced mind body connection, rhythm, artistic identity, a strong immune system and a great ass! As we all know, there is no room for a dancer at really almost any job. I got fired from the Dahlia lounge for getting my one shift a week covered all the time. It was embarrasing. I got fired from bussing tables. But at the same time, I was a pain in the ass. I would have fired me too. Who needs a diva busser for chrissakes.
I need a job, I thought to myself, that satisfies some specific requirements. Please find them listed as follows:
Wherein I can make enough money to work part time and set hours so I can still dance and take time for performances. One that allows me to take on youth mentees or some such development program. I've come to believe that to model sucessful living to youth will be far more effective than telling them how important it is while I work what should be full time job in 12 hours week (budget constraints, you understand,)and default on my phone bill. My job has to have room for travel; the constant harping on the need to get out of Seattle, and subsequently not leaving, has also been a theme for years. It has got to stop. I have to be able to make enough money to start helping my family instead of being a leechy liability and saving for (god forbid) a time when I cant work. And, above all it has to be fun and varied. Nothing I know how to do at this point forms the basis of a career that satisfies all these requirements. Enter vocational training. I know few people who have been able to convince themselves that it makes sense to go to Grad school on the basis of career development, we've come a long way baby. Anyone who thinks theyre just a masters degree in English away from the job of their dreams is most likely fooling themselves. Everyone I know who has gone back to school is in Law shkool or med school. And those are really just glorified Vocational Schools anyway, when you think about it. Shit, we can read Kant and Berger on our own, why the paperwork? My BA is no more than shelf liner and some great good ol' days style stories at this point anyway. Sorry Graham, Im sure Columbia is really great though! ;)
On top of all that, I began to realize that at 27, I had never gotten the fame and media coverage I set out for. I tried (in typical Seattle fashion) to go easy on myself, not to judge my decisions harshly and to convince myself that I didnt really want it in the first place, that it was a sham. Well, a sham it may be but, I WANT A PEICE OF THE SHAM!! So, after months of miserable, overeducated self criticism and judgement, months of shaming myself out of it and vacillating between feeling it was a great idea and then feeling it was tantamount to moving to Spokane and selling real estate w/ a PhD in English Literature, I decided: I DONT CARE!! Shut up already you wishy-washy heifer and do something!
I did it, thank you Sarah. I quit PPWW, I got a weekend job in the University Village Management office (think computer access and complete benefits package,) and a temp nanny job for six months (loved it)and proceeded to get myself enrolled at Seattle Technical Institute Cosmetology Program. Let the good times roll. Until next time.
Same bat time same bat channel.
BGKSSES
xoxoVivi

