If someone asks, this is where I'll be.

There's something to be said for starting over. For being, at 40, an absolute beginner. I've always thought that it's useful to have the experience of being an only: the only woman in a room full of men; the only white person at an event attended by an otherwise all-black audience; the only something, somewhere. Suddenly becoming a minority has the effect of making you understand a little those who live their lives as minorities. Starting over feels analogous to that: being a beginner makes me remember all the other times I was ever finding my way through something new, makes me admire & appreciate the people who have mastered the skills I'm learning now, has me looking forward to the day when I feel equal to whatever task might be set before me. Not, however, imagining a day when *poof* I'm all done learning! Because I hope & imagine that that day never comes.

We're not the new ones out on the floor anymore: the next class has just come out of the classroom. So we've been moved along the wall to our new stations. It's a point of pride to not be on the first wall anymore, a point that only the students know, not the clients. I have a station with more than twice the storage space of my old one, so now each day does not end doing a puzzle called Fit All These Oddly-Shaped Items Into This Very Cramped Cabinet. It was awful. If I got something wrong, sometimes I had to pull it all out & start over. Like a Rubik's Cube, only less fun. And I never liked Rubik's Cubes, so I didn't think they were very fun in the first place. But at least I never had to try to do one down on my knees in bits of cut hair.
I still feel like a stranger in a strange land, when the people around me talk about how prohibitively expensive taxidermy is or how many tanning minutes they have left or how they wish they'd gotten a wedding dress with camouflage on it (I swear I am not making any of this up). I am in the minority here & how. But I find that it doesn't matter as much as it might. I have my little group of friends: Amber, Mercedes, Michelle, & (you all saw this coming, right?) Sunshine. We eat lunch together, study together, sit together during class. Our stations all used to be very close together & mostly they still are, except Sunshine is way up front away from the rest of us. She waves sadly sometimes & we all wave back. We're a funny group, a mishmash: Mercedes is the youngest, she's 20, but by far the most steady & mature. And also possibly the most skilled of all of us. She's a tall, sturdy black girl with amazing cheekbones, a truly radiant smile, & the biggest most fabulous head of natural hair you have ever seen. Amber is 25, tall & skinny, a pretty tomboy with two kids & a part-time job a Food Lion. She's my closest friend there & I truly adore her. She's also impossibly goofy. She & Mercedes are what make my days. And the two of them together are hilarious, like an improbable sitcom. Michelle is 23, angel-faced & blonde, with a five year old daughter. She's funny & smarter than you'd think at first. Possibly the prettiest girl in the school, she & I are always being given men's haircuts to do, to the point where it's a joke between us. I always imagine the men, mostly old timers who appreciate the $6 price of our haircuts, are elated when they see her coming to get them. And Sunshine, well now, Sunshine: she's 34, very tan, the mother of two teenage girls. She's from Tennessee & her accent is like nothing I've ever heard. She's tough & loyal & funny & she knows how to work hard & hustle a little if needed (she has business cards she gives out, so people can ask for her again, though her name is pretty easy to remember without a card). I feel pretty certain that if someone said anything against me or tried to do wrong by me, these girls would be right there if I needed them. Certainly Mercedes & especially Amber have been there for me when I had some truly rotten days. So while I'll never feel like I fit in, I have what I need: people who I like, who like me, with whom I pass the time & share my days.
(That photo at the top is totally unrelated to anything in this post: it's just an updo that I did on my mannequin & liked enough to take a picture of.)

They call me Nature Girl.

Before I get started with the rest of this post, I want to thank everyone who wrote me after the last one, "You're too smart for that." Some of you commented here, some on Facebook, some of you emailed me, & some of you talked to me. I guess it struck a chord with a lot of you, which is gratifying to me as...a writer? Or whatever you want to call what I do here. I tried to answer everything, but I'm not sure that I did, so I wanted to say how much I appreciated hearing from everyone. Now, back to our irregularly scheduled blah blah...

