Vancouver Bound

Hey kids,

I know I've been a lousy absentee blogger lately. This full-time job, full-time school and single mom combo is killing me. The semester is almost done and miraculously, I'm still standing and managing to pass these courses. But every girl needs a break, so I'm taking one tomorrow night. My friend and I are hanging out in Van--I booked a nice suite in a 5 star hotel (I get discounts) and I got mailed a 2 for one coupon at my favourite spa in Yaletown, so we've got facials lined up on Saturday...good thing too, because we will be partying on Friday night and we'll need to detoxify!

After that, I have two more papers and a couple of exams to get through and then one more easy semester of film studies all the time, and that's it! Graduation! I never thought I'd see the day. Boy am I glad to be getting out of school. There's a girl in one of my classes who's 18. I realized the other day that she was only one the first time I went to University. A horrible, horrible realization, especially since I'm way too immature to be old enough to be this girl's mom!

My kid the Skaterpunk

Alright, I don't do the shameless cutesy parent thing very often, but humour me--how funny is this pic?

Dance, Dirtbag!

The Break-Up

We met when I was eighteen and it was love at first sight. Since then, we've shared everything--our ups and downs, our fears, our deepest secrets, our greatest hopes. We could always count on each other, and through the years, we grew closer. Our trust could not be broken.

But lately, I feel like something has changed. There's something missing. We don't communicate anymore. I don't feel understood. And though it kills me to say this...

I think I might have to break up with my hairdresser.

I met her when my high school boyfriend dragged me to a Supercuts so he could get his hair cut for a school photo. I had been to several high-end salons that month, trying to get my hair cut super short, but all of the hairdressers I went to refused to cut it--they wanted me compromise and get a long bob, or come back in a week after I had thought about it. I'm not one to ponder a haircut. I wanted it short and I wanted it done now. So while the boyfriend was getting his hair trimmed, I walked over to the other hairdresser in the place, sat in her chair and said, "Can you cut it all off?!"

Her grin lit up the whole room. Well, actually, it was probably the flourescent lighting that lit up the room, but we had a connection. I could feel it. We had chemistry. She understood what I wanted, and she was willing to give it to me. That kind of hairdresser doesn't come along every day. It was magic. She snipped away furiously and we talked non-stop. I told her all about my boyfriend and she gushed about what a cute couple we made. Halfway through the haircut she turned my chair away from the mirror so I'd be surprised when she was done. I knew it would be ok. I trusted her. She took her time, avoiding the dreaded razor and clippers that so many lazy hairdressers are quick to reach for when cutting short hair. We laughed hysterically about boys and tv shows. Finally she was finished, and she spun me around to face myself, minus the 8 inches of hair I'd walked in with.

It was perfect. It was short like Mia Farrow's and it made my eyes look huge. My boyfriend just about fell over. And the best part? It cost me only ten bucks. Supercuts, remember?

I continued seeing her. When I dumped the high school boyfriend she said, "He was never right for you," but she liked the sound of my new boyfriend. She really GOT my hair, and she was always excited when I wanted a change. When I arrived at her salon, she would aways say, "I was so happy when I saw you on the appointment list and I have some pictures of haircuts I think would be amazing on you!" The weird part? We had always chosen the exact same pictures. It was kismet. We were perfect together.

She became quite popular and her client list grew, and over time she moved up and on to newer and better salons. Sure, it would cost me more, but a good haircut from someone like her was worth it, because I always knew I'd walk out thrilled.

But then I moved to the Yukon, and I would only get to see her every six months or so. You would think the distance would have taken a toll on our relationship, but somehow it just made our love stronger. She would plan haircuts for me that were so well-thought out that I wouldn't have to visit another stylist the whole time I was away. Whenever I grew my hair from short to long, she styled it so perfectly that I never had that in-between look.

One day I came home from the Yukon and called the salon where she worked, and the unimaginable happened. The receptionist told me she'd left. I begged the girl on the phone to tell me where she'd gone, but she would only tell me that my beloved hairdresser had fallen in love with some guy and moved to Calgary. How could she do this to me?! How could she leave me?! No note, no phone call...nothing. My heart was broken.

For three years I suffered through inferior haircuts. Ok, sure, some tried...I had some good times with a few hairdressers, but none of them got me like she did, and I always felt a little dirty after each cut, like somehow she would know. None of them had that magic we had together. I grew depressed, knowing that no one would ever really understand my hair like she did. It was devastating.

