Benchmarks, Licensing, and the Caucasoid Conversion Factor

I think I wrote about cutting my mom's hair while I was in beauty school. The best way I can think to describe it is perhaps the way a brand new hospital resident surgeon would feel were he to open up an abdomen, prepared for a simple gall bladder removal and find a partially absorbed twin, alive and, flourishing off waste material, finishing a PhD thesis, wrapped around the lower intestine. My mom's hair is like that absorbed twin: unexpected and necessitating a delicate approach. It was memorable as one of my worst beauty school experiences (non social ones anyway) and I did a less than mediocre job, sweating bullets all the way, and it took me two hours. At least two hours. Ms V kept coming over and checking on me, my mom was desperately trying to keep a cheerful outlook and keep conversation going. By the end of it, I was totally lost on her head, near tears and had to had over the shears to ms V and let her finish the job. It was traumatic, and until this trip back to Seattle, I never attempted it again. This time though, we decided to give it a second go. I mean, why should she pay 70 plus bucks when I have had tons more experience since the first twin removal operation and can do it for free. So I did. And it was good. It was a good cut, a benchmark. I did not get lost in her hair and even more amazing I gave her a blow out. I have never seen my mom with her hair styled. When I first came to NY I realized why I never see people on the street with hair like my mom's, and its not because no one has it. Mom has classic jewish hair. But women with hair like that blow dry it. Otherwise its uncontrollable! I love how my mom's hair looks natural, dont get me wrong. Its full and soft and beautiful but its very....varied, some curly some straight, some kinky some...not. You know, difficult. It looked terrific blowdried! Really beautiful. All her textures were evened out and it was smooth and shapely. THe point is, it was a benchmark. I could really see how far ive come. Unlike being successful in regular school, like writing papers and stuff, I cant convince myself that I didnt learn anything and I could have done just as well without the class I just needed someone to make me do the work, I really started at square one, knowing nothing and now I can make my West Coast, au naturale Mom look just like the upper east side jewclone blowout dolls!! Yeah, right! No thanks. They wish they could be as foxy as moms!
My moms looks amazing. In that vein I've been ruminating about plastic surgery. I saw Billy Bob Thornton's ex on some E special about celebrity exes. They conducted this whole interview with her, talking all about Angelina, about the kids and the divorce, what its like to be a celebrity ex (read: a nobody who used to screw somebody and got used to the attention.) It was a 10 minute segment at least, all the while neglecting to comment on the fact that she has had her entire face rebuilt and now looks like a scary sideshow freak. She had these horrible bulbous cheekbones, huge teeth, wide tight eyes and a clownishly pronounced mouth. She was so upsetting looking that I actually screamed when i saw her, Mahdis' jaw dropped. Finally at the end the interviewer said lightly "So, any plastic surgery?" (cooincedentally showing an old picture of the beautiful woman she used to be at the exact same time they popped the question) "Nope! Just some breast augmentations which I had taken out and put back in and taken out again so that was four surgeries total." The very idea that she thinks other people look like her without surgery, that anyone could possibly believe that that was how the good lord designed her is positively delusional. I have seen several women who come really close to that level of renovation at the salon. I get a close up of all their face seams and their hard tight ears with deep folds where their cheeks meet their ears. Once when I first started and I was basing this woman's hairline for a color retouch, I pulled her ear back and there was this long open cut all behind it, only partially healed. It startled me, but she just steady reading Vanity Fair so I was like "Should I avoid this area? It looks a little...irritated." She was horrified that I mentioned it, Shit! Coulda warned a sister! If I had a big open wound behind my ear and someone was about to pull my ear back I would say something! Anything! She never spoke to me again, and I've done her hair several times since then. Wack!
I had a thought on the train last night, check it out: So this gorgeous young african american man sat down in a seat on the same side as mine but a few down. He leaned his head against the wall of the train and shut his eyes, so I could stare at his profile, pretty much unchecked, for a few minutes. I was thinking about what made him beautiful. I have to think about beauty a lot, and its hard to stop. In fact, I went to a wonderful open mic night of a bunch of acoustic folk style musicians last week in the east village and there was one woman singer who was AMAZING. Like Tori Amos meets Jeff Buckley. I was blown away by her music and still found myself thinking, her hair is fried...coulda done something with it...my cousin got that same nosejob. I need to quiet that voice and go back to just appreciating real beauty. Anyway, as i compiled my list of this boy's assets, I realized that these are all the things that these scary alien cyborg looking women are trying to acheive with surgery!! All the things that made him stunning are the things that made BBThornton's ex look like a extraterrestrial blowup doll. Thats when it hit me; the richest white and Jewish women in America are surgically altering themselves to look more like they are descendant from Africans!! Holy shit! Let's examine; prominant and high cheekbones, very full and pronounced lips (they get collagen injections not only in their lips but also in the area all around their mouths so that entire area is more protruding,) almondy eyes, tight, wrinkle free and heavily tanned skin, flat scooped noses and rounded nostrils, a sharp jawline and lest we forget thick, tall and voluminous hair! I bet if you looked in some fucked up ol' european book that describes the physical characteristics of negroids, or whatever the hell they called black peeps back in the day, it would ennumerate exactly those qualities. I talked to a plastic surgeon at work the other day and she said those are the most common facial surgeries. Amazing. She also said when the doctors in her office get bored they practice procedures on each other. ok. Being the avid in living color watcher that I am, I thought about what black people look like in whiteface, the Wayans bros in particular and also when Dave Chapelle dresses up as that white newscaster. They totally look like these women! They have these features that dont match their skin tones, their faces look exaggerated and cartoonish (like the ex Ms Thornton!) in the makeup where in their own skin they look beautiful! So, people make all this fuss, myself included about black women trying to fit into the white mode of beauty, wearing weaves, bleaching cream, narrowing their noses etc, and nobody notices that the upper eschelon of white society is Africafying themselves to the best of their ability! My dad just humorusly pointed out that it made perfect sense, since if you look at a large group of caucasians and then immediately a look at a large group of people with african heritage there is no question of whose better looking. Touche dad, touche.
