My Hairdresser Quotes

Women always think that when they have my shoes, my dress my hairdresser, my make-up, it will work the same way. They do not conceive of the witchcraft that is needed. They do not know that I am not beautiful but that I only appear to be at certain moments.

My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair is black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. I can't decide if she had pissed off her hairdresser or is morphing into a monarch butterfly. I call her Hairwoman.

How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.

Dad. I love that you aren’t afraid to carry around romance novels with almost-naked men on the cover and hand them out as “tips” to waitresses, hairdressers, and anyone else you come across. Thanks for being one of my biggest fans.

I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?' " 'The way I want it?' " 'Yeah. The way you want it. Don't you want it to be something more than what it is?' " 'What'st eh point? I can't change it.' " 'That's the point. If you don't, it will change you and it'll be your fault cause you let it. I let it. And messed up my life.' " 'Mess it up how?' " 'Forgot it.' " 'Forgot?' " 'Forgot it was mine. My life. I just ran up and down the streets wishing I was somebody else.

Before I got off the bus, I made an internal list of people who could touch my hair: 1. Me 2. A hairdresser 3. That's it, that's the whole list

I’m a nice person. I give money to starving babies and properly tip my hairdresser. Why am I the one everyone tries to kill?

In my world, reserved Italians, heterosexual hairdressers, clouds without silver linings, ignoble savages, hard-hearted whores, advantageous ill-winds, sober Irishmen, and so on, are not permitted to exist.

If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!

The 'medium' is unaware of its attractiveness, that's all. Everyone loves comics. I've proven this to my own satisfaction by handing them out to acountants, insurance brokers, hairdressers, mothers of children, black belts, pop stars, taxi drivers, painters, lesbians, doctors etc. etc. The X-Files, Buffy, the Matrix, X-Men - mainstream culture is not what it once was when science fiction and comics fans huddled in cellars like Gnostic Christians dodging the Romans. We should come up into the light soon before we suffocate.

I steeled myself as best I could, and, with teeth gritted, using only one finger I typed: C U there E. I sat back, feeling a bit queasy. Illiterate communication was quicker, that was true, but not by much. I'd saved myself the trouble of typing four whole characters. Still, it was part of my new credo, trying new things. I'd tried it, and I very definitely did not like it. LOL could go and take a running jump. I wasn't made for illiteracy; it simply didn't come naturally. Although it's good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it's also extremely important to stay true to who you really are. I read that in a magazine at the hairdressers.

There have been times when I felt that I might die of loneliness. People sometimes say they might die of boredom, that they're dying for a cup of tea, but for me, dying of loneliness is not a hyperbole. When I feel like that, my head drops and my shoulders slump and I ache, I physically ache, for human contact - I truly feel that I might tumble to the ground and pass away if someone doesn't hold me, touch me. I don't mean a lover - this recent madness aside, I had long since given up on any notion that another person might love me that way - but simply a human being. The scalp massage at the hairdresser, the flu jab I had last winter - the only time I experience touch is from people whom I am paying, and they are almost wearing disposable gloves at the time. I'm merely stating the facts.

One of my favorite quotes is from a local hairdresser who went off to live in Rome. Lucky guy. Anyway, he used to sign off his TV program each day by saying: Live it up, girls. You're dead a long time. Good advice I thought.

Why is your hair green?” “It’s a fashion statement.” “It’s hideous. And even if it weren’t . . . tinted . . . or whatever you did to it, it still wouldn’t do. We haven’t had a blond Pythia before; it’s simply not what people expect to see. And, frankly, it doesn’t suit you.” “It’s my natural color!” “Then it’s naturally hideous. And this”—he tugged at my curls—“will have to go.” “If you touch me one more time—” I said softly. “I’ll make you an appointment with a hairdresser who understands that we need suave. We need sophisticated. We need—well, someone else, obviously, but—

The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone. How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical, or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it--like a secret vice!

I had expected them to talk about my childlessness. I was armed with millions of smiles. Apologetic smiles, pity-me smiles, I-look-unto-God smiles - name all the fake smiles needed to get through an afternoon with a group of people who claim to want the best for you while poking at your open sore with a stick - and I had them ready. I was ready to listen to them tell me I must do something about my situation. I expected to hear about a new pastor I could visit; a new mountain where I could go to pray; or an old herbalist in a remote village or town whom I could consult. I was armed with smiles for my lips, an appropriate sheen of tears for my eyes and sniffles for my nose. I was prepared to lock up my hairdressing salon throughout the coming week and go in search of a miracle with my mother-in-law in tow. What I was not expecting was another smiling woman in the room, a yellow woman with a blood-red mouth who grinned like a new bride.