The desire to change me has stepped up among my fellow students. At least once a week, someone suggests that I a. grow my bangs long, b. highlight my hair, c. wear more eye makeup, &/or d. grow my nails longer. I look around & realize what they mean is: look like us. I am the only one there with what I think of as real bangs (above my eyebrows), possibly the only one who is wearing lipstick, & among a very few with only my natural haircolor (virgin hair, it's called, when there are no chemicals in it), minimal eye makeup, & short nails. Now, I'm not opposed to change (& have in fact cut my hair from below shoulder-length to a short bob since I've been there) & I'm not saying that I would never do any of these things (well, I'm not going to grow long nails because I think they're icky), but these suggestions do seem to come from a place of conformity. One girl, who I like for the most part, touched my hair & called me "Nature Girl" because I wasn't wearing hair spray. Nature Girl! Now, I consider that as something of a compliment, which I don't think is how she meant it. This same girl offered to fix my hair on class picture day (Glamour Shots-style pictures, no lie) & when I said, "No, this is how I like my hair," she replied, "Messy & poufy?" I thought about it for a minute & then said, "Well, actually, yeah. That describes what I like pretty well." I guess the implication is that I couldn't possibly look the way I do on purpose, I couldn't have put any thought into it. I'm just accidentally filing my nails down & too lazy to highlight my hair. I have noticed that especially among students who have been there for a while, there are very strong trends. For a while, everyone (& by everyone, I mean about ten or twelve girls) had extremely bleached out bobs, some with a peek-a-boo color (meaning a darker or brighter color on the underneath layer of their hair). Now they're all going with a dark reddish brown. I think it takes a strong sense of self to resist the constant pressure to change. We'll see how I do.
I had a really delightful client on Friday. She was a pleasure to talk to, interesting & funny, & she had lovely hair. I'm not complaining about the other people I've had, but it was really refreshing to have someone who I could kinda relate to. She looked good when I was done (color & cut) & said she'd ask for me the next time she came back & bring her sons in for haircuts, too, so I'm hoping I just got my first repeat customer lined up.
I'm also cutting hair at home (or at other people's homes) & practicing blowouts on whoever will let me. It's nice to be free from the eyes of the teachers; with some things I might miss their guidance, but I'm trying to be aware of my limitations & work within them. I'm not going to try to do anything on my own that I'm not pretty sure of. I've appreciated how patient everyone is with me (I'm not doing anything fast at this point) & that they trust me enough to let me at their heads. I've gotten support in a million different ways since I started this, from Adam who helped me decide & take the leap & get started & who gets up in the morning with me, to David who invited me to come observe at his salon, to the people who read this & let me know what they think. Those of you who let me practice on you are giving me another kind of support. I can't thank any of you enough.

You're too smart for that.

Before I quit my job to start school, I had worked in what I'll call the book industry for about 20 years. I got my first bookstore job in the summer of 1989, after my freshman year of college. With the exception of a few brief periods totalling about a year & a half where I worked at a clothing store, a record store, & as a full-time art class model, I worked in bookstores until 2001. Then I worked in publishing, then back to a bookstore, then back to publishing until now, 2010. I never felt like my identity was tied up in my job, but I have realized that, in a way, it was. Not with any specific job, but part of how I thought about myself was as someone who worked with books. The world of books & reading has always been a huge part of my existence. I'm the younger of two children & I can remember realizing that everyone in the house could read...except me. And it killed me! So I learned as fast as I could & I haven't slowed down since. Working with books seemed the most natural career for me to have because reading was definitely the thing I spent most of my spare time doing. And it still is.
When you tell people that you work with books, they seem to assume, right or wrong, that you're smart. They at least assume that you read. So I considered the possible change in people's perception of me when I decided to make this move. About 98% of the time when I told someone I was planning to go to beauty school, they said, "That's perfect!" or "I can totally see you doing that!" or things of that nature. But two people responded in the way that I feared. One of them said something like, "Hunh...THAT'S what you want to do?" with the implication that it was a strange move for me. The other person (a very smart woman, I should add), actually said,"You're too smart for that." She backtracked pretty quickly & admitted that the stylists in the salon where we both went were all very smart & quite well-educated people. But I had seen what her first response was. In a nutshell: that's not a career for smart people. Which I then extrapolate to: when people meet me, will they not think I'm smart anymore? It seems a funny brand of shallowness for me to worry about this, but I do.

Stranger in a strange land.

It's surprising to me how long it's taking me to feel at home. In some ways I did pretty soon, but in other ways I still feel alien. Part of it is how little I have in common with everyone I've met (I think I've found one of the few spots in North America where being a brunette puts me in the minority). It's the lack of a shared aesthetic that always strikes me. There's the occasional overlap, but for the most part I admire different things than my fellow students. I think many of them think I'm drab or odd (or both); it's been suggested that I highlight my hair, grow my bangs longer, & wear more makeup. Among my friends, I think I wear more makeup than nearly all of them & probably do more to my hair, too (well, maybe not that part: I wash it nightly, dry it, & sleep on it). But I am in a different world now & my red lipstick is not enough.
I've been out on the floor working on real clients for two weeks now. We still work on our mannequin heads, too. There are about 60 or 70 students & not enough clients for everyone, plus there are things we have to practice that few people come in & ask for (curse you, finger waves!). Everyone I've had so far has been either nice or neutral. The oldest people are the friendliest. I haven't made any terrible mistakes, though I have had some mishaps:

• When I was putting the cape on my first hair client, I accidentally touched her breast. Then I took her to the sink where I...
• ...sprayed water on the teacher who was supervising me.
• During the first haircut I gave with scissors, I cut my finger & was too embarrassed to say anything to the woman. I hope I didn't bleed in her hair. I don't think I did.
• Trying to clip closely behind a man's ear, I cut him & he started to bleed a little. Sorry, sir. I hope that didn't hurt too much.

