Wet Feet

Hair today, hair tomorrow...

I"m doing really well in hair school. I'm able to breathe again, at least knowing that after this year I'll emerge with a trade, a way to make money that won't take up all of my time and will give me a creative outlet.

The biggest surprise is how much I enjoy it, even the boring parts.

Today we learned a basic perm wrap. It didn't matter to me that nobody gets perms anymore and this is a tedious and unpopular service we need to learn about to become fully trained cosmetologists.

What mattered to me was the soothing geometry of the sectioning of hair, the precision that each section is ribboned and wrapped around each rod, the end result that comes with doing each step perfectly. What matters to me that handling hair in any manner, whether putting it on rods for a perm or cutting it or blowing it dry in most flattering way, all leads to my better understanding of hair and the fine dexterity of my fingers.

I want to perfect this art. Not just the art of perming, but the art of hair in general. How it falls naturally, how it reacts to chemical manipulations, how it changes with a cut or a slice or an angle or layer, how all these things tie in to making someone feel good about how they look.

In my waking hours I think about hair constantly. I look critically at every haircut I encounter (how did they do that?  have I learned that technique yet? probably not. )

I'm starting to believe that this might have been one of my callings all along. It's too soothing, it's to easy, it's too natural not to be. I regret that snobbery prevented me from going to hair school ten years ago.

Just so you know, though, there are a lot of bad hairstylists out there. Judging from the people in my school who manage to graduate, many hairstylists have learned the fine art of fudging. They are good at a few things and not so good at others. The stereotype is that the people who become hairdressers are deficient in a few braincells. I'm sorry to say that it's true in some, of not most, cases. The majority of my classmates are morons.

I am good at the important things, like the actual cut, but not so good at pin curls. My blow-dry skills are mediocre but will come with practice. M y thermal curls still kinda suck but I've been improving. All of this is practice, practice, practice. I have come into school knowing that while I may having a talent for spacial reasoning I still have much to learn and much practicing to do. While I can visualize the lines to of a haircut much better than my classmates they are still better at formal hairdos than I am.

 So, if you come to me for an updo, expect to be disappointed. But come to be for a cut, and I'll dazzle you. I swear.

Anyone care to decode this dream?

I know that hearing about other people's dreams is very boring and for that reason I usually don't share mine. But this one has stuck with me.

I dreamed this dream back in August, wrote it down immediately and posted it to myspace. There is some strong imagery. It was such a vivid dream that I can still feel its texture. As I was going through the myspace archives, it seemed worthy of a repost.

Onward:

dream 8/12/08

i'm small and lost and i'm waiting for something to happen in a huge empty airplane hangar, where i am englufed by the silence of industrial whiteness.

doors as big as buildings split open wide and i pass through to a hospital corridor; here everything is sharp and brilliant and much too large. the metal gleams and the floor squeaks and at the end of the hall i can see some people talking and walking, one is using an old-fashioned pay phone.

i follow the corridors until i come to a much dirtier, deserted place (it reminds me of the unanchored section of the westide pavillion in LA, where it bridges over westwood boulevard, where no stores ever stuck around longer than a few months).

i walk through the desterted remnants of a roy rogers and have a memory of  sitting at a booth with my mother and someone else, eating and laughing. i hear a meow, and i turn around to see a starving tabby cat winding through the table legs. a woman comes through the place i came from and she's older than me and she's holding the same kind of tabby cat, this one is fat and friendly. she walks past, and i follow.

i come out into a bustling mall, and i am on the bottom floor. i wander, taking longs ways around to make sure to pass every store. the only store i enter sells linens and fabrics. i become entranced by irridescent blues and silvers. one silver fabric i lift excepting it to be a thick brocade but instead find it be a filmy lame which has an unterwoven paisley pattern that sparkes in the bright white light of the store.  i turn the corner, passing someone loading up a cart. i have a flash of jealousy, because i have nothing, and can't buy anything. in the next aisle the blues dazzle me, thick, deep velvets and crisp cottons in cornflower shades.

bakc in the corridor of the mall i ascend a level by means of a winding staircase. as i do so i remember than i'd had my favortite sweater, i must have put it down while i was looking at the fabrics. i stop, wonder whether to go back, decide to move on and go back later. i have the sense that i need to be on time for something.