Then one grey and gloomy afternoon, I was walking past a near-deserted mini-mall in town, and as I passed a salon there, out of the corner of my eye, I thought, "My God--it's her!" Could it really be true? How could she have been in town without me knowing? It seemed too good to be true. I steeled myself for disappointment, and then I opened the door to the salon. The little bells on the door twinkled and she turned towards me and we both screamed in joy!

"They told me you'd left and fallen in love and gone to Calgary!" I cried.

"No, I've been here the whole time! My boss canned all the staff and hired a whole team of Aveda graduates and then stole our client lists! I had no way to call anyone! I will never let this happen again! I tried to find you but you aren't listed in the phone book!"

I was on top of the world. Fate had brought us back together. We nearly cried catching up--she was shocked and thrilled to learn I'd had a child and had returned to university. I was blown away to find out she'd finally left her live-in boyfriend who kept dragging his feet whenever the M word came up. Life was good. Everything was finally as it should be.

Except my hair.

I don't know what happened in those three years we were apart...maybe it's too painful for her to speak of-- maybe her old boss's actions killed something inside her--but she had become obsessed with layers, and convinced my hair looked great with them. The worst thing ever began happening...I would look fantastic in the salon and then an hour later, when I tried to style it myself, my hair would look limp and ordinary. Sure, I still love seeing her. We still talk, we still have that connection, but she really likes my hair short and she really likes these layers. In the entire time I've known her, I've never had to put limits on our relationship. I never had to say "not too short and cut it out with the layers." But now? Now I'm not so sure.

I've been avoiding her. A few months ago when I was getting my hair coloured at Aveda, I even cheated on her a little and let the stylist cut a quarter of an inch off my hair to get rid of the split ends. I'm riding a slippery slope, I know.

My hair is past my shoulders now. It needs a cut. I'm thinking something shoulder skimming and kind of blunt with slightly long bangs that I can comb to the side if I hate them. But how can I communicate this to her? Can our relationship survive this?

I'm not sure I'm ready to find out.

If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me!

That line is just about the only thing I found palatable in Steel Magnolias. Today it suits my mood. I feel like a bitch. A complete and utter bitch. Not because of anything I've done recently, although certainly I've repeatedly had to stifle the urge to hurl myself at various morons and prevent myself from angrily gnawing their flesh apart with my teeth, or at least resist my desire to give them a sound dressing-down. No, I feel like a bitch because I have let myself get run-down and the universe is apparently out to get me. I know, it's so boring to read people's complaints, but c'mon, it's me! We're friends, right?

So here's what's bugging me. I have an inner ear infection. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be 35 years old and have to call work to take the day off for an ear infection? Because, you know, I'm really four. I should have just told them I had lice, and then they wouldn't want me there for the whole week. Anyways, it's making me feel dizzier than usual and everything is muffled and I can't quite decide if this is what makes me feel like I've gone crazy, or if I really have gone crazy. I mean, honestly, how many crazy people are actually that self-aware?

What's worse though is that I wrote a ten page essay while feeling like this, and though I'm prone to self-criticism, I am almost certain that I just handed my professor a piece of what the French call "ordures." I don't know how I'll be able to hold my head up in class, given that I'm embarrassed and dizzy and one side of my head is heavier and about to start oozing something nasty.

To top it all off, despite my current state of crappiness, I decided to press on and attend my mid-term exam for my Gay Lit class this afternoon. I was on fire, whipping through a fabulous essay about performative behaviour and how society's rules do not apply to a culture forced to invent itself due to its rejection from the mainstream (or something like that) and my cell-phone rings. My emergency cell-phone, which NEVER rings, because generally, there are never emergencies. It was my son's old kindergarten. Not my favourite place in the world, by the way, since I think the Principal is a condescending cow, but guess who it was on the phone?! Seems that my little angel decided to bolt from his babysitter, and he grabbed his skateboard--sans helmet--and rode on down to his old school to have a little pow-wow with his old pals. The babysitter was in hysterics, the kindergarten wouldn't release my son to him because they didn't know him, and only I would be allowed to get the kid. So, I apologized profusely to the professor and left. And now the exam which should be behind me is still in front of me.

Merde.