emerald

i'm not one to wash dishes before i put them in the dishwasher. nor do i take the time to comb, let alone wash, my hair before i subject some poor, unsuspecting girl to my terrarium of a mop. blow-drying is a circus act that i reserve for overcast days when the mood strikes, and it rarely does. more often than not, i let it do an interpretive dance (aka "air dry") and wake up to one large, moldable dred lock. then i pick apart the front pieces, smoke them silly with a curling iron and hide the rest in a professionally disheveled bun. this is the kind of half-assery that defines my hair care routine.

so when i take myself to the hair vet to be thus tamed and de-clawed, i leave the heavy lifting to the person with the advantageous angles and 2200-volt, car wash-series blow-your-cheeks-back model blow dryer and round brush like a wac-a-mole mallet. then i have to stifle laughter when, after the 40th layer and fifth broken hair clip, the poor dear is sweetly swearing under her breath. that would be me, only the expletives would be audible and i'd be sweating like a wrestler. even the best intentions (starting at the base and moving my way up) often leads to a forced time-out, deep breaths, and lack of resolve to go the distance. that's when the elastic comes in and the hair goes up and i contemplate a buzz cut.

when i met emerald the salonista at landis aveda, i was in full-moon-calico-knotty-dred glory. this was my first visit with emerald--i was cheating on my usual veteran vet ruby, but i saw it as a harmless switch-up--the way one might try a new toothpaste. i wasn't expecting drastic differences. i mostly hoped to discover a worthy opponent for the sheer volume and gnar that is my hair.

emerald was wearing a *turban* that day, to hide her freshly-shorn, waist-length mullet...i didn't get to see it, but her description conjured images of my sister's abyssinian guinea pig. emerald had silver earrings like delicate moorish stencils and a jordanian boyfriend who recently moved to new york city to find himself. we talked about oprah. we talked about art galleries. and all the while, emerald gave me tips on how to brush my hair, how to smear 10-15 different serums in it to take it from a bozo to a bridget, and how to manipulate a curling iron.

throughout her tutorial on "tips and tricks" (read: hair 101) i listened attentively as if i really hadn't a clue how to manage my hereditary "broom straw, gnawed off the ends with my own teeth half crazed recently escaped from azkaban" look. i even assured her when i first sat down, that my current fuzz-a-thon was no indication of my capabilities with a brush and plenty of grease. but perhaps she thought it was just a cover up...a cry for help. so she kindly showed me how to hold and use a brush. how to position a blow dryer and trick my hair out with this multi-purpose multi-miracle invention called "the curling iron". i realized how i must have been like an eliza doolittle to her, a rough pebble in need of some preliminary polish...she couldn't imagine that i would know how to pull, yank and threaten my hair into submission and still go around letting my freak flag fly.

curly hair is one thing. some people celebrate it, others treat it like a shameful rash and offer tried-and-true remedies for such unfortunate genetics. emerald believed that no woman (or man) should leave the house without applying some kind of heated object to their hair. "the whole world would look better" she claimed. i thought of all the mornings that the heater in my car or the hot breath of the subway served as my impromptu drying source...

when we parted, my hair was big and weather-girlish. i expected this and feigned excitement at my new-found ability to brush and curl. emerald was beguiling, and she invited me to her sacred dances jingle-jangle shake your money maker classes on tuesday nights. i think i'll take her up on it...and i'll bring my incorrigible curls with me.