Warren’s wavy, light brown locks are less tamed than usual. They’re higher—poofier—like an old lady fresh from the hairdresser. He pats the top of his head self-consciously. “I forgot my gel. But it’s cool—chicks dig the curls.” “Yeah, if it’s 1998 and your name is Justin Timberlake.” - Drew Evans

Women always think that when they have my shoes, my dress , my hairdresser, my make-up, it will all work the same way. They do not conceive of the witchcraft that is needed. They do not know that I am not beautiful but that I only appear to be at certain moments.

Blade, she thought. I swallowed it; now cuts my loins forever. Punishment. Married to a Jew and shacking up with a German assassin. She felt tears again in her eyes, boiling. For all I have committed. Wrecked. 'Let's go,' she said, rising to her feet. 'The hairdresser.

My dear Caroline,” I said. “There’s no doubt at all about what the man’s profession has been. He’s a retired hairdresser. Look at that moustache of his.” Caroline dissented. She said that if the man was a hairdresser, he would have wavy hair—not straight. All hairdressers did.

Still smiling, he leaned toward me. "You're jealous, aren't you?" "Why would I be jealous of her?" "Because she has what you don't." "Which would be what? A bad hairdresser, poor rhythm, or a striking lack of financial sense when it comes to buying clothes?" His smile grew. "Admit it, you're jealous." "I'm not jealous." I straightened the napkins into a tall stack. "Rich people are so arrogant. You all think everyone just sits around coveting your wealth. Well, my happiness isn't dependent on my account numbers." He gave a mock grunt. "I wasn't talking about Olivia's money. I was talking about me." "Oh." It was suddenly hard to breathe.

Illiterate communication was quicker, that was true, but not by much. I’d saved myself the trouble of typing four whole characters. Still, it was part of my new credo, trying new things. I’d tried it, and I very definitely did not like it. LOL could go and take a running jump. I wasn’t made for illiteracy; it simply didn’t come naturally. Although it’s good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it’s also extremely important to stay true to who you really are. I read that in a magazine at the hairdressers.

My ideas were completely upset. I could not see Ackroyd taking a hairdresser into his confidence,

War thoughts again. I think back to the business cards from that health shop earlier on. I think about miniature wars that individuals fight all the time. They fight against cellulite, or negative emotions, or addictions, or stress. I think about how we can now hire all different sorts of mercenaries to help us fight against ourselves…Therapists, manicurists, hairdressers, personal trainers, life coaches. But what’s it all for? What do all these little wars achieve? Although it is a part of my life too, and I want to be thin and pretty and not laughed at in the street and not so stressed and mad that I start screaming on the tube, it suddenly seems a little bit ridiculous. All the time we do these things we are trying to enlist ourselves into a bigger war. We are trying to join up, constantly, with the enemy. - Hitler tried to impose his shiny, blonde, neat, sparkling world on us all and we resisted. So how is it that when McDonald’s and Disney and The Gap and L’Oreal and all the others try to do the same thing we all just say, ‘OK’? Hitler needed marketing, that’s all. His propaganda was, of course, brilliant for its time, everyone knows that. What a great idea, to make people feel that they belong to something, that their identity makes them special. If Hilter had bee able to enlist a twenty-first-century marketing department, would he have been able to sell Nazism to everyone? Why not? You can just see a beautiful, thin woman with her long blonde hair moving softly in the breezes, and the tagline ‘Because I’m worth it’.

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

Novelists,’ said Ivo, ‘are to the nineties what cooks were to the eighties, hairdressers to the seventies and pop-stars to the sixties… Merely, you know, an expression of the Zeitgeist, Nobody actually reads novels any more, but it’s a fashionable thing to be a novelist – as long as you don’t entertain people of course. I sometimes think,’ said Ivo, his eyes like industrial diamonds, ‘that my sole virtue is, I’m the only person in London who has no intention of writing any kind of novel, ever.

I am old-fashioned. I believe that one should have a personal doctor, a dentist, a hairdresser, and, of course, a trusted bookstore. I wouldn't think of buying books at random, without my bookseller's recommendation, no matter how good the reviews may be.

Maybe that was what she had always secretly desired, not to be my daughter. She was telling me about herself neurotically, from a distant continent. She was talking about her hair, about how she had to wash it constantly because it never came out right, about the hairdresser who had ruined it, and so she wasn’t going to the party, she would never go out of the house with her hair looking like that, Bianca would go alone, because her hair was beautiful, and she spoke as if it were my fault, I hadn’t made her in such a way that she could be happy. Old reproaches.

