Read PART ONE first by clicking here.
So in part one I have told you about my two most vivid memories that have contributed to my mild form of weaslaphobia. However I have another reason for not liking most hairdressers, and I warn you that this may get slightly ranty.
While looking at salons to see where I should get my latest haircut I picked the one I did for a very specific reason. The pictures on the website, and indeed on their Facebook page, were of real people, with real haircuts.
Endless websites I visited with pictures of models with hair that no one in their right mind would walk in and ask for. And no offence to the stylists but I doubt the regular stylist in Ipswich hasn't got much experience with top fashion session styling.
I looked through website after website with pictures of women with orange hair in the shape of an arrow, or a fringe that comes down to the nostrils, or an up-do so heavily styled that I would be taking out pins for the rest of my life. Funnily enough, when i go to the hairdressers... I kind of just want a plain ol' haircut.
I am quite able to make my hair look stupid by myself at home with a bottle of hair dye, a few hundred bobby pins and style tips from The Tribe.
Damnit... now I want to buy the entire boxset of The tribe and watch it all.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
27 Feb - Weaslaphobia aka, getting my hair did PART ONE
Yesterday, I got my hair did. This may not seem like a big deal but it was for me, for in actual fact I had not been to the hairdressers since November 2010, when I had my hair cut short for my marriage to James. In fact I would go so far as to say I have a mild form of weaslaphobia (fear of hairdressers).
I think it was the day before our ceremony and I went along to an appointment in this tiny little hair studio where my mum's hairdresser was based. When I arrived someone was sitting with their head in foils. I was slightly confused as there was only one hairdresser, but I put it from my mind. She went about wet cutting my hair (this is when they spray with water rather than wash it - always a dangerous method for hair as thick as mine) and after a little while said something like "Well that's all I have time for - I take it your mum told you I wouldn't have long?" Hmm. No. No she didn't.
Turns out James had told her not to tell me that there wasn't very much time because it would stress me out and upset me. He was right. Alas, I went home look like a mushroom that had grown hair and then been electrocuted. I then spent the next three months having to style my darn locks every morning. Oh there is something I should mention... I like low maintenance hair. Anything that has to be styled every day is the word's biggest no-no for me.
The memory of the November 2010 haircut, along with other horrifying hair memories, has somewhat put me off hairdressers. An earlier memory, for example, from when I was still at infant school is when my mum thought it would be a great idea for my sister and I to have pixie cuts. It was not a great idea.
Rather than look cute and dainty like the pixie cut made Emma Watson look... on a person like me - y'know, someone who isn't stunningly gorgeous with a top team of hair gurus at hand - it definitely could be described more along the boyish and butch kinda lines.
I remember thinking at the time of the haircut "Oh crap this is awful... this is terrible... this is badddd".I even tried to ask the hairdresser to cut it more when she asked if I was happy in desperation that it might look at all different. It made it worse.
So there I was, just a little thing of 6 or 7 with the world's worst haircut. My best friend from junior school once told me: "I would have been your best friend sooner except for that terrible hair cut. I didn't want people to think I was friends with you when you looked like that in case they hated me too". Suffice it to say that this is not a friendship that has stood the test of time.
I think it was the day before our ceremony and I went along to an appointment in this tiny little hair studio where my mum's hairdresser was based. When I arrived someone was sitting with their head in foils. I was slightly confused as there was only one hairdresser, but I put it from my mind. She went about wet cutting my hair (this is when they spray with water rather than wash it - always a dangerous method for hair as thick as mine) and after a little while said something like "Well that's all I have time for - I take it your mum told you I wouldn't have long?" Hmm. No. No she didn't.
Turns out James had told her not to tell me that there wasn't very much time because it would stress me out and upset me. He was right. Alas, I went home look like a mushroom that had grown hair and then been electrocuted. I then spent the next three months having to style my darn locks every morning. Oh there is something I should mention... I like low maintenance hair. Anything that has to be styled every day is the word's biggest no-no for me.
The memory of the November 2010 haircut, along with other horrifying hair memories, has somewhat put me off hairdressers. An earlier memory, for example, from when I was still at infant school is when my mum thought it would be a great idea for my sister and I to have pixie cuts. It was not a great idea.
Rather than look cute and dainty like the pixie cut made Emma Watson look... on a person like me - y'know, someone who isn't stunningly gorgeous with a top team of hair gurus at hand - it definitely could be described more along the boyish and butch kinda lines.
I remember thinking at the time of the haircut "Oh crap this is awful... this is terrible... this is badddd".I even tried to ask the hairdresser to cut it more when she asked if I was happy in desperation that it might look at all different. It made it worse.
