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.