He wrote about how stupid the people there could be. I never imagines white people could be stupid. He met people who had never read Shakespear and couldn't form a proper sentence in their own native tongue - though in this respect it looked as if my own daughter might be taking the same route. [29]

When we arrived in England, we could almost feel the excitement in the air. Banners, pictures, and other decorations hung everywhere, and the streets were packed with people waiting to celebrate the wedding of the century. The formal party in honor of the royal match was held on the evening of Monday, July 27--two nights before the wedding. That day I felt nervous with anticipation as I lunched with a friend and went to the hairdresser. Pat met Exxon colleagues for lunch near their office in Mayfair. As he described our plans for the upcoming ball and wedding, Pat began to feel totally overwhelmed by the importance and glamour of these royal events. So my darling husband excused himself, walked over to Green Park just across from the palace, and simply collapsed with nervous strain to nap on a quiet patch of grass for the afternoon. I’ve always envied his ability to tune out and relax when he’s under stress; I get tense and can’t eat or sleep.

Eric, my German hairdresser, was waiting for me in the large dressing room upstairs. He’d cut my auburn hair since I was six and had seen it through tragic self-trimmings of my bangs, unfortunate summers of excessive Sun-In use, and horrible home perms gone terribly wrong. He’d never shrunk from haughtily chastising me through my follicular antics and had thrown in plenty of Teutonic life coaching along the way, on every subject from pimply high school boys to current events and politics. And he’d pretty much made me feel equal parts stupid and uncultured on more than one occasion with his superior knowledge of theater and art and opera. But I loved him. He was important to me. So when I asked him to come to my wedding to transform my hair into an elegant and sexy and uncontrived but polished updo, Eric had answered, simply, “Yes.” And the moment I sat down in the chair, he chastised me for washing my hair right before I arrived. “Ees juss too smooz,” Eric scolded. “I’m sorry,” I begged. “Please don’t ground me, Eric. I didn’t want my head to stink on my wedding night.” And for the first time ever, I saw Eric crack a relaxed, mellow smile. I loved it that Eric was there.

Jessica I first met the man I married at a hair salon. I was going out the door; Jep was going in--for a haircut. Seriously. Nowadays, most of the Robertson men don’t get haircuts, but Jep did back then. When our paths crossed that day, we said nothing more than “hi” to each other, just one word. Jep and I both grew up in West Monroe, Louisiana, and he is two years older than I am. We went to different high schools, but because we lived in a close community, we had heard about each other. He knew who I was, and I knew who he was--and I thought he had a cool name. I had heard good things about him, including, “He’s a dream.” When our paths crossed at the hair salon and we simply said hello, I had no way of knowing the hairdresser would tell Jep all about me as she cut his hair that day. Both of us had gone to her for years, so she knew us pretty well, and she said really nice things about me to Jep. In fact, she takes credit for getting us together! After we were married I found out that when he left the hair salon that day, he went home and told his best friend, “I just met the girl I’m going to marry.” “What’s her name?” his friend asked. “Jessica,” Jep responded. He only knew this because the hairdresser had told him. “Jessica who?” his friend asked. “What’s her last name?” “I don’t know,” Jep admitted. I love the fact that Jep knew he would marry me after only seeing me once. Maybe he did not know my last name, but the next time he saw me, he made sure to find out a little more about me.

Your womb can’t never bear fruit.” Miss Ethel Fordham told her that. Without sorrow or alarm, she had passed along the news as though she’d examined a Burpee seedling overcome by marauding rabbits. Cee didn’t know then what to feel about that news, no more than what she felt about Dr. Beau. Anger wasn’t available to her—she had been so stupid, so eager to please. As usual she blamed being dumb on her lack of schooling, but that excuse fell apart the second she thought about the skilled women who had cared for her, healed her. Some of them had to have Bible verses read to them because they could not decipher print themselves, so they had sharpened the skills of the illiterate: perfect memory, photographic minds, keen senses of smell and hearing. And they knew how to repair what an educated bandit doctor had plundered. If not schooling, then what? Branded early as an unlovable, barely tolerated “gutter child” by Lenore, the only one whose opinion mattered to her parents, exactly like what Miss Ethel said, she had agreed with the label and believed herself worthless. Ida never said, “You my child. I dote on you. You wasn’t born in no gutter. You born into my arms. Come on over here and let me give you a hug.” If not her mother, somebody somewhere should have said those words and meant them. Frank alone valued her. While his devotion shielded her, it did not strengthen her. Should it have? Why was that his job and not her own? Cee didn’t know any soft, silly women. Not Thelma, or Sarah, or Ida, and certainly not the women who had healed her. Even Mrs. K., who let the boys play nasty with her, did hair and slapped anybody who messed with her, in or outside her hairdressing kitchen. So it was just herself. In this world with these people she wanted to be the person who would never again need rescue. Not from Lenore through the lies of the Rat, not from Dr. Beau through the courage of Sarah and her brother. Sun-smacked or not, she wanted to be the one who rescued her own self. Did she have a mind, or not? Wishing would not make it so, nor would blame, but thinking might. If she did not respect herself, why should anybody else? Okay. She would never have children to care about and give her the status of motherhood. Okay. She didn’t have and probably would never have a mate. Why should that matter? Love? Please. Protection? Yeah, sure. Golden eggs? Don’t make me laugh. Okay. She was penniless. But not for long. She would have to invent a way to earn a living. What else?

