very simple

So I woke up this morning, a little calmer. and it is salvageable now that it’s not filled with product. It still needs to grow out, and one of my co-workers who happened to also be in the office this morning described it as sort of strawberry blond (absolutely not what I asked for), but I don’t think I need to go so far to wear a hat to the wedding. Just a lot of barrets so that I don’t actually look like an extra on the set of Schindler’s List (and the same co-worker laughed when I said that to him. and didn’t disagree).

I usually try to keep my ranting to fairly serious, political-type stuff, but right now I’m taking a little break to have a totally girly rant.

Background: One of my best friends from law school is getting married next week. As such, I decided to hold off on getting my hair cut and colored until today, so that it would be super-cute for the wedding. Last night, before going out for the evening, I checked my voicemail and my appointment was confirmed. Great. So I go out.

I get home at 1 in the morning, to another voicemail, this time from my distraught stylist, saying that at the end of the day, she had been "let go" for not bringing in enough business and wouldn’t be able to cut my hair today.

Yeah, they fired her for not having business after confirming my appointment for a 3-hour, $200+ haircut. Nice, huh? (and it’s not the cut, it’s the color that costs the big bucks and takes so much time). At this point, I have received no call from the salon. So I call and leave a message for the salon, explaining that I have to get my hair cut for this wedding, and to please contact me by 9 a.m. to let me know what they’re going to do to make this right for me, because right now I’ve got something fast approaching a mullet due to the fact that I let it grow out for an extra month specifically because I wanted to wait until right before the wedding for the cut.

9a.m. rolls around, and no call. At 9:30a.m., I call again and get the receptionist, and ask her what the hell is going on – do I still have an appointment? Were they planning on just letting me walk in there at 11 and telling me that there was no one to cut my hair? I have a wedding to go to and now I have to go to someone who has never cut or colored my hair before? She assures me that they’ll take care of me, they have excellent people and will do whatever I need.

Mind you, I also find a really good picture of me from a day right after I got my hair cut previously, and bring it with me, just to show exactly what I want.

So I go for my appointment. At this point I’m just not very happy. They set me up with the colorist, who doesn’t pay attention to any of my instructions and highlights my hair to a really terrible uniform yellow-orange-gold, instead of chunky white-blond. I, of course, can’t tell this until my hair begins to dry halfway through the cut. Aaah, the cut…

They set me up with this stylist who turns out to be an "exchange student" from japan, who does not speak english. Now, I’m all for cross-cultural studies and what-not, but don’t you think that after you (1) fire my stylist, (2) find out I have to go to a wedding, and (3) promise me that you’ll do whatever it takes, that maybe you could give me a hairdresser that I could, I don’t know, actually communicate with as to my wishes?

Every time I’d stop her, by practically leaping out of the chair, and point out that she wasn’t cutting it the way I wanted (usually communicated at the level of "No straight lines", "cut layers", "chunky pieces", "no scissors – use razor"), she would say "OK", and then go back to giving me what amounted to a straight line no layers bowl cut that was so short I could feel the scissors against my head. It didn’t take me very long to demand a new stylist that didn’t require three people to translate (turns out, she did understand what I wanted, but decided she knew better and wasn’t going to listen). At this point, I’m crying. So i get a new stylist, who does the best that she can, but at this point the hair above my ears is so short that she really has no point but to give me some incredibly short bad 80s lesbian soccer mom spiky thing so that I don’t look like I have a giant mushroom sitting on top of my head.

Yeah. I didn’t pay for this. And I’m not even going to name the salon because they do have some good people there, but I really don’t understand how people in a service business can so completely disregard their customers’ wishes. Hair is a very personal thing. Maybe the colorist really thinks this color looks better on me than what I wanted. Maybe that first stylist really thought she knew best how my hair would look. But I’ve been living with this hair for 30 years, And if I make the wrong choice, it’s still my choice to make. And given that all I wanted was the same cut and color I have been getting for 3-4 years now, I really don’t understand why this happened. I’m pretty sure my friends would tell me if my hair has looked like shit for 4 years running.

Anyway, right now I have to go figure out how to re-cut my already extremely short bangs so that they no longer look like they belong on this guy’s head.

It looks like I’m not the only one that has these pet peeves. Dave Barry has them too. And he details a bunch of others that make it seem like he was inside my head while writing the article.

Like number 4 – I’ve been known to move the "mystery cart" out of line at my local market. I can’t even call it a supermarket because it’s only got, like, 5 aisles and a freezer section. It’s just not even possible to forget to pick up more than one item. There aren’t that many items in the store to begin with.

and number 10? Seriously. I know y’all weren’t raised in a barn. And even if you were, you were probably still taught better manners than this. In my office, someone has even taken the initiative and put up signs reminding people to clean up after themselves. On the inside of the bathroom stall doors. There’s only so many times you can forget!

