Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

cattitude got out the buzz-cutter, and set it to "1," and the bits of my hair that are supposed [with this haircut] to be very short are now very short again. When I got my hair cut, after letting a short hairstyle grow out for two years, the stylist told me I could maintain it cheaply at home, and come back for another haircut from her in 3 or 4 months, rather than pay someone to set the trimmer to "1" and buzz the parts that we left short. So I am good for another month or two, and will call for an appointment once we're at least a bit settled in Brighton.

My head feels lighter now, though not as much so as when we removed two years of letting it grow out during the pandemic.

This is in parallel to discussions of moving logistics, but I'm not going to live-blog endless "do we want to keep X?" and "is it worth buying another quart of milk for the Belmont apartment?"

The hairdresser is in Somerville, and for three or four times a year, I'll pay for a Lyft if the transit doesn't seem safe. (That would be two trains and a bus, though the "two trains" might mean changing from green line B or C to green line E, which is the easiest possible transfer, just get off the trolley and wait for the one I want to pull up in front of me.)

I colored my hair a couple of days ago (I used a coloring conditioner from Overtone, not a dye). It's now a very nice shade of purple, which I'm reasonably pleased by even though I was going for blue. The company that makes it labels this "extreme blue," and the stuff that came off on a white towel is very blue; my hair is mostly bright purple with some blue bit, and some white bits that I missed when I applied the color on Wednesday.

This purple is a lot more eye-catching than the short haircut in my natural white with bits of gray. Also, a few weeks' regrowth makes a significant difference to how I look, and this cut and color no longer remind me of my favorite aunt. I should think about what I want the next haircut to be. My current theory is I still don't want to have to use a blow-dryer, but am willing to experiment with a hairdo that requires the application of a hair-styling product.

My hair isn't remotely long enough yet, but it does seem to be at a length where I can pull it back off my neck on hot days, or when exercising, if I don't mind looking a little goofy. I'd rather not look goofy, but that's less important than not being overcome by the heat, or even than not needing to use the gym's shampoo or start carrying a bottle of baby shampoo in my already-cluttered backpack. [Today's high was around 33 C/92 F, and the humidity is creeping up.]

I feel as though everything I've done with my hair lately was a mistake.

Before I went up to Montreal, rysmiel had offered to trim my hair for me. I liked this idea, because I'd rather trust a long-haired friend to take off no more than necessary. Unfortunately, by the time the removal of split ends was done, there wasn't enough left to braid properly. I feel as though I've lost about a year of growth, and am hoping to have it long enough to braid by summer. papersky says that hers grows about 2 cm in the two weeks after a trim, which would be nice if it happened for me as well. In the meantime, it'll have to go back in a stupid little ponytail while I'm exercising.

Also, the purple seems to be almost gone. While I was in Montreal, I was enjoying that my relatively subtle purple highlights were calm and modest by local standards, because we saw lots of people with really impressive not-found-in-nature color jobs. But one more shampoo, this morning, plus the haircut, seems to have left me almost purple-less. But with the damage from the bleaching.

I think I'm going to go buy a can of the spray-on purple.

And I'm going to try not to be too disturbed and distracted by this, because it really is trivial. But the significantly shorter hair feels different, when I brush it or reach back to run my hand through it, which I do quite a bit when it's loose.

Last night, I arranged to meet L (WINOLJ) after my workout, for lunch and to accompany me to Astor Place Barber Shop while I investigated hair coloring.

I had a good workout, then went down to the Village. I got to Paul's Burgers well before she did, but after a while we were both quite well fed, because the servings there are always generous.

The hair place has given up their street-level space (there's a chain ice cream shop in their now) but is bustling down at basement level. I spent some time trying to get information about what would be involved in streaking my hair purple; despite the language barrier, I determined that yes, bleach would be necessary, but that they didn't think it would do much damage. One of the hairdressers advised me to get relatively small streaks, because I have fine hair. I did that, but wound up (from a different hairdresser, a woman named Elma) with, I think, more purple bits than the first woman had had in mind.

Bits of the process were uncomfortable: having the bits of hair that were to be dyed pulled (with something that resembled a crochet hook, I think) through a plastic cap, and some fumes from the bleach. Mostly, it was just somewhat time-consuming. Most of the time, I spent chatting with L about cats and other deep and meaningful subjects. Once the bleaching was done, the hairdresser took me to a different area, washed the bleach out, and then applied the purple. I sat there for a bit, not doing much. Near the end of the dyeing, another woman came over and tugged bits of the hair further out--I went "ouch!" and she explained that she needed to make sure that the roots got colored. Then Elma added more purple. Someone came over and said "Que linda color!" I uttered an automatic "Gracias" and Elma, sounding surprised, asked "You speak Spanish?" I admitted to a little— had I been fluent, the whole thing would have been simpler. Despite those last-minute tugs, the dye in the front very visibly doesn't go all the way to the roots, which is disappointing.