I've had plenty of bright moments, too, though:

• After I very carefully did a color retouch on an older man who very exactly knew exactly what he wanted & exactly how he wanted it done, he praised me to the supervising teacher.
• I told a very old woman, who was not my client but was under a dryer nearby & asked me a question, that she had beautiful blue eyes. She covered her face & said, "No, no, I'm so ugly, I hate to even come out." I told her she was wrong & that she was pretty & had truly beautiful eyes (all true) & she looked so happy & as though she might cry.
• A friend of mine came in for a haircut & he was the first client I've had where I didn't get intensely nervous & sweaty while working on him. And since then, I haven't again. It was also overwhelmingly nice to talk to someone with whom I have things in common. Thanks, Skip!

I'm at the point where school will stay pretty much the same until I'm done. What will change the most is how much I feel able to do & how much supervision I get. I feel like I have a gazillion miles to go, but when I look back to three months ago, I feel like I've come pretty far already, too.

Things I have overheard.

Let's listen in on my fellow students...

"After I had him arrested, he didn't bother me anymore."

"I'm going to a different tanning salon next time. My tan isn't popping like it should."

"I don't plan to support myself! First I'll depend on my daddy, then on my boyfriend, then on my husband, & then if he leaves, back to my daddy."
(This one, this one...hoo, boy. I nearly had a feminist stroke right there on the floor.)

"They don't let us look at our phones here, but when I'm working, I'm going to have my phone out the whole time."

"I only have to spend two weekends in jail."

"Did you just say that your half-sister is younger than your daughter?"
"Yeah."

It feels like the first time.

I've been sick for a couple of days with a nasty, spiteful summer cold. I spent most of Monday horizontal, trying to will myself to get well. I intentionally didn't sleep during the day, though, so I could sleep at night. Then I couldn't sleep at night. I awoke with one half of one functional nostril. But nothing, nothing, I tell you! could keep me home from school today. Because today was the day we got all our stuff & some of us, including me, went out to work on the clinic floor.
We got our kits this morning: big, black, rolling suitcases full of everything from shears to a new mannequin head to pin curl clips & a manicure set. A gazillion brushes & combs! Clippers! Hair dryer, marcel iron, flat iron! A big ol bunch of rollers! Etc, etc. After we inventoried all that & made sure we had everything we were supposed to, we had our individual evaluations with the director. My seat in the classroom was closest to the door so she took me first. Honestly, I was pretty overwhelmed & tired at that point, so I don't remember exactly what my grade is. She showed me how I was doing & said nice things ("Your grades & your attendance are both really good! Just what I like to see!") & some nice things that were funny ("You got a perfect score on your attitude & your appearance. Not everyone in your class did.") & I know I'm doing well. That went pretty quickly & then she said, "OK, if you want to, you can go ahead & get your stuff & get your station all set up," & I said, "Oh...ah...oh, that's ok. I mean, I think I'll just wait til someone else is coming out, too, y'know..." & started wandering away when I was pounced upon by one of the teachers, a small, energetic woman. She said, "Here, let's get you set up & then I'll get you a client to work on." I believe I spluttered in response. At least, in my head I did. "WAIT!" I wanted to say, "EVERYONE ELSE IS STILL IN THERE!" Or possibly, "Uh, I really don't feel good today." Which was true & I had this terrible vision of working on one of the many tiny, frail old ladies who come in to get their hair done, giving her my cold, & then later hearing that she had died. I guess I was in a melodramatic mood. In reality, I just fetched my stuff, bade farewell to my classmates, & headed out.
I set up my station as slowly as possible, unboxing & unwrapping all my new stuff & stowing it in the cabinet under my station (I'm not really clear on why it all came in a big rolling suitcase, which I just brought home at the end of the day). The other six people who had enough hours to work on the floor starting today filtered out over the next hour. Then, suddenly, the tiny energetic teacher appeared by my station. And she was holding a yellow ticket. "I have a client for you. Manicure." I gave her a terrified look (I don't just think that I did, it was confirmed by the people around me; "deer in the headlights" was the phrase I heard the most) & said something like, "Um." Now, I am not particularly good at manicures & we don't focus on them at all, but we do have to do them. Tiny Energetic helped me gather up what I needed & set up a manicure table. I went out to the lobby & called the client's name. I tried to act relaxed & normal. I've been told that when I'm very nervous, I actually look really calm. I always think that it's the same principle that I remember from the Oliver Sacks book/DeNiro movie "Awakenings": I'm shaking so fast that I appear to be completely still. She was 18 & I decided that was good, how many professional manicures could she have had in her life? Plus, as I looked at the price on the ticket, for $5.50, she shouldn't have grand expectations. She chose a metallic green polish from our selection of mostly old, clumpy bottles. I started in & the teacher whose class I just left walked by. "Ah!" she said, "A manicure!" & smiled at me kindly. I know she knew how nervous I was. We'd been expressly forbidden to tell the clients that they were our first service, so she couldn't really say anything about how new I was. She turned to the girl & said, "She does very good work. You're going to love your manicure." And that made my day. Maybe my month. I did a fine job & the girl did seem happy at the end.
And so ends the story of my first paying customer.