i find myself in the top tier of a mulit-level church, the congregation is filing in beneath me.

i descend one level and find myself in a choir loft. the stairwells are tight and i begin to panic when i need to pass people. i am suddenly in a hurry. i have decided to go back for my sweater. i am comforted by the fact that everyone who was in the mall is now in the church and so there won't be anyone to steal it. plus, i want to see those fabrics again, and immerse myself in the beauty.

the church smells like inscence and decay and i panic and push my way through the last stairwell. finaly i see the entrance. the service is just beginning and as i head the wrong way down the aisle i am aware that everyone can see me. i shake it off, decide to not care.

at the door there is a tiny, frail, grey haired old woman wearing an old fashioned aqua-colored hat, and she's tsking at me, lines in her face etched with decades of disaproval. i push open the door to the vestibule and i say out load to no one "bless me father for i have sinned, it has been twenty-seven years since my last confession".

and then i wake up.

Quotes of the week

In school there is a clique of 18-20 year olds. In general, they think they are hilarious. They aren't. Anyway.

Yesterday one of them was saying that for Halloween she went out as a school teacher and everyone kept asking her if she was Sarah Palin. (She wasn't, but she could have pulled it off.)

The loudest, dumbest 18-20 year old laughed idiotically for a moment, then her face went stupidly blank and she said (I swear I'm not kidding), "Who is Sarah Palin?"

WHO IS SARAH PALIN.

Sheesh.

I usually adopt a silent mousy personality at school, but for that one I broke character. I turned away from my splendidly progessing  up-do to sneer at her. Yeah, I sneered. Without apology. And I'd do it again.

--------------------------------

My mom and my ex-husband had dinner the other night and she asked him if he'd let me cut his hair.

His answer: "I don't think it would be a good idea to have Kate behind my back with a sharp object."

Badum CHIII!!!

That's all folks. Don't forget to tip your waittresses!

Imagine this post set to the Beyonce song "Single Ladies", because it will NOT LEAVE MY HEAD

1. Time goes really fast now.  From the time my alarm goes off at 6:30 ("here I go again on my own...") until bedtime, I always have someplace to run to, someone to persuade ("look! it's PINK! of course you want to wear this dress!" "NOO!! TOO BIG!!" as she runs away...), something new to learn (cutting the hair below a 90 degree elevation will a. add weight, b. subtract weight, or c. give you carpal tunnel syndrome*), something to clean, someone to call,  etc etc etc.

One thing I can say for sure, I am never, EVER, bored. And I am usually very, very tired. I expect that this is par for the course in the adjustment period.

2. Deb's continuing adventures: She's gotten three blunt haircuts since you last saw her. I've also learned the basic round-brush blow dry.

The first time I tried it I was simply awful, the head kept flying off the peg because I pulled too hard, the brush kept getting stuck in the hair, and I kept dropping the expensive hair dryer. Five blow drys later I've gotten the balance of pressure, product, and grip on the handle under control and I'm well on my way toward giving a half decent blow-out. 

Here, Deb has gotten a blunt (all one length) cut with an angle around the face (cut a little too short in front) and a full-volume blow dry that's oddly flat at the top.

3. When is the last time you made paper snowflakes, not with your kids, but with other grown-ups, just for fun? Every Thursday fro m now until Christmas you can make snowflakes at Dirty Franks at 13th and Pine. They've got everything you need, and you can get a kamikaze and a 7oz beer for $2.50. If you go, say hi to Jody the bartender for me. She's awesome. And when you go, look for my snowflakes (I signed them "Kateri", of course). There are at least four. The one pictured here is about a foot square in real life. 

4. As I read Moxie's post about teacher gifts, I remembered fondly the bounty of wrapped up goodness that would appear underneath our tree every Christmas when my mother was an elementary/middle school teacher. Even though we knew those gifts weren't for us, the sheer number of them seemed magical all by itself. And our family never lacked for Christmas themed mugs, ornaments for the tree, or random weird candies. Even though I remember this from my childhood with such tenderness, my kids' teachers are getting $10 Barnes and Noble gift cards.

* the answer is A. It may also be C if you don't hold your scissors correctly.