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I have to go to such great pains to explain that I don't want neat hair. Nobody seems ever to truly understand. The woman who cuts my hair is the highlight of my social life... once every two months... my big extravagance.... I stopped letting her cut my little fringe in the front because it's not in her to make it cattywompus enough to suit me. The whole concept is vaguely controlled chaos. Even when I stress how many different lengths I want, I'm still way too neat for days after I leave her salon.
I immediately start putting goo in it and spraying on it to get it to go in all directions even a little. It's the conditioner. She can't control herself. Anyway, it usually turns into something I like quite a lot after a few days... or after I break down and wash the conditioner out... but I think I really need to start collecting up a bunch of images of suitably nutty hair and put them in an inspiration binder for her to consult whenever I'm nearing.... She rocks. She started her business right before the crash in 2008 and her business has grown by leaps and bounds. We didn't need another hair salon. We so didn't. But we needed a good one really badly.
Businesses are blinking out here all over the place. Restaurants! It's a damn bloodbath. Banks. Fuck you and we're salting your ashes. The big ones are still here, but they are echoing mausoleums with terrified-looking clerks trying to twiddle their thumbs pertly. Mass exodus to the local credit unions and banks. Grocery stores. OMFG, our choices are narrowing horrifically. I think five of them gone in the last few months. We are hemorrhaging jobs. People were holding on by their fingernails for a couple years, but... tapped out. Wal-Mart and the thrift shops are booming, and I actually think the health food store that just expanded into a whole supermarket last year is going to make it... that will be because he has priced people like me out of shopping there.
I had to switch my car insurance. It was hard because I love my agent. I had him all trained to be abusive and truthful instead of smilingly excusing each new insult from the company. I hate the company. In the last year they have taken to nuking me with demands to certify my mileage every time I turn around. Threats to raise my rates if they don't get it back in the mail by X date. Then they just hiked the rates anyway. I went in and asked him to just look at my odometer and set them straight. He said, "I can't. They won't take my word for it." I have to have a recent repair receipt with my mileage written on it. I don't have one of those. I'm not going to go spend money to get one of those. So I went down the street and signed on with a company that only insures country bumpkins. That would be me. And got three times the coverage for $120 less a year.
That's a big ten bucks a month to offset the added thirteen bucks a month from my medical coverage not paying for the natural thyroid supplement. If I keep hard at my thermostat parsimony, I may be able to both eat and pay my bills this year... I mean, probably not... I shouldn't be mouthing off like this because it will attract rate hikes elsewhere... but... well you get my drift.
So, anyway, the big prob yesterday was getting everything I needed to get done in town done in town before everything closed. I almost made it, but there was only three minutes left to get to the old insurance agent before he closed and I had a good five minutes of getting in and out of my car needed to get there. So close. I had to get there because I had to sign that I was canceling my policy. So, heck, I had to go down again today.
My hair was too neat! Shit! Goo and spray and goo and spray and foof and rat and splat. At length I realized I will have to bring out the big guns... wash it. It's too damn silky and manageable. But I couldn't do it before town or I'd miss my deadline again. So I sheepishly set off neatly to get 'er done... sign that piece of paper that says, "Up yours! I quit!" My darling obediently abusive candy dispenser agent was not there! Off sizing up someone's house for plunder. One of his numerous secretaries was. She has neat hair. She exclaimed, "Oh! You got your hair cut! It looks great!"
Demoralizing. I hate that.
I like her... but... neatness is stultifying! I feel too impeded when I'm neat.
