I have a million and one things to do in the next 28 days (give or take two). It seems only right, then, that this surreal month would happen to contain the four least pleasant days of my year (more or less).
I am talking, of course, about my Hidy Hair Days. I have only barely started Day 2, and I am already wound as tight as a guitar string.
For those of you who don’t know: I have naturally curly hair. For those of you who are now thinking, “Oh! That would look so good on you! Why don’t you ever wear it that way?”: talk to Andrea. Or, actually, to anyone who has seen the picture she took of me in seventh grade. We are not talking about pretty, curly hair; we are talking about a huge, frizzy, evil, unmanageable mess. So, every nine or ten months, I head down to 32nd Street to transform myself into the unremarkable wash-and-wear girl you know and love.
This is not as much fun as it sounds.
For one thing, it costs a small fortune. In fairness, the value saved in hair products to calm the insanity, salons that specialize in cutting curly hair, and even just prep time helps to make up the difference. However, when just paying cash saves me enough for quite a nice dinner out, it is hard to keep these arguments so firmly in mind.
For another, it is just a wretched experience. It takes about four hours, and the waiver I had to sign during my first consultation (promising that I was not pregnant, and would not sue them if I had lied and anything went wrong) does not inspire one to want to marinate in whatever the hell they use for those four hours.
Seriously: when I walked in yesterday and the woman asked me if I wanted a perm (waving her hands a foot away from her head in a rough approximation of what I actually used to look like) I almost just took it.
I am told that the first chemical breaks down the sulfur bonds in my hair, which only partially explains the way that it smells. Now, on Day 2, I am already contemplating creative measures such as Febreezing® my head. The problem is that there are really only two possible outcomes of such a plan:
1) My hair, which must remain bone-dry for at least 72 hours after thermal reconditioning, will take on the texture of steel wool, the way a small patch of it did when this rule was not fully explained the first time (I had to cut it out–and switch salons), or
2) My head will be engulfed in a giant fireball. Seriously. It feels possible.
It is that bone-dry rule, though, that makes me so cranky for those three days. It is even worse than the burns sustained when three people are using straightening irons on you simultaneously, one of them burns you, and you instinctively jerk away. If you should ever find yourself in this position, I do not recommend instinctively jerking away.
Anyway.
Do you know how impossible it is to avoid every source of moisture in this city for three days? It’s bad enough that I can’t wash off the chemical smell, or that the final straightironing (to give each strand the shape it will hold as the sulphur rebonds) will make me look like a seal in an oilslick by the time I finally can. It’s so much worse that I must live in fear of water.
My shower head drips, it snows, ice melts–hell, it’s New York: people spit. Or worse–I am only one disgruntled pigeon away from total disaster. I wash my hands and then have to remember not to run one through my hair. I wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night from fear that I will, well, sweat. And by the way, even if perspiration weren’t a problem, would you want to work out when you can’t wash your hair for two more days?
There are bright spots, though, to distract me from the time bomb on top of my head. Most of my preparations so far have been easy–apparently my story is just romantic enough to encourage people to smooth my way. And, as if working in parallel, France Telecom has finally come through for Nick, so when I do go, I can call the U.S. incessantly for no extra charge. And apparently a DVR comes standard with his cable (as does VH-1, oddly enough).
Everyone should move to Paris.