Yesterday

On my day off. Here’s what I did:

Repaired my hair. I cut it the night before. Myself. Yes, right. I know other people can do a good job when they do their own hair. But, I didn’t. It sucked, actually. It was grim. I determined to try out a hair stylist who works in my neighborhood. I knew there was one just a block away and that’s what I did.

Lan shaped it up, evened it up and now it’s bouncy. Sassy. Cute. The gray doesn’t even show as much as it did before. And, all that dead looking orange business left over from when I did my own coloring, that’s almost gone. In fact, it looks almost deliberate; like my hair is sun-streaked. I figure it will be another 6 months and I’ll be back to my own color. We exchanged business cards. She asked what I did. I said I was a psychic and a mean secretary. I swear I’m enjoying saying that to people. They really listen to you after you say something like that. Anyway, I channeled for her. It wasn’t too bad. There wasn’t anybody else in the place except us so I didn’t feel too awkward about zoning out the way I do when I’m going to channel.

I mailed off a package to my sister and her family. Everybody got a beaded piece of jewelry or bookmarker. You can see them at my other blog, Where I Bead.

On my way back from the post office I spied a Curves sign not too far from where I live. I was back in there a few hours later to sign up. $127 later got me my initial membership fee of $78 and the first month’s charges of $49. I’m signed up on a month by month basis instead of a year contract. If I’d elected to go the year route it would be $39 each month, but, for now I want to do month by month. The lady said I could switch to a year contract anytime I want to later on.

What I like about it? Most of the ladies coming in are about my age or older. Some younger, but most of us edging toward elderly. There are no men at all in the place. There’s no changing of clothes. I don’t even need to purchase special shoes; they said I could wear my garden clogs that I wear everywhere. Half an hour and you’re done. That’s it. Two circuits around the machines and I guess there are probably 12 of them. You work 30 seconds on a machine, hop off when the lady in the recording tells you to, jump onto a square workout bouncy board, jump around for 30 seconds and when the recording tells you to change station go to the next machine. That’s it. Three times a week is what they recommend, but they said I could come in more often than that if I wanted to.

What I remember is when I was a kid and we had physical education I was pretty fit. That was a 45 minute class once a day. There was 15 minutes farting around front and back of the class getting into and out of gym clothes, but then we had 30 minutes to do PE. Generally, it was 15 or 20 minutes of calisthenics and then the rest with some sort of organized ball throwing thing that I always failed at miserably because I can neither throw nor catch a ball. That is a result of my outward focusing eyes.

Frizzy Hair

I am famous for cutting my own hair. I am not famous for doing a good job at it. Anyway, the last time I'd gone to a hairdresser and asked her to, "do something" with my hair I left her parlor with a really short hairdo. I am also not famous for having short hair. I'm always discontented once I've got it and am forever growing it out.

Anyway, three months ago, or so, it had gotten to the stage where the shortest pieces of hair were above my ears and the rest of it about shoulder length. The varied lengths lent themselves to a permanent windblown look. I hacked it off. After three months of growing it out, this time pretty much together, it once again got to the point where I was close to just tearing it all out or buying a wig.

Last weekend I went to Great Clips at Southshore Plaza in Alameda. There were only 2 guys in there getting their hair cut. I sat down and waited. The lady who cut my hair said to me, "You've got this really long hank back here." I said, "Yeah, that's the part I couldn't reach when I cut it myself. I guess I've been going around all this time with it hanging down and nobody told me." Oh, well.

So, she cut my hair. She even fixed it so that it would do a little flip up at the ends. Then, she looked me in the eye and said, "Your hair is really dry. You need deep conditioning." She told me to get some hair mayonaise at Sally's. Unfortunately, Sally's had already closed. Southshore has been under construction for close to 2 years and it doesn't look to be done for at least another one. In the interim there have been a boatload of stores that just left. They just couldn't take not having any customers due to the remodeling going on or, having to relocate while their space got torn up. Anyway, I'd imagine that the rents will all be going up too.

So, I couldn't find Sally's, I did find the South Shore Beauty Supply and a very helpful clerk. She took a measured look at my hair and then said I might try some Redkin All Soft Heavy Cream. You put this stuff on your towel dried hair, wait 5 minutes and then rinse it off. For really damaged hair you can let it stay on 15 minutes. That's what I did.

I have to say my hair hasn't felt this good in years. This stuff was well worth the $20 it cost me. Man, I dithered over spending that kind of money, but I'm glad I did. I guess as I get older the repairs are going to get more expensive.