Daniel Galvin Sr., OBE Daniel Galvin Sr., OBE, is one of Britain’s biggest names in hairdressing. His specialization in hair coloring has revolutionized the field over the past four decades, and he continues to be in high demand by the rich and famous worldwide. For his contributions to the industry, he was honored with an OBE in 2006. I had the pleasure of knowing Diana and doing her hair color for ten years. She was truly a breath of fresh air each time she came into the salon. She was always happy, always full of life, and full of grace. We have a private room available in our salon, but Diana never requested to use it. She was happy to sit next to other clients and often chatted away merrily with them and staff members. In our business, confidentiality is so important. Anything she discussed with me will never go any further. She used to tell me off for my suntan--telling me it wasn’t good for me and to be careful. Her last words to me before that tragic weekend in France were “Daniel, I don’t believe it, but for the first time I’m browner than you!” She was incredibly down-to-earth, unaffected, and perfectly charming on all occasions. She was a tremendous asset to the monarchy and to this country. There was an amazing aura that glowed around her--she was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. It was always an honor to be of service to her.

In Hannah’s room she switches on the A/C unit. Watching her in her linen dress, I realize maybe I should have packed some dresses too. But there wasn’t time to shop for new clothes. The haircut was squeezed in, and was probably a mistake. I should have left it long. I stand in front of the A/C unit, pulling my hair off my neck to let the skin there cool. Does it feel thinner? It’s probably just from stress, the hairdresser tried to reassure me.

When the hairdresser’s blow-dryer is too hot, I don’t tell her. When the dental hygienist pokes bloody patches into my gums, I don’t relay my discomfort. Be convenient. Don’t let your pain become a problem for other people. I never send back my plate at a restaurant. I don’t know where exactly I learned this, but it’s an expectation plenty of women internalize. No, you go ahead. Yet in the nephrology department of Cincinnati Children’s, I watched Fiona’s tomato-red face, splotched yellow and white where her brow furrowed. “Get someone else!” I told the nurse. The nurse put down the plastic tubing and left the room. She returned with another nurse. The second nurse managed the catheter in one try. Mothering Fiona was turning me into a different kind of woman.

At age fifteen, when I accompanied my mother and her three sisters to see the movie premiere of Waiting to Exhale, I knew what it meant, then, when Bernadine, after being newly separated from her cheating husband, went to the hairdresser and asked her stylist to chop off nearly every inch of her beautiful luxurious mane. Even though I didn’t have the emotional maturity to understand the devastation of losing a marriage, I knew how much effort it took to grow that length and thickness of hair and keep it beautiful. I knew how much Black women and girls envied having long, thick hair in a world where white women’s ability to grow and regrow hair like weeds was the standard of beauty. Chopping it all off meant she was going through something exceedingly terrible.

And I am never going back to Africa; the last time I was there, in 1972, there were no hairdressers out in the bush, and as far as I was concerned, that was the end of that place.

No. I’m tired of the commotion. I don’t want to get married in front of all these people. My hair is five miles high. That hairdresser was an idiot. I look like a meringue. I’d rather elope. And I can’t find my veil.” Sam

She remembered how, as a young man, she had insisted that women must be obedient, chaste, scented, and exquisitely apparelled. "Now I shall have to pay in my own person for those desires," she reflected; "for women are not (judging by my own short experience of the sex) obedient, chaste, scented, and exquisitely apparelled by nature. They can only attain these graces, without which they may enjoy none of the delights of life, by the most tedious discipline. There's the hairdressing," she thought, "that alone will take an hour of my morning, there's looking in the looking-glass, another hour; there's staying and lacing; there's washing and powdering; there's changing from silk to lace and from lace to paduasoy; there's being chaste year in and year out...