I also cut my dads hair while I was home. He has been getting done in in Spokompton by a barber who is nothing short of sabotaging him into a mullet! When I came home over christmas his hair was, like, sticking up and all messy in the back. My dads hair should NOT be long enough to stick up in back! So i cut it in december, and when i saw him this time the mullet was creeping back into the picture. Dad, if youre reading this and I know you are, this fatwa is for you: You are hereby disallowed to ever go into that barbershop again, and on penalty of great clips haircuts for life, no man or woman shall see an adult man with male pattern baldness enter a hair shop and leave with length in the back and remain silent.
So I finally got my liscense in Washington state, I know, I know, try to hold your applause till the end. It was quite an experience. First of all I had gotten some bs letter about being licensed pending examination from the WA DOL after speaking with Rosie. Thats all well and good, but since as you may remember from the chronology, WA state no longer administers the test, I now needed a letter with a code from DL Roope who adminsters the practical exam instead. And I didnt have it. So i called DL Roope and told the woman that she was going to have to do SOMETHING because I couldnt take any more and I was going to cry, I was warning her, if I had to get back on the plane without taking the test for the second time. First she told me I could have taken it in NYC, hilarious, second she said she would call DL Roope, have them email the letter (imagine that!!! theyre online! catch a freaking clue DOL! Youre using an 8track player in a world of ipods!) and then I could use that candadate number to make and appointment with the independant service that administers the test. She did it, right away, and I made an appointment with, get this, Wings Aloft. Wings Aloft is the only place in seattle that adminsters the Cosmetology written exam at this time. And by in Seattle I mean in Tukwila. Its on Boeing Field in the middle of NOWHERE. I guess its where the FAA does its testing for pilots, there were a couple of stressed out looking older, white, piloty looking cats taking tests (that looked unbelieveably hard, I couldnt resist looking) on the computers around me. It was a weird environment which made me nervous and for a second when the first question came up on the screen I thought I was going to totally blank out and not be able to answer a damn thing. But, I pulled myself together, it really wasnt that hard, and passed. I dont know by what margin because they dont tell you unless you fail, which sucks. Theyll let you know how badly you did but not how well? And what if you want to study what you got wrong? Not an option. I know they give you your score if you fail because the asian lady sitting next to me failed. Apparantly for the third time. That really sucked. I felt hella crunchy (take that east coast!) when the lady handed us both our letters after she had started up a conversation in the testing room (which I had to cut short cause i thought the guy taking the pilot test was going to have an anyurism if we kept talking) and I had to tell her I passed but better luck next time. Very awkward. I am now licensed to practice cosmetology in WA state, which is another benchmark. Not as cool a feeling as being able to do my parents hair but its somthing. Now I can begin this dance with the NY DOL. Oh yeah, AFTER I took the test, I finally got the right letter from the DOL with the candidate number I needed giving me permission to take the test. Aint that a bitch! WHat a mess that DOL is.
I talked to an adorable girl on the train who was carrying her Milady's Textbook for cosmetologists so I asked her what school I should go to to brush up for the practical. She had an accent that would put Fran Drescher to shame, she told me three places she wouldnt go and nowhere she would. When she found out I was new in New York and came to do hair she said she thought about moving out of New York but that everyone told her she would just want to move back. I said "So? Then you move back! At least you left, people will tell you anything to keep you back from being special, from getting somewhere." I could see her looking at me like I was courageous and that it was inspirational to her to have me say that, like I knew she had faced hardships with the people around her. It was flattering "Yea, you right," she said" I shoud jus go, maybe people out there they gonna tink I's som'in new!" They sure will, I told her, youll be a real curiosity instead of an around the way girl. I hope she goes. It really carves you out a straight path to leave somewhere you love to do something for yourself. Its a benchmark.
Just a few minutes ago i forced myself off the couch to go mail some DVDs to a friend in seattle. The line at the post office is ALWAYS brutal but this time it was out the door and with only two employees both moving like they had life sentences at sing sing to work off. I had psyched myself up to wait but when I got there and saw the old Jamaican guys with illeterately addressed boxes, tied with twine, being sent to Negril, the large (individually and in number) and vociferous group of hasids with multiple packages to Israel and Jersey, burka-ed bangladeshi women who would ineveitably not speak english and take 20 mins to buy a 3 cent stamp from the trinidadian woman behind the bulletproof window who talks on her cell phone simultaneously the whole time and a million kids waiting with slips to pick up packages for their parents and grandparents (who are smart enough to avoid the line) I genuinely couldnt take it. As luck would have it I ran into my letter carrier (a chinese guy with an avid rep for drinking on the job)on the way home and I asked him if I gave him five bucks would he mail the package for me so I wouldnt have to wait in line. He asked me a couple times if i trusted him and while I didnt really and less so with every time he asked, I guess would rather rebuy the DVDs than wait an easy hour and a half in that um, diverse, line. So heres hoping they get there. Brooklyn is really something.