Virgin Going Lighter

Man, they've been working me like a dawg at the Village. I havent had time to post anything for a couple weeks! Actually, I did quite a bit of writing and saved it all to a disk which now can't be read, suddenly unformatted apparantly. So that's awesome. Onward and upward. Any advice will be welcomed (Alex,) I'm hoping that somehow there is a way to retreive the contents...Anyway, school has been somewhat uneventful. Now we are on the salon tuesdays and fridays. Its really fun and really tiring. I dont think I really knew how physically challenging it was going to be to do hair for eight hours straight. I dont even have clients booked solid but at the end of the day its about all I can do to drag myself to the gym or run off the exhaustion. I have to say, Ive done some great hair! I took a client last week that was supposed to be with a 4th quarter student. Ms Christinahad booked Nicole for a flatiron for this woman who had hair like Crystal Gayle at 1:30 and then for a color at 2:00. Dont say anything to me about it, I told you; one hand tied behind my back and a tequila hanglover. Anyway, I heard them call Nicole for her client and I could see that there was absolutely no way she was going to be able to do it so I went and offered my services. She wanted a dark burgundy color, she was African American, with about two months relaxer grow out and an old warm color growing out on the top layers. She had about 10% silver. I formulated a 4FV, thats a level 4 fashion violet and mixed it with the Veroglaze developer since she only wanted it temporary. I had to apply to the middle of the hair first since the part that had the relaxer on it would need to process longer than the hot zone (the root area near the scalp) and the pourous ends. I had just done one color so I was nervous. She was too I think. It looked awesome though. Really rich and purpley. She also wanted a blow out and flatiron. I did it with the ceramic iron since I didnt want to use the marcel over her relaxer. Im sure she has had a better flatiron before. Im not the best at it yet. But it looked alright, and the color application was really even and uniform. Unfortunately, the purple color must have leaked through the seam in the shampoo cape because it got all over the back of her shirt. That sucked. I had to tell her, I couldnt let her go out like that. She was unthrilled and didnt tip me but it was just a wife beater tank so I didnt feel to horrible. It was an unfortunate end to what was a pretty good service though. One time, cocktailing at the Alibi, I spilled an entire glass of red wine down the back of this woman's white blouse. Actually, she leaned back into my tray arm but it didnt matter, its not like I was going to argue about whose fault it was. She was loaded enough that she was pretty nice about it. I wouldnt have been that nice probably.On Friday, I gave manicures and pedicures all day. I was really dreading my first pedicure, Gul notwithstanding, but it wasnt bad at all. Actually, it was pretty cool. It was this ethnic Armenian woman, born in Azerbijian, fled ethnic religious persecution to Russia and then here. She came in for a manicure and liked me so much that she changed her schedule around to stay for a pedicure as well. She had a lot of edema about the ankles and looked like she could use some help taking care of her feet and joints. I gave her a really good massage and told her that she needs to wear better shoes, Payless isnt cutting it supportwise, and that she needs to drink a lot of water and get up periodically during the day to walk around and circulate her blood. She had been avoiding water thinking that it makes you hold water and swell more to drink more. Misinformation can be so dangerous. She was deeply concerned about my marital status. It was interesting. She said, sure it was ok to be alone now but when I get older, Ill be so lonely. She cautioned me that perhaps I was too well spoken or confident. I guess those are things about me, I said, that I didnt really feel that I wanted to change in order to snag a man. She had to agree that if someone didnt like me for something like that that they might not be someone I would be happy with in the long run. She seemed so concerned, I assured her that it was alright, I wasnt going to be a lonely spinster, its just going to be a matter of finding someone equally independant and interested in life's varied splendors who wants to get with me, and I'll be down. We had a great time together. We understood each other well, and I didnt even think about it being weird to be up in someones feet or if they were gross or stinky. She was so grateful and her feet looked a lot better. Dont ignore your feet folks, they do a lot for you. Ruby and Nathan have finally cut the tension and are sleeping together. Its really pretty annoying. She is all over him at school and I can tell it makes his skin crawl. If he isnt in class, which is happening increasingly more often, she calls him a million times. She drives him home to Skyway and picks him up in the AM even though she lives in Magnolia. I just want to shake the poor child. Its going to be bad, its just a matter of time. He wont be able to hang. Plus as you may recall, she has a man in jail who knows nothing of all this and who knows when he'll be out. Hopefully after I am long gone. Our numbers seem to be shrinking slowly, Kai is gone too, and I think Kim is on the way out. I dont think Ive told you about her. She makes me sad, so I try not to dwell. But, dwell I must. She is about 4'6", I feel long and lanky around her. She used to work at 9 west so she always wears these stilletto boots. She is korean, but was adopted into a white family when she was a baby and so knows nothing of her biological culture. I think thats a real disservice. She has a very hollow feel to her, which I could feel even before I knew she was adopted. She doesnt have a strong personality vibration at all.  She really wants people to like her, I can feel that, and she talks kind of compulsively. She doesnt do such great hair, she just doesnt have a great eye for detail, like being able to tell when a part is straight or if she already cut a section or if her color is on all the way to the roots. Key things like that.  I came back to my notes once after a break and found that she had written "Hi Vivi! (heart)Kim" in bubble letters on my paper. I stared at it for like half an hour. I hadnt seen that written since sixth grade. It was a near tear jerker. I may need therapy. Her diet is really bad, and she has Psoriasis which I am almost certain is a food allergy, probably dairy. She always eats this Campbell's product called "Soup at Hand." It really depresses me for some reason, maybe its just beacause its her. The can is microwaveable, which I dont understand, and shaped like it can easily fit in your hand, like you can just drink it out of the can. I dont know, it kills me.  Anyway, I think she might drop out, I cant tell if its more because she hasnt made any friends or because she wants to do aesthetics more than cos anyway.  I wish I could be her friend, but save Binta, Im not really anyone's friend in there and she's  at a profoundly different stage in her life than I am, I just cant even fake it. I'm just nice enough to not encourage a sticktoyoulikeglue situation.  I couldnt take it.
On Thursday we practiced bleach applications all-ass day. I went from doing a whole head virgin going lighter application (including leaving out the hot zone and then going in and doing the roots)in 32 minutes the first time, to doing the whole thing in 17 minutes the 7th time. Not too shabby. My hand was killing me. Next week: relaxers. And Im giving my moms oldest friend Michelle a haircut. She knew me en utero and now she's letting me cut her hair...theres a lot of trust there.  As an aside, she is 56 and bikes from montlake to Rainier Beach High School every day where she runs the special ed program. If i biked to RBHS from montlake (let alone biking back at the end of the day) I'm quite sure that I wouldnt be able to wrassle with physically and behaviourally challenged high school students all day. Plus she got them to name their Gym and performing Arts Center after Paul Robeson. Michelle is pretty cool.