For a good hour, the hairdresser poked, prodded, and preened me. She twisted my hair into a loose updo, sticking white roses and baby's breath into my locks, the photographer capturing each step with her camera. Finally, Jane helped me into the dress. "Wow," said Phillipa with a gasp, staring at me. "You look absolutely gorgeous. Like you've fallen from the stars." "She does," said Marie, and everybody nodded in agreement. I hooked the necklace Rémi had given me around my neck. And then I took a good look at myself in the full-length mirror. What I saw shocked me. In this glorious dress, the way the silver threads sparkled, I felt like I was sparkling, too, like I had metamorphosed from a caterpillar into a wild butterfly. It was then that I found my own spirit insect---probably Grand-mère's plan all along. Le Papillon Sauvage. Me.

He stepped back and put his right hand on the front of his waist and his left hand on the back. “Right here,” he said. “That part of you is mine for the next three minutes. After that I’ll give it back. But you have to give it to me for now.” “I have to trust you,” I said. “Right.” “I have to follow you,” I said. “Right.” “Oh, God,” I said. “You can do it, Rachel,” he said, and he put his arms out again. We started to dance. I closed my eyes. And I relaxed. People are always telling me to relax—the hairdresser tells me to relax, and the dentist, and the exercise teacher, and the dozen or so tennis pros who have attempted to do something about my backhand—but the only time I think I’ve ever really relaxed in my entire life was for three minutes in the Pension Building dancing with Mark Feldman.

For now, it may be smarter to tell the woman I love that I don't have any money. Then, she'll never like me for my money. She'll always like me for who I am, and I am Billy Sozai. I look into the side mirror of my EX5. Da Ge looks ahead onto the road home. My fringe is sticking out and it's gone from blond to grey. It's time to see the hairdresser girl again.

In the end, Penny and Leonard decided to put the incident behind them and go through with their Vegas nuptials, but there’s one major reason Cuoco says she’ll never forget the episode: her wig. By that point, Cuoco’s pixie cut had started to grow out, but in four months’ time when season nine would begin filming, she knew it would be a lot longer, and therefore wouldn’t match how it looked in the finale. Kaley Cuoco: I said to the producers, “Please tell me you’re not going to write a ‘To Be Continued…’ episode for the season eight finale.” And sure enough, they said, “We are.” I was so angry I had brought it up because that meant we had to get a fucking wig, and I was livid! [Laughs] I didn’t want to wear a wig. And bless my hairdresser Faye Woods’s heart, because she knows how much I hate wigs, but the wig that was made was exceptional. Still, I was so hateful toward this wig and everyone knew it. I was just being bratty. But I had to wear that wig in the season nine premiere. Then in the next episode we cheated a bit and it was back in a little bun so you couldn’t see the length. Then slowly over the next few episodes we started to let it down. Oh, and I still have that fucking wig. Faye gave it to me! It’s a joke now, just to sit there and remind me not to make bad choices with hair again. [Laughs] There were very few moments of anger for me on Big Bang, but that wig, to this day, creams my corn, as Penny would say. I hated it! I was so mad!

A month ago, I went to cut my hair and met this hairdresser chick. Now I think about giving her a ride across the bridge on my EX5. Maybe she lives in Butterworth, maybe she lives in Bukit Mertajam. She's got big wavy hair the colour of Milo and a small nose. She has a nice slim body and pretty hands that trim my hair with precision.

I think about that hairdresser girl and how everybody in my family is dying. First, my Pa. Then my Ah Ma, now my Teow Teow. My Pa, he was gone when I was eight. He was a durian seller and he got cancer. My Ah Ma got cancer too, and so did my uncle. Me, I plan to stay alive for as long as I can.

I’d worked so hard and kept up the schedule they set for me—basically four weeks on, four weeks off. When I was on, I did three two-hour shows a week. And on or off, I also kept the weekly schedule they set for me: four AA meetings, two hours of therapy, and three hours of training a week, plus fan meet-and-greets and three shows. I was burned out. And I wanted to control my own destiny. One hairdresser caught a glimpse of my schedule and she said, “Oh, honey, what are you doing?” She had two little girls and was very maternal. I liked her a lot. “You think it’s too much?” I asked her. “It’s more than too much,” she said. “That’s insane.” She leaned in like she had a secret to tell me. “Listen,” she said. “In order to be creative, you have to have room for play in your schedule. It helps ground you to have that time to yourself. Hell, to just stare at the wall if you want. People need that.” It must have gotten back to my father, what she’d said, because the next day, someone else was doing my hair. I never saw that hairdresser again.

It is not easy to take the decision to expose a valued operative and a friend to mortal danger. You know that from your personal experience. But Alex did not elect to be a hairdresser. He elected to work for me. And I must be coherent in my decisions.

