for several years i was lucky enought to work at a natural buzz salon in decatur. i first got the job the summer after my return to atlanta the summer after my minor nervous breakdown. i told my hairdresser, jenny, about needing a job, and she urged me to apply at the salon where she worked. i liked jenny; she was crazy in a good way at the time (she unfortunately became crazy in ways that were bad for her physical and mental health soon after) and she really liked doing my hair because i had blue streaks in it.
before i took a year off and moved back in with my mom i used to get my hair done at a place in little five points. chris and i had a routine: after i arrived we would walk over together to fifi mahoney's where we would buy some dye, usually some variations on purple and blue (this was also the time period in which i got my tongue pierced; i was defying social conventions in conventional ways left and right). we would stand outside while chris smoked a cigarette, talking about what we were up to, which usually consisted of him telling me about what he and his partner had been into lately. i liked chris a lot: as a person and as a hair stylist. he was nice and fun and always interesting, and he would make my hair look amazing. i would be in love with my hair. he put natural looking highlights in it, meaning they were in patterns that might emerge from sitting out in the sun, only instead of being blond or light brown, they'd be blue or purple or magenta. once he somehow put purple all over with blue highlights. i never wanted to wash my hair again. my hair was much shorter at the time, but if you've ever seen or tried to apply that type of hair color, i'm sure you're already amazed at his skills.
when i moved back to atlanta, i was sad to see that chris was no longer at the place where i used to get my hair done. of course, i no longer lived two blocks from l5p, either. much had changed since i left, but after being a secretary for 9 months, i really wanted blue in my hair again. doubting i could ever again find someone with the patience and interest and funness of chris, i decided not to try to find the miracle again, but just to get blue chunks in my hair, leaving the rest brown.
that's how i found jenny.
she put blue streaks in my hair, and i came to enjoy visits a great deal. i had to get dye and bring it to her, usually, which was much less convenient, since there weren't too many places to buy that in decatur, and since i had to drive to l5p now, find a place to park, find the dye (no more fifi mahoney's either), drive back to decatur, etc. the good thing about the new style, though, was that it was a little easier to do touch-ups myself.
by the time i went to work at the salon, jenny was in the middle of her own nervous breakdown, so i never saw her again. the stories she told me before she left were some of the most harrowing i've heard, and may have snuffed out much of the isolationist rebelliousness i was nurturing.
for the years when i worked at the salon i passed the time reading celebrity gossip and flirting. without jenny there, i found there was no one to put blue dye in my hair. at that point, i was starting to grow weary of the touching-up process as well. my hair was getting longer and longer, and the process was getting more and more messy and frustrating. a friend of mine helped me for a while, but finally we both just let it go. i was frustrated with many things in my life and i think i just wanted hair i didn't have to mess with as much.
zane came to work at the salon, and i cherished my new friend and the dramatic but tasteful magic he worked with my hair. i remember when i first came to work at the salon, i was surprised i got the job: i didn't think my hair looked nice enough. i didn't think my clothes were trendy enough. i didn't think my make-up was polished enough. as time passed, though, i began to think that maybe that wasn't the case. when zane started doing my hair, i realized that pretty and dramatic were not mutually exclusive. looking back, i realize that the reason i wanted crazy hair (and you should have seen jenny's by the way) was because i felt like i couldn't be as pretty as i wanted, so i had to settle for being over-the-top. some people want to make a statement with their hair, but i finally realized that my self-esteem problems pushed me into making one.
these days my streaks are blonde and my highlights auburn and dark brown. my tongue is still pierced but people often don't even notice. i don't work at the salon anymore because all my other jobs keep me too busy. now i live in atlanta again, far away from the salon in decatur, but still i drive back to visit, gossip, and read celebrity gossip magazines. and when i'm feeling down, i always want to go let zane do something dramatic with my hair. something dramatic, and beautiful.
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