Touched in the head...
This week I paid some people to mess with my head.
Literally. I went to the dentist, and I got a haircut.
Going to the dentist is a pretty straightforward affair. I simply go to the office (it's walking-distance from my apartment) and sit in a funky chair. They clean my teeth really really well, then the doctor pokes around in my mouth for a while to check for new cavities and fillings that need to be re-done.
I had no cavities, but my coffee-drinking habit badly stained one of my old tooth-colored fillings, so I had that replaced while I was there. Never let it be said that I don't have any vanity... (Though it's not nearly as much as it could be)
They also had a new device that screens for the beginning stages of potential oral cancers. It looks like a spotlight, sounds like a hair-drier and they make you wear these funky orange glasses to protect your eyes from it. That came up all-clear, too. :-)
Novocaine is freaking weird stuff, as is nitrous. My dentist uses both. The effect is... interesting. (and fortunately temporary)
The whole thing cost me less than $20 (co-pay) and I got a goody-bag with a free toothbrush (and paste, and floss) out of it, too. HOORAY for dental insurance! Seriously. And yay for useable-for-myself, paid sick-leave.
Given my druthers with sick-leave, I prefer to take the whole day off from work, since nobody really wants to have me in an office when I can't speak without sounding like I've got a mouth full of marbles... assuming there's no critical deadline I have to meet.
So, I spent a few more hours recovering from the effects of the Novocaine, and decided I was overdue for a haircut.
I have a weird relationship with my hair. I had bangs (a fringe to the UK-folks) until I was 12, mostly at my mother's insistence. I don't have a particularly large forehead, so it was very unflattering. The length of the rest varied from "just above the shoulders" to "down to my waist".
I finally convinced Mom to let me ditch the bangs (which I despised) at 11, and got the female right-of-passage known as "The Bad Perm" when I was 12 or 13. I thought it looked good at the time, it was "trendy" and all, but in hindsight, I am extremely sure it didn't. I spent a couple of years growing that out, and thankfully no pictures of me exist with that horrid thing. (to my knowledge anyway)
When I grew the perm out far enough, I got my hair chopped into a chin-length, bangs-less bob at 16, so all the frizzy ratty-ness from the perm went away, and I let it grow from there...
In college? I was freaking Rapunzel. As long as I could grow it was the way to go! It was down to my butt, a length I refer to as "Sit-on-it Long" because that's exactly what you do with it. And that's about all you can do with it. Sometimes a braid. Sometimes a multi-banded ponytail (as one person referred to it "Princess Jasmine Hair") And sometimes I was "weird" because I was in my Goth phase, and rolled it up under a neon-colored wig. (It would have taken too much hair-dye to change the color of all of it.)
I kept that long long long long hair for years. People got used to me having it. Some of my boyfriends threatened to leave me if I ever cut it off, and at least one said that was the only interesting thing about me. (He was a jerk. If you're my ex and you're reading this, you're probably not him.)
But it was driving me NUTS, and not just because of the rapidly mounting shampoo costs. That stuff is HOT (literally) in the summer and I didn't have an air-conditioner in my apartment. And it never held any style for long because it was heavy due to the mass of it and very fine... nevermind all the brushing...
I was wary of salons, because they are expensive, and a lot of them didn't want my input on what I wanted, because they saw all that hair and were like "OOOH! Let's be dramatic and do a Pixie cut!!! ...and then bleach it white-blonde!!!!!!" even when all I was after was a trim. (I walked right out when they suggested this or anything other than what I was there for - I love my natural hair-color.)
At one point I'd had enough, and I went to a salon school to get it cut, since I'd had good luck with getting "just a trim" there - they actually listen to you when you say what you want. I chopped it to "halfway down my back" - which was still more than a foot off the total - and had them put a couple of layers in the front. (kind of like overgrown bangs)
I LOVED it.
I've gotten variations of that style over the years, since I learned long layers look good on me, but I kept getting told (mostly by guys) never to cut it short, since (to paraphrase) "girls with short hair are unattractive".
Well, maybe that applies to some women, but not to me. I look better with short hair than I do with long. And, as far as I'm concerned "short" is relative... you do have to consider my standard for "long" after all.
My current cut sits about an inch-and a half above my shoulders. The shortest layers are barely longer than the tip of my nose.
It looks like this:
I can just barely tie it into a pony-tail... but the shortest bits won't stay there. Not bad for a $20 haircut (including a 25% tip) huh? :-)
This is as "short" as I want to go right now, and it totally works for me. I don't think I'd want to go much shorter, actually.
It's certainly going to come in handy with the record-breaking heat we've been getting around here lately.
tl;dr: I mean that literally. I went to the dentist, and I also got a haircut.