A dilemma.

Some of my friends from beauty school have tried to friend me on Facebook. I feel like I can't do that with anyone from there because of this blog. So far I've dealt with it by just saying, "Facebook? Oh, I haven't seen your request. I'm never on there!" & then just ignoring their friend request. I'm not really sure what else I can do, though it is a struggle because there are people I'd like to get closer to & that would be one way to do it. But writing this feels important to me, if only because I enjoy doing it so much. I don't think I can have both.

Moving on up.

Last week was difficult. I was having a hard time in my personal, non-school life: lots of emotions, not a lot of sleeping or eating. Not the best way for this week to be. It was already going to be stressful, even if everything else in my life was absolutely wonderful, or even neutral, & it was definitely not either of those. The fact that I got through it all ok makes me feel pretty good about myself & my ability to function under less than ideal conditions. Saying all that makes me feel weird. I'm not really comfortable being my own cheerleader, but I'm trying to get better at that. It was a temporary situation & things have gotten better & I know the next few weeks will be easier.

Tuesday was the perm test, which I wrote about in the last post, & I got a B+. Wednesday we had a written test on haircutting: pretty easy & I got an A. Also on Wednesday, we had our state board head test. This was one of the two I was most nervous about, because, unlike the perm test, it had things in it that I just am plain not good at. With the perms, I'm ok, I'm just not the fastest. But this...I just had to take a deep breath & go. I was exhausted & distracted &, well, maybe that works for me, because I did the best job on it that I ever have. My ridge curl actually had a ridge! My roller placements were, in fact, judged to be perfect! I really love rollers so that made me feel particularly proud & happy. So I got an A on that (the picture at the top is my state board head, showing the ridge curl side). And then on Thursday we had the 300 hour exam (meaning we've been in school 300 hours, not that it was an exam that took 300 hours to complete). I barely studied for this, just while I was in school, because of my aforementioned difficult times, so I was a little worried that I might do badly. In the end, though, I did just fine & got another B+. This one exam accounts for 75% of our grade, so I'm assuming I have a B+ish overall. Hmm, or maybe an A? I assume they'll tell us our grades at some point. We have more exams like this at 600, 900, & 1200 hours (when we get to 1500, we're done & take the state board exams, though we may also have some sort of school final as well). I can only hope to do as well on those as I did on these. The best thing about these tests is that everyone passed (one person-coughBitchyBitchcough-flunked the perm test, but passed enough of everything else to pass) & so we're all moving on to the clinic floor together. I couldn't feel as happy if that weren't the case. I was especially worried about my neighbor, Sabina, who really struggles with English (she's Korean) & therefore all the written tests (while being the most amazing natural at all the practical stuff). But she passed, too, hooray! People who have missed more than a few days have to stay behind in the classroom at first but we should all be out there by the beginning of next week.

This Tuesday, the majority of the class, including me, will be out on the clinic floor, cutting hair for real, live, paying customers. This is very nearly terror-inducing. Obviously it's what we've all been waiting for & wanting, but now that it's here, I think everyone is scared. I know I am. Above all, for everyone I think, is the fear of failure, the fear of messing up, of being embarrassed, or doing something that looks or seems or is stupid. A very wise man named Chris Rossi once told me I needed to get over my "fear of sucking" (the context being that I didn't want to do karaoke) because all that fear does is hold you back. That's so true, that kind of fear does nothing for you. I try to rid myself of it, but it hovers there & stops me from doing some things that I'd like to do. However, it won't stop me here. At some point on Tuesday, they're going to hand me my first yellow ticket, with the client's name & the service they've come in for written on it, & I have to go out to the waiting room & call them in, take them back to my station (#42!), & do whatever it is they need done.

This is a week of tests.