As another year went by And a new year came to greet us I got up in the morning to take my class And in the afternoon, while sauntering down the road I saw a hairdresser's place inviting me in And so I met the hairdresser A fine young lad, and I told him to get my hair and beard trimmed if he may please But for some reason I decided to keep the moustache without any trims Life makes us poets, with a love for poetry.

I think you fancy me,’ Oliver replied with a sloppy chuckle. ‘I think you’re in love with me.’ Every muscle in my body clenched as my cousin set down his glass, dabbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin and cleared his throat. ‘You, Oliver, are one of the most insufferable people I’ve ever met. And I’ve had drinks with Donald Trump’s hairdresser.

As another year went by And a new year came to greet us I got up in the morning to take my class And in the afternoon, while sauntering down the road I saw a hairdresser's saloon inviting me in And so I met the hairdresser A fine young lad, and I told him to get my hair and beard trimmed if he may please But for some reason I decided to keep the moustache without any trims Life makes us poets, with a love for poetry.

But the sheer relief I'd felt when my hairdresser stripped the pink dye from my hair and returned me to my natural blonde? It was staggering. Maybe because all those creepy barbie dolls had had pink hair. Or maybe because his captive slaves had been forced to dye their hair to match mine. Or maybe I just needed to feel like a truer version of me.

While I'm at the hairdresser to be shampooed, I'm thumbing through a magazine and I land on Donald Trump and his new fiancée. Blonde girl, twenty-five, fine. But as for him, and I put on my glasses to take a better look, he's pushing sixty, hair like an upside-down conch shell, setting off from the back of his head at an angle of 110 degrees, probably to hide a bald spot and landing in a fringed swag on his forehead. The whole thing a tone poem of russet browns. There's a guy who's earning a good living, I say to myself as I wait to be shampooed, a guy who has his photograph taken day and night and hasn't found a single person in his entourage who'll tell him, "No, Mr. Trump, it's not okay, it's absolutely not okay.

You can’t seriously expect me to trust my mane to a woman?” Sexism, alive and well in Arik’s world, the fault of the females in his pride who’d raised him. No coddling for Arik. They didn’t believe in letting him play with dolls or caving to others. His mother and aunts, not to mention his numerous female cousins, had taught him to be tough. They didn’t allow softness in his world, not when they groomed him as the future leader of their pride. He was all male, all the time, and dammit, a man used a barber, not a hairdresser. Even if she was cute. “Suit yourself. I’ve got more than enough men to take care of—” Was that his cat growling? “— without adding a pompous one to the list.” “Pompous?” Even if she’d pegged him right, it didn’t stop his indignant glare. A glare she chose to ignore. She crossed her arms over her chest, plumping her cleavage— ooh, pretty, shadowy cleft. His curious nature drew his eyes to the mysterious and beckoning vee until she cleared her throat. “My eyes are up here, big guy.” Caught. Good thing he was a cat. His kind had no shame, nor did they apologize. He shot her his most engaging, boyish grin. “My name is Arik. Arik Castiglione.” She didn’t react to his smile or titles, so he elaborated, “The CEO for Castiglione Enterprises.” He stretched his lips wide enough to engage his deadly dimple. And still failed to impress. She raised a brow. “Is that supposed to mean something?” Surely she jested. Within his mind, his poor lion lay down in a traumatized heap and crossed its paws over its eyes. “We are the largest importer of meat in the world.” Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I don’t check the label to see who brings me my steak. I just eat it.” “What about our chain of restaurants? A Lion’s Pride Steakhouses.” “Those I’ve heard of. Decent, I hear, but overpriced. I can get a bigger plate of food at LongHorn. And according to my girlfriends, the male waiters are cuter too.

Arik had already gone two weeks longer than usual for this haircut because of an overseas business trip. Time to get back to his highest priority. “How long until Dominic is back?” “A week, maybe two. I told him to take his time. Granddad doesn’t often take time off, and he’s getting up there in years.” A few weeks? He’d look like a wildebeest if he waited that long. “That’s no good. I need a cut. Are there any male barbers available?” “Afraid to let a girl touch your precious hair?” She smirked. “I can peek at the schedule and see if we can squeeze you in this afternoon.” “I don’t have time to come back. I need it done now.” Usually when he used the word now, people jumped to do his bidding. She, on the other hand, shook her head. “Not happening, unless you’ve changed your mind and are willing to let me cut it.” “You’re a hairdresser.” “Exactly.” “I want a barber.” “Same thing.” Said the girl without a Y chromosome. “I think I’ll wait.” Arik turned away from her, only to freeze as she muttered, “Pussy.” If she only knew how right she was. But, of course, she didn’t mean the feline version. Pride made him pivot back. “You know what. On second thought, you may cut my hair.” “How gracious of you, Your Majesty.” She sketched him a mock bow. Not funny, even if accurate. He glared in reply. “I see someone’s too uptight for a sense of humor.” “I greatly enjoy comedy, when I hear it.” “Sorry if my brand of sarcasm is too simple for you to understand, big guy. Now, if you’re done, sit down so we can get this over with and send you and your precious hair back to your office.