This entry was originally posted at http://something-for-thursday.dreamwidth.org/4699.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Literally. I went to the dentist, and I got a haircut.
Going to the dentist is a pretty straightforward affair. I simply go to the office (it's walking-distance from my apartment) and sit in a funky chair. They clean my teeth really really well, then the doctor pokes around in my mouth for a while to check for new cavities and fillings that need to be re-done.
I had no cavities, but my coffee-drinking habit badly stained one of my old tooth-colored fillings, so I had that replaced while I was there. Never let it be said that I don't have any vanity... (Though it's not nearly as much as it could be)
They also had a new device that screens for the beginning stages of potential oral cancers. It looks like a spotlight, sounds like a hair-drier and they make you wear these funky orange glasses to protect your eyes from it. That came up all-clear, too. :-)
Novocaine is freaking weird stuff, as is nitrous. My dentist uses both. The effect is... interesting. (and fortunately temporary)
The whole thing cost me less than $20 (co-pay) and I got a goody-bag with a free toothbrush (and paste, and floss) out of it, too. HOORAY for dental insurance! Seriously. And yay for useable-for-myself, paid sick-leave.
Given my druthers with sick-leave, I prefer to take the whole day off from work, since nobody really wants to have me in an office when I can't speak without sounding like I've got a mouth full of marbles... assuming there's no critical deadline I have to meet.
So, I spent a few more hours recovering from the effects of the Novocaine, and decided I was overdue for a haircut.
I have a weird relationship with my hair. I had bangs (a fringe to the UK-folks) until I was 12, mostly at my mother's insistence. I don't have a particularly large forehead, so it was very unflattering. The length of the rest varied from "just above the shoulders" to "down to my waist".
I finally convinced Mom to let me ditch the bangs (which I despised) at 11, and got the female right-of-passage known as "The Bad Perm" when I was 12 or 13. I thought it looked good at the time, it was "trendy" and all, but in hindsight, I am extremely sure it didn't. I spent a couple of years growing that out, and thankfully no pictures of me exist with that horrid thing. (to my knowledge anyway)
When I grew the perm out far enough, I got my hair chopped into a chin-length, bangs-less bob at 16, so all the frizzy ratty-ness from the perm went away, and I let it grow from there...
In college? I was freaking Rapunzel. As long as I could grow it was the way to go! It was down to my butt, a length I refer to as "Sit-on-it Long" because that's exactly what you do with it. And that's about all you can do with it. Sometimes a braid. Sometimes a multi-banded ponytail (as one person referred to it "Princess Jasmine Hair") And sometimes I was "weird" because I was in my Goth phase, and rolled it up under a neon-colored wig. (It would have taken too much hair-dye to change the color of all of it.)
I kept that long long long long hair for years. People got used to me having it. Some of my boyfriends threatened to leave me if I ever cut it off, and at least one said that was the only interesting thing about me. (He was a jerk. If you're my ex and you're reading this, you're probably not him.)
But it was driving me NUTS, and not just because of the rapidly mounting shampoo costs. That stuff is HOT (literally) in the summer and I didn't have an air-conditioner in my apartment. And it never held any style for long because it was heavy due to the mass of it and very fine... nevermind all the brushing...
I was wary of salons, because they are expensive, and a lot of them didn't want my input on what I wanted, because they saw all that hair and were like "OOOH! Let's be dramatic and do a Pixie cut!!! ...and then bleach it white-blonde!!!!!!" even when all I was after was a trim. (I walked right out when they suggested this or anything other than what I was there for - I love my natural hair-color.)
At one point I'd had enough, and I went to a salon school to get it cut, since I'd had good luck with getting "just a trim" there - they actually listen to you when you say what you want. I chopped it to "halfway down my back" - which was still more than a foot off the total - and had them put a couple of layers in the front. (kind of like overgrown bangs)
I LOVED it.
I've gotten variations of that style over the years, since I learned long layers look good on me, but I kept getting told (mostly by guys) never to cut it short, since (to paraphrase) "girls with short hair are unattractive".
Well, maybe that applies to some women, but not to me. I look better with short hair than I do with long. And, as far as I'm concerned "short" is relative... you do have to consider my standard for "long" after all.
My current cut sits about an inch-and a half above my shoulders. The shortest layers are barely longer than the tip of my nose.
It looks like this:
I can just barely tie it into a pony-tail... but the shortest bits won't stay there. Not bad for a $20 haircut (including a 25% tip) huh? :-)
This is as "short" as I want to go right now, and it totally works for me. I don't think I'd want to go much shorter, actually.
It's certainly going to come in handy with the record-breaking heat we've been getting around here lately.
tl;dr: I mean that literally. I went to the dentist, and I also got a haircut.
This entry was originally posted at http://something-for-thursday.dreamwidth.org/4699.html. Please comment there using OpenID.