I go to school four days a week. Three of those days this week we're having tests. Two of the tests are practical ones, where we're timed doing something & then graded both on our ability to finish within the allotted time & how well we're able to complete the task. We had one of those today, which had me pretty petrified, but then it worked out well. We had to wrap a perm on a mannequin head, wrapping the whole head with single flat wraps (I know that most of you won't know what I mean by that; it's just in there for the few who will). We had to complete the head in an hour, starting out with the hair combed straight back, & it had to be neat. We were graded on the neatness of our parts (you divide the hair into nine sections for this), the evenness of hair distribution on the perm rods, the placement of the band on the rod, whether or not we had any fishhooks (meaning the ends weren't wrapped correctly & would end up being bent instead of curled), the straightness of our rows of perm rods, maintaining an even number of rods on each side of the head, etc, etc. Now, I can wrap ok, but I have never completed a whole perm wrap in an hour. I think maybe I've done it in, like 1:07. So I knew I'd lose a few points on my undone sections. All I wanted was to pass. But it became increasingly clear that she was going to give us more than an hour. She set the timer after we'd started (instead of as we started) & then when it went off, told us to keep going. It went off again & she said, "Keep going! Finish up!" So I did finish the whole head, probably in about 1:10. In all fairness, I should have gotten a lower grade than the people who finished in under an hour. But I wasn't the one who was grading & I got a 93, with just a few points off for crooked bands or unevenly distributed hair or whatever. What I'm saying is, I did better than by all rights I should have. I feel a little bad about that, but I don't see how I can do much about it.
Tomorrow (well, today, I guess it is) we have a written test on haircutting, which I don't think will be too bad, & a practical on what's called a state board head, meaning it's one of the things we'll have to do when we take the state board exam. On one mannequin head, we have to roll three rollers with different placements on top of the head, wrap a row of perm rods down the center of the back of the head, do a c-shaping with pin curls on one side of the head, & do a ridge curl (which also has pin curls) on the other side. I can do this in an under an hour, easy. I like doing rollers, that small number of perm rods is fine, & I don't mind pin curls. But that ridge curl, well...it's kinda like a finger wave. Like a sneaky, sideways finger wave. By which I mean I'm not very good at it. So, we'll see how it goes. I'll have time to work on it, but I'm not sure any amount of time will make my ridge curl very, y'know, ridged.
Thursday we have our 300 hour exam, a written test on everything we've learned so far. That's a little intimidating. I haven't really been studying much, my personal life is a little hectic at the moment, so I'm mostly going to hope that my memory will serve me well.
Next week, they send us out on the floor & give us paying customers! Crazy! Intimidating! Exciting!
I should mention that I've been observing at the salon where I've been getting my hair cut for years. They very kindly let me come in & look over their shoulders & then take the time to explain what they're doing & why. It's pretty wonderful & I'm very grateful to get to do it. I feel like I'm getting a leap ahead in experience. I'm wary of getting in people's way & look forward to being more useful than I am right now, which is not very useful at all. I'm also shampooing some customers, which is good practice. I think I do all right at it, though I know I can improve. Yesterday when I got done with one lady, she sat up & said, "That was very nice, you're very gentle...Can I have a tissue? My ears are full of water." Sigh. Even with something as simple as this, there's always something for me to learn.

Take it down. Do it again.

We're learning by repetition here. Really, I guess that's how you learn anything, you just do it over & over & over. This is no exception. I can't think of anything I've done here only once. We have these project sheets that we have to complete to get out of the freshman classroom. It lists all the things we have to do to the instructor's satisfaction to move on. So it says things like, "Full head of finger waves (x3)" & "Roller set (x5)" & "Perm wrap (x5)." So I work away at my little station, wrapping those perm rods with my mannequin's wispy hair, timing myself to see how long it's going to take me to get her whole head done. When I finish, feeling like I just ran a marathon, & take it up to the teacher so I can get checked off for it, she usually says something like, "Looks good. Take it down. Do it again." It's not that she doesn't ever compliment us, she does, it's that each thing we do is just a necessary & necessarily ephemeral step in completing this first part of things. No matter how fabulous you might make the mannequin's hair look, we aren't going to leave it that way, maybe not even for five minutes. You've got to take it down & do it again or, if you've done that enough times, take it down & do something else. Then take that down & do it again.
Spending eight hours a day in one room with the same twenty people can begin to wear on you. There are some people I really, really like; some people who I don't feel much one way or the other about; & some people I can't stand. There are days when I think, "If I hear your voice one more time this afternoon, I'm going to stab you with this rattail comb." I've got one with a metal tail, so that means something. And then there are times when I'm laughing or talking to someone or admiring the good work they've done & I feel really happy. Fortunately, there's a pretty good balance in there. And mostly I feel pretty happy by default. And of course, there's all the inbetween time, when things are just fine & time is just passing.
A lot has happened since my last post. Of course it has, it's been a month. Bitchy Bitch get sent home twice, once for being a bitchy bitch & once for being late. We've learned how to wrap perms & do highlights & give a relaxer & color hair & use a flat iron & a marcel iron (oh, marcel iron, I thought you might be the death of me. "Click it! Click it!" they would cry at me. And I'd spin the iron & try to click the hair around the barrel, trying to make that perfect curl & not burn the ends. You can get cramps in your hands from that thing). And we did manicures & pedicures & facials & updos. That picture up top (because I can't figure out how to put images anywhere else in the text) is the updo I made up & -ahem- won second place in the updo contest with. I'll let you touch my vent brush if you ask nicely.
We start cutting hair next week. And then just a couple more weeks in the freshman room. After that, we will be unleashed on an unsuspecting public on the clinic floor.

