I Left Something at the Salon

My hair!

Today I served as a hair model for my friend Audrey, who's a stylist for Art + Science. They'd had an instructor from Sassoon in Chicago come to the Halsted Street location this morning to teach a class on Sassoon techniques, and then the afternoon was spent putting those techniques into practice.

I got to the salon around 1 p.m. and left around 4:30, which sounds like a long time, but there were around eight stylists, all doing step-by-step cuts under the Sassoon instructor's guidance, so there was a lot of watching other hair cuts, listening to techniques, and then having eight stylists crowded around Audrey's station while they talked about my hair. It was, in all honesty, totally and absolutely fun. I had two cups of tea, time to flip through trashy gossip magazines and time to catch up with Aud, who I haven't seen in 1,000 years and who recently went on a two week walking trip/pilgrimage through Spain with her mom (my godmother), and I got a spectacularly technical and precise haircut for free! It does not get better than that.

For the past six months or so I've been "growing out" my hair, and I kind of intended to continue doing so through this semester. But I've been so bored with it that on Christmas morning I chopped off some bangs for myself, just to give it some shape. It's not terribly uncommon to want to cut five inch chunks out of your own hair first thing after looking at yourself in the morning mirror; but it's maybe a little rash to actually do it. Here's the old hair (picture from ten days ago):

Me and Julie at our girls' night dinner on Dec. 30

 And here's the new and absolutely improved hair:

It's gone! It's all gone!

It's not like I haven't gone short before; I've had short hair for years at a time in the not so distant past. But today's experience was so much fun, and I had so much taken off in one fell swoop (although that makes it sound violent and arbitrary, which is completely antithetical to the actual event) that I just had to write about it.

When Audrey and the instructor were first starting my cut, they decided that it would be a "B" style (I do not know what that means but I'm pretty sure it's remarkably like what you see pictured above), and then the instructor drew a little diagram on the mirror using a little head stencil:

The left is technique that will result in a bad pizza slice effect. Audrey did not give me a pizza slice head.

What you can't see from this diagram is that the stencil had a little face, too. It was super weird and fantastic; Aud and I agreed that we both really wanted one to use at home on our bathroom mirrors.

I also learned today, during the consultation/planning steps of the process, that I have a small head--finely shaped, they assured me, but small. I'm okay with that, but it makes me sure that I shouldn't ever shave my head or I might look like a little rounded pencil eraser about to fall out of its little metal holder. Yep. I just compared my head to a tiny rubber eraser.

When the afternoon was all said and done (I was the last model to finish), I was thrilled with my new hair and my reunion with Audrey. But we're going out to brunch on Sunday, because even after three hours, we still have more to chat about (and she reminded me that I never did a follow up post about our kitchen remodel, so shame on me, and you can all expect that soon).

Me and gorgeous Audrey

Thrifty Friday

The owner of my regular hair-cutting spot, Salon Moda, went east to live with her parents in Philadelphia. This left my hairstylist, Mike, salon-less. So he is, for the time being, cutting hair out of his adorable house in Evanston. I used my appointment yesterday as an excuse to have an Evanston Adventure, and it was was hugely successful.

Here's what I got for $120:

A new haircut and the promise of a photocopy of a rare J.D. Salinger chapbook of previously unpublished stories ($60 for the haircut [including tip] + nothing for the copy)

A benefit of having my haircut in Mike's house is that I got to meet his dog, Augie (cutest face since Henry) and his partner, Andrew, who's an anthropology professor at Columbia College and offered to send me a photocopy of a chapbook he'd had as required reading in college. The price, written on the cover in pencil, was $3, and the book itself was saddle stitched and apparently unauthorized. Andrew said he's going to mail me a copy of it and I cannot wait.

A vegetarian sandwich at The Cross Rhodes diner ($5.25 + tip)
The sandwich came within three minutes of me ordering it so I only got to read about five pages of my book (Life by Keith Richards [for book club]). I ate well and cheaply.

A skirt, scarf, and soccer ball throwing device (for Trevor...) at the Junior League Thrift House ($10)
 The Thrift House is across the street from Cross Rhodes, and I was compelled to stop in. I was rewarded with a great second-hand JCrew skirt ($6), a little red scarf ($2.50), and a soccer ball on a string ($.50).

A butterscotch shake from Andy's Frozen Custard ($5)
This shop and Cross Rhodes were both recommended by Mike and Andrew, and I say a hearty "Thank you" to them for the deliciousness and the three pounds I surely gained.

A paperback copy of Geek Love by Katherine Dunn from Market Fresh Books, where they literally sell books by the pound (they're $4.99 per pound, but my book was just under an lb so I got it for $4.25).
The only reason I didn't get more pounds was that I had to feed the meter (another reason to adore Evanston: they still take nickels and dimes for their parking meters! quarters, too, but I used my spare change all day and parked for less than $3 for three hours!)

Some treasures from Bookman's Alley, which is closing and selling everything at 50% off. So I got these four books ($35):

• A first edition of Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann, who was the best professor I had during graduate school. I already have two first editions of this fantastic novel, but this copy is in immaculate condition and it was only $12.50 (after discount)
• An early book club edition of Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger, and yes, I already have two hardcover copies (a 35th and a 37th printing) and three paperback copies, but it's one of my favorite books and it was only $12.50 (after discount)
• A 1984 paperback copy of The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess ($3.50 after discount)
• A first edition of The Bridesmaid by Ruth Rendell ($4 after discount)

 But my adventure wasn't over. After Trevor got home we had another suburban adventure, though this one was a bit more serious. We desperately need a new water heater (we fear that our twenty-year-old water heater will go the way of our upstairs neighbor's: splitting open and flooding our apartment [but because our neighbor has two units below her own, her heater also flooded our next-door neighbor Sarah's unit and a bit of ours]) and had made plans to venture out to Glenview and Abt Electronics to do some recon and possibly make a purchase. Within twenty minutes we had found a great deal at Abt and scheduled a delivery for new heater next Saturday.

But our purchase was so easy and quick that we had to get our money's worth out of the trip so we wandered around the store for another half hour, playing with satellite navigation units, car speakers (there were three teenagers trying out sub-woofers and I wanted whatever they were getting), stationary exercise bikes, adjustable kettlebells (I want them), and irons. It was very exciting stuff.

We eventually got hungry and left Abt for our final adventure: dinner at Red Lobster. Trevor had two gift cards to the restaurant from my Aunt Irene (two Christmases worth) so we decided to put them to good use. We ate our fill of cheddar bay biscuits (OMG they're good and each tastes like it's make with five sticks of butter), rainbow trout (Trevor) and king crab legs (me and Trevor). And all of it only cost us $26 (with tip). Trevor documented some of our dinner experience.

Waiting for our table

Lobster beer

Lobster powder

So this dinner put me over the $100 mark for the whole day, but it kept me under $120.

And it was all worth it.