Well, I’ve made it to Belize, and now I’ve been sitting in the airport for about 2 hours waiting for my final flight to Placencia. I thought I had it timed right, with a 3:20 flight out of here, but apparently, while Belize is technically the same time zone as Houston, apparently they don’t observe daylight savings time. so when my watch said 3:20 an hour ago, and they still hadn’t called my flight, I looked like a bit of an idiot. I’m down to 20 more minutes, but this is really turning into the longest travel day ever.

I left my apartment at 4:00 a.m., NYC time, which was 13 hours ago…oy.

yet again, I’m sick. I know that any of you reading this (all 6 of you)could care less, but there it is. I should have known it was going to happen, what with the multiple cross-country airplane flights I’ve been taking in the past few weeks. oh well. I keep telling myself that I have too much work to do to be sick, but I don’t seem to be listening. Fancy that.

and in other complaints, the weather here sucks again. Just when we thought it was going to start getting a little bit better (apparently, while I was out of town, it was beautiful), it snows again. and it’s going to be grey and rainy for the rest of the week. I’ve never been a sun worshiper, but a little quality time with sunshine would be really great at this point.

I know I’ve gotten off track with the updating, but I’ve been working like crazy lately. February is always like this for me, yet for some reason, I think it’s going to be different every year. I suppose it’s actually ultimately a good thing, because billing tons of hours now means less playing catch-up later in the year, but sometimes I think sleep would also be good (my insomnia is probably not helping either). I just got back from one business trip last night, and I’m leaving on another one Sunday evening.

Yes, that’s right, after my long-winded entry on my Oscar picks, I’m actually now going to miss the Academy Awards. I need to knock on wood more often. In the long run, it’s still better than waking up early enough to catch a 6 a.m. flight out on Monday morning (particularly when I’m going to be reading documents all day – at least trying to get more than three hours sleep is pretty essential).

In other news…well, there really is no other news given my recent work schedule, so I’m off, and planning to sleep in late tomorrow (it’s really the little things in life that make me happy!).

So, after writing that entry the other night about travel pet peeves, here I am sitting on the bus next to my biggest one, which I totally forgot to mention. (I’m writing this on my blackberry by the way, which I know is everyone elses peeve, but I don’t care, I’ll just be a hypocrite).

Anyway, here in new york, there are a varity of seating options on the bus. There are the single and double seats that face forward, and then there are the three-across seats that are sideways (these can flip up for wheelchairs). I detest these guys (and its always guys) that sit smack in the middle of the three-across bench and manage to take up all three seats with their sprawlingness. I can understand taking up two – you sit on one of the "ends" and put your bag in the middle seat, easily removable if someone needs the seat. But this guy’s practically got his feet up. It’s not like it’s that crowded, so it’s not like I don’t have a seat, but still. It just bugs.

And to top it off, the guy tonight is also on his third cellphone call. Argh.

The New York Times has put out a series of articles on what may be my biggest pet peeve – travel-related aggravation.

First, there’s customer service problems, told from both the customer’s and the service agent’s points of view. I’ve encountered some rude airline customer service people in my life (largely when attempting to book tickets or upgrade over the phone), but I think too many customers take their frustrations out on the person nearest to them, even when they’re perfectly aware that the person at the gate is not the real cause of their problems.

Then, there are the other passengers – annoying cellphone users? I’ve managed to perfect my evil glare while riding the bus here in New York City. I never object to the quick phone call to let someone know where you are, when you’re going to arrive, etc., but I really don’t need to know the details of your boyfriend’s intimacy problems. Really. When someone calls me when I’m riding public transportation of any kind, my first words are "I’m on the bus/train/etc. and I’ll call you back when I get home in 20 minutes." And I know everyone does it, but why do people insist on practically shouting when they’re on the phone? It’s not 1983 – they actually make the darn things well enough now that they can pick up your voice at a normal conversational tone. We have an entire society of people who think they’re using cans and string to communicate.

Finally, there’s everyone’s favorite, road rage. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I don’t own a car anymore.

I think the vh1/mtv juggernaut has finally run out of ideas. I mean, when they did the 100 greatest albums, or songs, or artists, or women in rock, or whatever, at least it was tangentially related to music. With the 200 greatest pop culture icons list, they’re just not even trying anymore. And I think anyone that has only come up in the industry in the past 5 (or better yet, 10) years should be automatically disqualified. Way to get some perspective – the Osbournes? Don’t get me wrong, I laughed as hard as anyone when Ozzy fell out of the chair, but I have no illusions that their 15 minutes are just about up (and frankly, I don’t think they have any illusions either, given their attempt to make as much money as humanly possible in the shortest period of time). I’m pretty sure Britney Spears in on the list too.

And they couldn’t get a better host than Kristin Davis?

Of course, its 3 in the morning and I’m still watching. and clearly, i’m going to be glued to the television when the do the we love the 70s. And, in case you’re dying to know, Oprah is number one.

It’s like crack. I know it’s terrible. but I just can’t help myself.