Flat as a doorknob.

Things have become more routine. I mean, of course they have, that's what they do, but I think that's the most notable thing about the last couple of weeks. And I mean it in a few different ways. One example is that at the end of each of the first three days of school, I managed to leave the parking lot & then go the wrong way three different ways. It takes a very special person to do that & I am that person. Only one wrong route was so drastic & confusing that it entailed a phone call to Adam for guidance. Today I noticed another thing that I guess falls under the heading of more routine: I was combing my mannequin's hair & spraying it with water so I could roll it on a roller & what I noticed was that I wasn't having to think so hard about the little things. I was combing it & smoothing it, etc, etc, & it didn't feel funny, it wasn't noticeable. I was spraying water all over my hands & they were all slippery with this industrial pink gel we use for anything & I just wasn't really noticing it. A week ago I would have had to think harder about every little thing. Now I was able to concentrate on the task at hand. I thought, "I'm combing this hair like a person who does hair!" At least sorta. So I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

I still feel a bit apart, though I like & get along with pretty much everyone (with the exception of one girl, who I'll refer to only as Bitchy Bitch, & no one really likes her). It's not actually a lonely feeling, nor is it unfamiliar. It's just less of a shared experience in some ways. I mean, we share everything, in that all the students in class are doing pretty much the same thing at the same time. My favorite example of what I mean, what I might be looking for & not finding is this: we were discussing styling products & the teacher said, "You wouldn't want to put a heavy gel on fine hair because that would weigh it down. It would be as flat as a doorknob." Flat as a doorknob? I looked around the room to see if there was anyone who, like me, was thinking that doorknobs are not, in fact, at all flat. And...no. No one else was fighting back a smile or rolling their eyes.
We've moved from finger waves (which I finally got, but never got good at), to pin curls (which I got, kinda liked, & got pretty good at), to roller setting (which I'm liking). The picture up there is of one my mannequins after I combed out & styled her roller set (I may make it a practice, when I cut people's hair, to write my name on pieces of scotch tape & put it on their foreheads while scrawling "Steve" across their necks). I liked how that one turned out & I hated having to wash it out & start all over again. I don't know if we started with finger waves, which I think most people found most difficult, as some kind of weeding out strategy or if there was some deeper reasoning. I'm glad we're done with them, though I know we're not really done with them. Oh, they'll be back, I know they will.
There was a lot of drama one day. Our uniforms are all black, shirt & pants, & we are required to wear black shoes & socks with it. The shoes & socks have to be all black. Why is this? I don't know. Nor do I really care. It's what we have to do & ok, it's not very hard, I'll just do it. Right? All the sudden one morning they started pointing out to people that their shoes & socks were not acceptable, they were black but had white stitching or designs or whatever. People were told that they either had to take a Sharpie & blacken the white parts of their shoes or go home. So most people started coloring their shoes. Sunshine was one of the ones who had white on her shoes. She'd also just been told that she had to cover up her eyebrow piercing, which I think they'd gone back & forth on originally. Sunshine, feeling beleaguered & put-upon, said that she thought her shoes were fine. The teacher said that she could plead her case to the director, which she had told a couple of other people who had gone & done so, only to return & sit down with a Sharpie & start coloring their shoes. Sunshine left the room & then came back about three minutes later saying, "I have to go home now," & started gathering up her things. My seat is closest to the door & the teacher had a conversation with Sunshine by the door, so I was ideally placed to overhear.
Teacher: Why do you have to leave?
Sunshine: I don't know!
Teacher: Can't you just color in the white parts of your shoes?
Sunshine: I don't know! I went in to ask her & as I walked in, I said to myself, "Why does everyone have to be such a bitch today?"
Teacher: Oh. That wasn't a good thing to say.
Sunshine: I was just saying it to myself!
Teacher: But out loud? As you walked in the director's office?
Sunshine: Yeah.
So Sunshine went home for the day.

Finger waves & gossip.

The first week is done. For those of you keeping a countdown calendar, I'll be in school for about 44 weeks.