So there I was, just a little thing of 6 or 7 with the world's worst haircut. My best friend from junior school once told me: "I would have been your best friend sooner except for that terrible hair cut. I didn't want people to think I was friends with you when you looked like that in case they hated me too". Suffice it to say that this is not a friendship that has stood the test of time.
Sunday, 19 February 2012
19 Feb - 3500 people died in the making of this blog
Whenever a celebrity dies people seem to split into a few categories: the fans that mourn, the people who show their respect regardless of their personal opinion of said celebrity, and then those who bring up the question 'why don't people care when anyone else dies'.
I am sure there are more categories to mention (the 'lets think of all the jokes we can about said celebrity and put them on Twitter' one jumps to mind) but it is the conflict between the second and third ones mentioned above that really confuse me. I believe that the latter - the 'why do people only care about celebrity deaths' paradigm - seems to me quite naive and very presumptuous. And the judgement of this group seems not to fall on the fans most distraught about the death, but on those who show their respects regardless. This really interests me.
I most often place myself in the 'respect paying' category. Is this because I only care about celebrity deaths... not really. In fact, not at all. I care about the death of anyone, including criminals and enemies*. Why? Because whoever dies and wherever in the world, that person has friends and families. Despite what that person may have said or done there will always be someone mourning. I pay my respects not for the person who has died, but for the people they have left behind.
I guess people in that third category would then ask 'what makes the celebrity death different - why publicly show your respects to those people?' The answer to this is that there are a great deal more people who will mourn the loss of someone high profile i.e. that first group I mentioned... the fans. When a celebrity dies it is not just the family and friends that mourn, but everyone who was touched, influenced or inspired by that person.
While I don't personally mourn the loss of Whitney Houston for example, I have friends who do and it is for them that I show my respects. For someone to suggest that I don't show respect to other people who die - whether that be a malnourished child, someone with cancer, a service man or woman in the middle of a war zone, someone whose body has just reached its end - is firstly ridiculous and secondly, down right insulting.
For starters, if I publicly announced my sadness at the loss of everyone in the world that dies I wouldn't have much time for anything else. But does that mean that I am not aware that six million children die each year from malnutrition before their fifth birthday? Of course not. I mourn the loss of those people in other ways - I support charity work and campaigns. That is my was of publicly acknowledging the loss of those people.
Just because some people mention deaths on Twitter and Facebook and not others' doesn't mean they don't care. It just means they have chosen a different way to show their sadness - one perhaps more appropriate, in that person's opinion, to the death in question i.e. wearing a Poppy in November to recognize service men and women or taking part in the Project for Awesome to highlight the world's inequalities.
In the time that it has taken me to write this blog about 3500 people will have died. This blog is for them.
*"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." - Article 3. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Everyone.
I am sure there are more categories to mention (the 'lets think of all the jokes we can about said celebrity and put them on Twitter' one jumps to mind) but it is the conflict between the second and third ones mentioned above that really confuse me. I believe that the latter - the 'why do people only care about celebrity deaths' paradigm - seems to me quite naive and very presumptuous. And the judgement of this group seems not to fall on the fans most distraught about the death, but on those who show their respects regardless. This really interests me.
I most often place myself in the 'respect paying' category. Is this because I only care about celebrity deaths... not really. In fact, not at all. I care about the death of anyone, including criminals and enemies*. Why? Because whoever dies and wherever in the world, that person has friends and families. Despite what that person may have said or done there will always be someone mourning. I pay my respects not for the person who has died, but for the people they have left behind.
I guess people in that third category would then ask 'what makes the celebrity death different - why publicly show your respects to those people?' The answer to this is that there are a great deal more people who will mourn the loss of someone high profile i.e. that first group I mentioned... the fans. When a celebrity dies it is not just the family and friends that mourn, but everyone who was touched, influenced or inspired by that person.
While I don't personally mourn the loss of Whitney Houston for example, I have friends who do and it is for them that I show my respects. For someone to suggest that I don't show respect to other people who die - whether that be a malnourished child, someone with cancer, a service man or woman in the middle of a war zone, someone whose body has just reached its end - is firstly ridiculous and secondly, down right insulting.
For starters, if I publicly announced my sadness at the loss of everyone in the world that dies I wouldn't have much time for anything else. But does that mean that I am not aware that six million children die each year from malnutrition before their fifth birthday? Of course not. I mourn the loss of those people in other ways - I support charity work and campaigns. That is my was of publicly acknowledging the loss of those people.
Just because some people mention deaths on Twitter and Facebook and not others' doesn't mean they don't care. It just means they have chosen a different way to show their sadness - one perhaps more appropriate, in that person's opinion, to the death in question i.e. wearing a Poppy in November to recognize service men and women or taking part in the Project for Awesome to highlight the world's inequalities.
In the time that it has taken me to write this blog about 3500 people will have died. This blog is for them.
*"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." - Article 3. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Everyone.
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