Becoming a Beautician Vol. 1

episode one

04.25.04 01:19 pm



I promised myself I would keep a journal in beauty school. It really is some kind of bizarro world feeling for me and I knew before I even started that I shouldnt let these sorts of experiences, and this kind of comedic potential slip by unrecorded.
So, I want to begin at the beginning. It's been a lengthy personal journey for me to get to this point, and I think the comedy of my cosmetic foibles will be much more meaningful if we all understand the magnitude of this undertaking.
There are few things I remember from being a child. Very few things actually. I joke with little humor about my two year moving eraser that follows me like a shadow gliding smoothly over and rendering fuzzy at best and inaccessible at worst whatever happenend more than two years ago. On the bright side, the few memories I have managed to retain really stand out. One is dressing up in hijab and pretending to pray in (what I now know to be)muslim fashion. The other, in rather stark contrast, is endlessly braiding and styling this (retrospectively) bizarre, giant, blonde, Barbie head that my mom got me after I decapitated all my regular barbies for ease of hairdoing. She had permanant lavender eyshadow, a graceful swan neck and hair that you could cut and pull out to make it long again. I had a shiny course black bowl cut that had earned me the nickname Sealhead from my parents. All those silvery seattle raindrops rolled off my head leaving streaks, but never wetting past the surface. So, summarily, being the beauty opposite of my dark jewish kid self, Barbie Head was the essence of beauty. Realzing even at this tender age, that I would never be on the model end of the blowdrier, ALL I wanted to do with my life was be a hairdresser. I remember cutting Lindsey Clothier's beautiful and all too prized honey blonde ringlets off with pinking shears in my mom's bathroom after a long summer day at the beach club. I felt like a real professional and she loved the new do until she saw her mother's face.
My parents are at least third generation academics. I was born on the upper west side of Manhattan where my father was an english professor at Columbia University. His father went to Amherst. My mother got her Masters in French Language from Berkeley before they transplanted to the East Coast and she got pregnant with me in 1975. I will never know how my parents lived alone-together in NYC for 8 years. Its one of the great mysteries. In 1988, when I was in 7th grade and, not coincidentally, had the worst hair of my life to date, my parents got divorced. I think it had a lot to do with the changes that are made in self definition depending on what it is that you DO. The big "what do you do?" question. How much does what you do (meaning what you do to make money)define who you ARE. Must you carefully pick what you do to blend and accentuate who you are, what you stand for and the values and morals you wish to follow? Or can you simply hod a decent j-o-b which serves to support your other undertakings and doesnt satify your whole being and define your essence. My generation, or many of us struggles wiht this question with everything we have. In many cases, to the neglect of actually acheiving either the j-o-b or the life satisfaction career and spending years in this purgatorial turmoil of indecision. In the past years of said turmoil, I've must admit I've enjoyed answering purposely simplistically the expectant "and what are you doing now?" questions with "Im a secretary, " Im a nanny," " I sell jewelery," and watching people try to respond without suprise or disappointment.
My father unceremoniously left academia in 1976 after turning down a tenure track position at Rutgers University. Ive often wondered who I would be if Id grown up in Jersey. It's a staggering thought, I may have been Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld goddammit, or Paris Hiltons chubby sidekick. He left teaching to take on the Seattle leg of the family business; wholesale popcorn and snackfood distribution. My great great grandparents, or something like that, were the first people to put popcorn in the movie theaters. He has, to my knowlege, never looked back. The truth was, and for years I could never understand this and thought my dad was a stellar underacheiver, (which he may be,)but really, My dad didnt like having his passion be his livlihood. He didnt want to be forced to publish. He detested the faculty meetings (I can only imagine)and felt that a greater part of the faculty was so illsuited to teaching that they were doing their students more harm than good. True he got to hobnob w/ Edward Said and some of the most brilliant academic minds of our time, some would say that makes it all worth it. But I think at the end of the day, Dad felt like a miserable phony. His passion for learning, for literature and creative spirit did not depend on saying " I teach at Columbia" in response to what do you do, people are not asking "who are you?" they want to know how you pay your rent and who's fundmatching you IRA contributions. Point being, my parents did not encourage me to go to beauty school. They didn't out and out condemn it but it just was never an option. And I put it in the ever expanding category of things "people like us" dont do (skiing, riding in boats, anything having to do with pets indoors, the list goes on.)
I went to college after high school. I was by that time, already a really pretty successful student. I think genetic nerdieness played a large part in my academic success. Its just easy for me. There are many things that arent, but anything having to do with words just seems cinchy. as an aside, i cant do long division and I never learned my multiplication tables. I took ligustics to satsify my "math" req @ UW. I am near-literally retarded at anything having to do w/ numbers and I didn't get my license until I was 22 b/c I was so nervous about driving down small streets w/ cars parked on both sides. I digress.
I went to Bard college for a year, had a fabuous and bougie, boozy time and still couldn't possibly justify 100 grand in debt for a Comparative Religion degree. I do have a healthy dose of uninherited common sense. came back to seattle and went to UW. Now, here we start the self induced neurosis about being a failure, or at the least never living up to my potential. By this time my dad had moved to Spokane (SPOKANE!!) and was an admitedly pretty unsuccessful realtor. A fact I've always chalked up to the tremendous undesirablity of living east of the mountains in Washington state. Vacuum cum dustbowl. At the time, I found this career progression of my Dad's totally devastating. Totally. Here is a man with rain man intellect, wit, charm, culture and a 400+ year history of gentile persecution moving to the most conservative-snow-white-trashy (god forgive me) city on the West Coast (thats a challenge, Fresno. You're on!) Not to mention that I had come nowhere near the understandings that I have now about defining yourseld outside of your work. I felt that my dad, out of fear of true success, or some such Dr Phil-esque pseudo psychological assessment had settled for something less than befit anyone of my family's rich intellectual standing. I have since, through my own understanding of the choices one makes as a wage earning adult, and through honest and insightful conversations with my dad himself, managed to come to terms with his move. I have not, however, totally reliquished the spectre of failure to live up to my potential and am unceasingly on guard for ways I am allowing lazieness, fear or lack of motivation inform my life choices.
I think this puts us at the end of a chapter. Plus I'm at work. ;) HEY!! Im a paid writer!! Thanks U Village management offices!
Stay tuned.
Yours till Niagara falls.
Vivi