Another wash, and back to Elma's station, where L was disappointed that she'd missed the actual application of the dye. Elma blow-dryed my hair, brushed it out, and attempted for about the fifth time to get me to have her cut it. I declined, because I wasn't sure I had enough Spanish, or she enough English, for me to get across that I want only the absolute minimum trimmed off the bottom.

From there, L and I wandered to and through Washington Square Park, which is greening very nicely. We poked our heads into a new tea shop called Tea Spot, at Third and MacDougal, but I concluded it was noisier than I wanted to deal with, so we had our tea at La Lanterna. Eventually, we headed for our respective homes, via Porto Rico (for coffee beans). On the A train, there was a woman who was loud, somewhat randomly aggressive, and I suspect mentally ill—but rather than shouting anything rude or threatening toward me, she just remarked two or three times "She has purple hair!" There are worse things than being conspicuously but non-threateningly weird.

On my way to the drugstore, I passed rosefox, who called "Looks good, Vicki" as she and sinboy walked north on Broadway.

I want a new purple-hair userpic, but the purple/gym one will do for this entry.

( gym details )

My partners gave me a resounding chorus of "I like it both ways," which is reassuring but doesn't help me decide. Inertia may win here.

I'm thinking seriously about doing my hair in purple again.

The easy way would be to buy another can (or two?) of the B-Wild dye and do it at home. That produces an all-over purple effect (including, for a little while, the bathroom sink). But I'm thinking it would be cool to get purple streaks put in, instead.

I don't feel up to doing that at home. (Yes, I know it's possible in theory; I'm not confident of the results.) Does anyone either know a place in New York City (preferably Manhattan or downtown Brooklyn) that does purple/other non-natural hair colors, and does a decent job?

Also, any comments on the relative appeal of all-over versus purple streaks?

Addendum: Paying a professional to put in purple streaks would--as I should have realized--involve bleaching the parts that are going to be streaked. I'm not sure how much damage that would do to my (relatively thin, light brown/dark blonde) hair. Further thoughts/information? I've been growing it out for a couple of years, it's finally at a decent length, I don't want to ruin that.

I got cattitude to take the digital camera out yesterday, to get pictures of me with shoulder-length purple hair. Behind the cut-tag is a picture of me and roadnotes in Inwood Hill Park. ( cut for size--over 200 kB )

My actual boss--as distinct from Marvin, who's my day-to-day supervisor and generally signs my timesheets--came in this morning and told me that she'd decided to move me from the office I've been in over to the empty cubicle in the proofreading area, because she thought it would help me concentrate.

I'd be more convinced by this reasoning had I not, immediately after completing the move, been distracted by people quoting Rodney Dangerfield jokes at each other. The problem is that if this doesn't work--if, specifically, it proves a distraction--the conclusion is more likely to be that I'm not suited to the work than that moving me was a bad idea. On the other hand, one of my co-proofreaders said that she thinks the reason for the move is that that office isn't proofreading space, and that there's no good basis for us using it when there's room for all of us in the area that is designated for proofreading. One effect of this move is that the work number I gave some people is no longer functional: it might still get to a voice mail box, but I won't see the message light. (At some point I'll have an outgoing phone line again, though making calls will be more problematic, because I can't close a door to avoid distracting people.) Fortunately, I'm not particularly bothered by people walking by behind me, and there isn't much traffic through there. (rysmiel, you would hate it.) There are other annoyances, notably that none of the cubicle walls will take pushpins, so I can't post any of my accumulated notes and photocopies, and that no office and no office door means no private place to do crunches (not that I was up for those today).

Alina who I ride the train with complimented my hair; one of the other people in the van did a double-take when I got in, and said something about my being early for Halloween. That joke I got twice today, though I have no idea what they think I'm going to dress as. Marvin said "Oh my god!"--I asked him whether he'd ever seen purple hair before, and got a response that came down to "yes, but not on a grown-up." When I came in after a walk at lunchtime, the receptionist said "Why?" and I had no idea what she was referring to at first. I suspect the next questioner will get something like "Martians," or if they're lucky "Because it's the color I had in the house" (this is actually true). On the other hand, back here in the city cattitude and I had a nice conversation with a neighbor which began with her saying something about my hair. She said it took guts to do something like that, and I said that the one thing to remember is that purple hair gives anyone and everyone the excuse to start a conversation, so if you don't want to talk to strangers, don't do it. This led us to talking about giving directions to tourists, at home and while traveling.

Well, that's done. When it dries, I'll get a better idea of whether I like the effect with long hair. julian_tiger took the whole thing calmly, and in fact was poking around in the bathroom while cattitude and I were standing at the sink (which is next to the door) doing things with purple hair dye.