I remember at that time I went to the hairdresser's. I did this regularly, but I remember that visit for two particular reasons. The first was that next to me was a young mother with a little girl aged about three. The child, whose hair was about to be cut for the first time, screamed with terror and clung to her mother. The hairdresser stood by gravely, comb in hand: he recognised that this was a serious moment. The mother, blushing, tried to comfort the child who had suddenly plunged into despair; all around the shop women smiled in sympathy. What impressed me, and what I particularly remember, was the child's passionate attempt to re-enter her mother, the arms locked around the woman's neck, the terrified cries of unending love. So dangerous is it to be so close! I had tears in my eyes, witnessing that bond, seeing that closeness, of which only a sorrowful memory remained in my own life. One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilised, one learns one's manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions - sorrow and anger - adequately.

It was only when I had Chinswalo in my arms that I felt life was worth living again. Her tiny head on my bosom filled me with strength that was like a good drug coursing through my veins. There is no way she could understand why I was holding her so close, but I was slipping and she was the only thing that was stopping me from going over the edge. [81]

The city went on with its business as usual oblivious to my pain. [80]

Admiral Tait Primary was a school that people from my home neighbourhood could only dream of. The teachers knew what they were doing and the library had the right books for my daughter to read. It was expensive though, and I dreaded what would happen when she finally reached high school. If I didn't get my life sorted soon, she'd be forced into a former Group B school in the high-density areas: a sure way to flunk and get pregnant before she was nineteen. There were nights where I couldn't sleep worrying that my baby would not have the sort of future she deserved. [74]

There were people who told me to take him to court and get a maintenance order, but I was too proud. I would not give him an excuse to try gain access to my daughter. As she grows older, I know she will begin to ask questions about her father but that is a bridge I will cross later. Till then, keeping her safe is my priority. [42]

I'd been told that Catholic masses were stable and cold with dull organ music so I was surprised when the choir broke into song. They sang in Shona, with African drums and rattles, ngoma ne bosho. The women;s voices merged with men's bass producing an effect that was confusing but beautiful. At Forward with Faith Ministries we only used guitars, western drums and a keyboard, because Pastor Mavumba preached against using African Traditional instruments. He said that before the missionaries came, our people engaged in devil worship, so the instruments they used were the devil's instruments. We sang in English and he preached in English too, when he was not speaking in tongues. I was a bit confused; maybe the Catholic Church was the devil's church after all, but I couldn't stop my foot from tapping along to the music. [88]

Vasilisa Yuzhnina PRIVATE, HAIRDRESSER My specialty… My specialty is men’s haircuts… A girl comes… I don’t know how to cut her hair. She has luxuriant wavy hair. The commander enters the dugout. “Give her a man’s haircut.” “But she’s a woman.” “No, she’s a soldier. She’ll be a woman again after the war.” All the same… All the same, as soon as the girls’ hair grew a little, I’d curl it during the night. We had cones instead of curlers… Dry pine cones… We could at least curl the forelock…

But of all the phenomena observable to society and students, the relationships between people are not unknowable. Just as a plum will drop to the ground after falling off a table, so our fellow creatures respond in predictable, even self-injurious ways. Women, above all, want to be perceived as desirable above other women. They will go to great lengths to ensure this. True, our society has prescribed this, but this tension has always existed. That is why there is fashion and why the milliners and dressmakers and hairdressers will never lack employment. And it is why fashion will never stand still. It must change. It always changes. Men, above all, desire power. Either for public office or simply, as in the case of my husband, to be known as the wealthiest of them all. Power is a heady thing, and men will put themselves in desperate circumstances in order to achieve it. For who can resist the whispered urge of feeling important?

Strangely my husband had more in common with my parents than I had; all were on a lifelong mission to deny the truth, the truth being that they were furiously disappointed.