I struggle with getting there on time. I thought the commute might be awful, but it's turned out to be way less onerous than I feared: twenty to twenty-five minutes each way & not too much traffic. I have to be there by 8:30, so if I leave by 8am, I'm fine. If I leave at 8:06, I go over 90 mph on I-40 & then I get there by the skin of my teeth. They're really strict about getting there on time. If you're late & didn't call to say you would be, you get sent home for the day, which means you have to add another day onto the end (you can't graduate until you've completed 1500 hours of school). This theoretically means if you're even one minute late, you get sent home. If you call in late, you have until 9:30, but no later. If you have a doctor's appointment or need to go to court ("A lot of students have to go to court," the teacher said the first day), you can arrange to come in later.
We worked on a couple of things this week: finger waves & pin curls. Finger waves were hard hard hard & we worked on them for pretty much two days. If you don't know what they are, that's a picture of a finished head of them up at the top. Those aren't the ones I did, mind you. I didn't have a camera with me, but I can tell you that mine weren't nearly that nice. You make them using just a comb, your fingers, & a lot of hair goo. I had more trouble with them than a lot of people did, but less than some. The girl beside me, who struggles with English (she's from Korea) & therefore with answering questions & taking tests, seems to be an amazing natural at actually doing hair. Her first attempt looked a lot like those in that picture. And then everything she did after that looked even better.
Next up was pin curls. All I can say about these is that you pin them in a way that defies logic, but it actually does work. I had a much easier time with these. I was walking around the room when I got done with mine & stopped to talk to Ashley, who said she couldn't get hers to be right. I noticed that she was pinning them wrong, so I told her how to do it right. And then she got it! That's the first time I got to help someone & I felt really good about it. She went around telling everyone that I had made her day.
Ashley is the person I talk to the most & we've been eating lunch together most days. She's the one who raised her hand about being a convicted felon. It turns out she got arrested on some kind of drug charges & her boyfriend is still in prison. She's only 25 & seems determined to make her life better. I hope it works out. She's smart & funny & I feel like she could do well if she wanted to. I guess some of it depends on what happens when her boyfriend gets out, whether he decides to do better &, if he doesn't, whether she decides to stay with him. I'm definitely pulling for her. She told me a little bit about the fight in the previous class & then I got the rest out of the teacher when we were washing a mannequin head together...
There were two girls in the class who hadn't been getting along since the very beginning. I guess there had been some unpleasantness all along & they'd been told to cut it out. One day, one of them was in the bathroom & the other one knocked on the door to see if it was occupied, not knowing who was in there. Then the girl came out of the bathroom & started yelling about how the other girl should never knock on the bathroom door while she was in there, etc. The yelling one was sent to the director's office & was probably going to be kicked out & then suddenly! she came back into the classroom! pulling off her fake nails! tearing off her wig! Yes, you heard me right: pulling off her fake nails & tearing off her wig. She said, "If I'm going to get thrown out anyhow, I'm gonna kick your ass!" They started fighting & the female teachers tried to pull them apart, but someone got hit with a pair of shoes (I'm not too clear on this part) & then two of the male teachers came in & pulled the fighters apart, but not before getting a little beat up themselves. While I enjoy watching a good drama as much as anyone else, I'm glad my class isn't like this. It's pretty peaceful so far & everyone seems to at least get along.
I was really tired at the end of every day. I think that's always the way when I start something new, I imagine some of that will go away. It's a relief not to be sitting all day anymore, which is something I never liked at my last job.
I have more Sunshine stories & a few other things, but they'll have to wait until next time.

The First Day.