A lot of people want to know ‘How do I get my hair to look like so-and-so’s?’” Jeri observes. “They go to their hairdresser with a picture and say, ‘I want to look like that.’ Now, first of all, styling hair in the television industry does not necessarily have anything to do with a haircut. It’s styling, and the audience has to realize that this is a style that is maintained all day long. They don’t walk out of the trailer and never get touched again, like normal people in the regular world. They have somebody chasing behind them, making sure that every hair is in place. So to take a photograph of an actor and expect to look like that, they can cut your hair the same way, but if you don’t do the styling, all you’re stuck with is a haircut you don’t know what to do with. “I think the most important thing is that everybody needs to seek their own look, what makes them beautiful. It has nothing to do with what the actress looks like and nothing to do with wanting to be like them. You have to be yourself. I’m hoping that’s what has evolved on Buffy. She kinda looks like herself. She doesn’t try to create a hairstyle that takes hours to do. Fifteen minutes. Sometimes you have to work with what hair that you have. She is sixteen years old. I don’t want her hair to look like she came out of a salon. I’m hoping that we’re creating things that people can do, they’re not difficult to do. It’s a matter of really liking your face and being able to stand in front of the mirror and move [your hair] around until you balance your face.” Jeri Baker

Everybody of my generation has the same memory. We were twelve or thirteen or we were twenty-one, for that matter, and we were going to be veterinarians or we were, like Ringo, going to own a hairdresser’s parlor. We walked into the record store and saw the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. We thought together, 'Life can be other than it has been.

The best parties are a wild mixture. Take some corporation presidents, add a few lovely young actresses, a bearded painter, a professional jockey, your visiting friends from Brussels, a politician, a hairdresser, and a professor of physics, toss them all together, and try to get them to stop talking long enough to eat! It’s especially important to have all age groups. I’ve never noticed any generation gap. Of course I wouldn’t want to have hippies come crawling in with unwashed feet, but all the younger people I know are bright and attractive and have something to say. They also dress like human beings. They love to listen, too. They make wonderful guests.

Rafe’s right. You are pretty. I like your hair.” She reached out and stroked a lock hanging over my shoulder. “I wish mine was straight. I used to straighten it, but it never really worked. I don’t think I was doing it right. Rafe tried to help, but--” She giggled. “He’s not a good hairdresser.” I couldn’t help smiling at that image.

You remember the 'distinguished' poem that was quoted in the copy you lent to me? "They ordered bacon And eggs at seven. At eight o'clock, There was nobody down. Only the coffeepot Stood on the table." "Yes, but what possible ..." "Do you also remember what your 'distinguished' weekly said about it? 'The old-fashioned reader who would dismiss as insignificant this new and vital work (a striking example of the sharp-edged imagisme with which the more adventurous of our younger writers are experimenting today)'—you see, Basil, I have it by heart, words, tone, cadence and all—'forgets that every object, even the coffeepot on the table, has a perimeter which not only encloses that object, but also subtends a physical and metaphysical otherness that includes the whole of the rest of the universe. Such work, therefore, is more truly significant of ultimate reality than all the pantings after God of the Victorians.' ... you were squashing a perfectly genuine love of simple and true things in a perfectly genuine little woman, and that the words you borrowed for the purpose were muddle-headed and insincere drivel. ... They are not literary grounds. They are human grounds. Miss Bird, as I told you, is unlike your 'distinguished' anonymities in having a few quite genuine beliefs; and you used the cheap phrases of a pseudo-metaphysical charlatan, in a precious literary weekly, to snub her. I saw the hurt look on her face long after you had wiped your boots on her perfectly sincere love of certain perfectly true and simple things. ... I don't go to church to hear a high-brow Anglican curate quoting a Scandinavian lunatic, any more than I go to my hair-dresser's to hear a Christy minstrel reciting the Apostles' Creed. I know that it's all very noble and distinguished and broad-minded and generally newspaperish. You might have been brought up in a seminary for young ladies of fashion. ... He didn't know whether he was modern or antique. In either case, it appeared he was a fraud.

My mom worked as a hairdresser at the Village Mall in Horsham Township when I was a little kid. There was a movie theater in the mall that showed second-run features, and I have clear memories of being around five years old and walking through the mall by myself to go watch Star Wars. I believe I saw it in that theater twenty-one times. The research definitely began then. Actually, it began even earlier. Before I was born, my father conspired with my uncle to name me Wyatt, after Wyatt Earp. There was an election held by putting names into a hat, and whatever name was drawn would be the winner. Uncle Billy distracted the people in attendance while my dad rigged the hat so that every name inside read Wyatt. My mom was horrified at the result, but eventually uncovered their ruse. The research was really just me referring to things I already knew from the life I’ve lived. You either hear the music of the open range and a man with two six-shooters or you don’t. You either look out at the stars and wonder what lies beyond them or…I don’t know what you are…someone who loves Nicholas Sparks books.