Today was the first real day of class. Somehow I managed to leave home later than I intended & I pulled into the parking lot with only about 3 minutes to spare. It was just like high school: everyone flying into parking spaces at the last possible minute & hurrying into the building together. Unlike high school, I was wearing a uniform & a nametag (which identifies me as a "freshman"). Also unlike high school, I hadn't teased my bangs.
The day started off with a lot of information about rules & the structure of the course. My favorite moment of the entire day (possibly my favorite moment of 2010) was when Sunshine interrupted an explanation about absences or lateness or something to ask, "Do the machines here have Coke or Pepsi products?" She was audibly disappointed to hear that the answer was Coke. She's growing on me, though. She is so nervous, already, about flunking tests or not doing well. It kinda broke my heart, she kept asking questions about whether you could re-take tests if you failed & what happened if you messed up. She was very excited to hear that we need to make a sort-of a scrapbook type thing with pictures of hairstyles in it. Being an avid scrapbooker, she is totally prepared for this assignment. She was so excited that she couldn't stop herself from occasionally interrupting the teacher to say that she was ready for this assignment, she couldn't wait, she had everything she needed already. It was nice to see someone who was so anxious about the work she was going to have to do get excited & feel confident.
At least one or two people didn't show up today. The Marine was there but the other guy wasn't. Everyone seems pretty nice, though I'm still feeling like the odd girl. That feeling may never go away. I got a text from a friend today saying things will be easier once I "find my people." That's true & I hope it happens. The other person I really warmed up to today was the girl who said she'd been convicted of a felony. She seems really nice & funny & like she has a big personality. Unfortunately, she sits all the way across the room from me, but maybe I can talk to her when we have our breaks.
There were more veiled references to the previous class & what hellions they'd been. I plan to get the details on this as soon as possible. The teacher also mentioned that that class had been nearly twice the size of this one, almost 40 to our 20. Maybe they were fighting because it was just so crowded. It was also all women, no men, & that seems to have been part of the problem. I promise you, Reader, as soon as I know, you'll know!
After a little while, we got our mannequin heads to work on. I made my girl crush, Lucinda, laugh by slowly turning my mannequin's head to look at her (YES!). I was struggling a bit to do what we were asked to do, but then so was everyone. I mean, mostly we were just parting the mannequin hair & trying to comb it in this particular way. I can't explain exactly what we were trying to do, except to say that it was the first step in finger waves, which we're apparently starting work on tomorrow. They seem incredibly hard to do & everyone is nervous.
We also had our "theory" class for the first time. It's called theory, but that just seems to mean using a textbook & not doing anything hands-on. I imagine that sometimes has its uses, though today it felt like we were trying to understand a physical object without looking at it & I kept thinking, "Can't you just grab some hair & show me what you're talking about?" We have theory homework tonight, which in this case just means reading some of our textbook.
I feel like the first nine or ten weeks, which are spent in the classroom not working on actual humans, will go kind-of slowly & then things will pick up once we're working on real people. I'm sure most everyone in there feels the way I do: I just want to be handed a pair of scissors & shown how to cut hair. I understand that we have to get through some preliminaries first, but all I want to do is get started.

Orient yourselves, please.

Today was orientation day. I woke up nervous & early & to the sound of pouring rain. I was glad to hear that it was only raining outside the apartment, which means that the patch job the landlord did on the roof might be working. Adam very sweetly got up out of bed (on a morning when anyone would want to stay in it), made me breakfast, wrote out driving directions (I have no sense of direction, none; I only know one person who might be worse than I am & she knows who she is, we have gotten lost together), & saw me off in the rain. By the time I left, I wasn't really feeling all that nervous. That's partly due to Adam, who has that effect on me, he makes me feel calmer. He's also the one who somehow made me feel like this entire endeavor was possible so that now I'm actually doing it after so many years of just dithering about it. I'm lucky just to know him & so very incredibly lucky to have him as my fella. I could go on & on, but then he'd blush.
So, orientation day. We were only there a few hours. There are about 20 of us in the class, with only two men (one of whom just got out of the Marine Corps, a stranger trajectory than mine from scholarly publishing). I had feared/suspected that I would be the oldest person in class, but there's one woman who looks to be at least several years older than I am & a few others around my age. There's a woman named Sunshine (she says it's her real name) & another named Mercedes & then a Jasmine & a Crystal & at least one Ashley. There's a very pretty girl named Lucinda who drives a big pick-up; I kinda like her already. The girl sitting beside me said she loves reptiles & mentioned that she had a bearded dragon at home. There were a few people with good hair & a few more with super-bleached out or over-processed hair. Only one girl raised her hand when we were asked if we'd been convicted of any felonies. We were told that because of the class that had come just before us, fighting on the premises was strictly forbidden. This led me to wonder what the hell they had done & also, had it not been forbidden before that? I also tried to imagine myself getting into a fight with any of my classmates, perhaps by dissing reptiles or making fun of the Marines or saying that I didn't believe that her name really was Sunshine.
We got our uniforms & they are...well, they're uniform, I'll say that for them. I guess in the whole scheme of things, they're ok. I'm sure I'll be thoroughly tired of wearing it before the year is up. I wore a really bright-colored skirt & red sandals today because for the rest of my time there, I'll be in all black (it's like 1990 all over again!): shirt, pants, & closed-in shoes.
I went into today knowing that I might be the odd girl in class, an experience I have certainly had before, but not in a long time. Not in a long time because for some time now, I have been working in places made up almost entirely of just the odd girls. Pretty wonderful, really, & I think you know that I miss you all. Adam said I'd be fine & that I'd find at least one good friend; look for the guy with the eyeshadow on & the Nina Simone button pinned to his shirt, he said. No luck so far, but it's hard to tell yet. I know that having at least one person I felt really friendly with, somebody I can roll my eyes at, would really help. Ashley? Jasmine? Lucinda? Well, we'll see.
Now I have the rest of the week off & start for real next Tuesday! Squee!

Tomorrow!

I start beauty school tomorrow. This afternoon, I gave my last fully amateur haircut (it looks damn good, but then he was damn goodlooking to start with). I'm kinda terrified (hence the blog's name) but mostly excited. That is, EXCITED! It took me about 21 years of thinking about this off & on to decide to do it. So here I am: I quit my job & I'm starting school tomorrow.