Dear Greg May,<\/p>\n
It seems I have just become an ugly statistic; an exempla to all, living proof that yes, it really IS a bad idea to get your hair cut\/coloured on the day of an important occasion. <\/p>\n
It is a big day for me: I am convocating from my Master’s degree in English from the University of Toronto tonight. My mother and my boyfriend are going to be in the audience, looking at me up on stage getting my diploma, and thanks to the voluminous black gown and hood, the only part of my body that will be visible is my head. Which, up until a few hours ago, would have included my hair.<\/p>\n
Now, I am sitting here at my desk at work, valiantly holding back hysterical sobs. <\/p>\n
I entered your salon with hair at noon today. Now, I have almost none.<\/b><\/p>\n
I went to your establishment on my lunch hour, having read some really impressive reviews online<\/a>. Given the short notice, I couldn’t get you yourself, so I took the first available appointment. I mean, it is called ‘Hair Architects’ in the plural<\/i>, right? Not ‘One Architect and a Bunch of Ex-Office Workers’. I thought seeing the first available stylist would be okay, since in principle a salon is only as good as its weakest link. Which, it would appear, is the link that I got. Her name was April.<\/p>\n I think my first clue that April was maybe a bad gamble was that she was standing blankly behind the door, doing nothing, waiting for me to arrive. Usually if I go to a salon, there’s a hustle and a bustle, the stylist is finishing up with their last client, doing the crowning touches, and I’m lucky to be seen within 15 minutes. When she got me in the chair, she asked all the usual questions about what I wanted, how I was doing, what this was for, etc. But she didn’t seem to be *absorbing* much. <\/p>\n I said I wanted to get rid of the unfortunate mullet developing at the rear of my head, and make it short around the back, but keep length on top, since my hair is very fine and needs volume to maintain body. April then asked me TWICE whether I had always lived in Toronto, in a sort of broken-Stepford-wife kind of way.<\/p>\n “Have you always lived in Toronto?” I asked her how she had come to be at the salon. She replied, “Oh, you know, I had a friend working with Greg at Glo, his old salon? I went to business school, and was working in an office and hating it, so she told him about me wanting to change jobs because he needed a receptionist, and here I am! Life’s funny like that, I guess.” EXCUSE ME? BUSINESS SCHOOL? RECEPTIONIST? As an office worker myself, I am fairly confident that it is not a good plan for me to waltz into Fiorio and be like, “Hey, this government thing’s not really working out for me… can you lend me some shears and a comb?” <\/p>\n She threw some comforting terminology around like “feathering” and “layers” while I was contemplating how best to bolt from the chair without impaling myself on her scissors – but it was too late. She had already engaged in the business of razing my hair to the scalp. <\/p>\n For real, you can now actually see parts of my scalp through my hair, on the top and on the sides. <\/p>\n Now, I am comfortable with short hair. I have had pixie cuts in the past. I rarely, rarely freak out or lose my shit about my hair, because it is just not that important. But goddamn it, she has managed to make me look like a dude. A guy. An hombre. In short, by virtue of crafting my head into a spiky-topped, buzz-cut style, which I think is now shorter than my boyfriend’s, she has negated my curvaceous boobies, full lips, rosy cheeks and delicate jawline, and transfigured me into a butch trucker-style, hockey-playing MAN.<\/p>\n Her solution at the end? “Oh, if you don’t really like it, wear it for a few days to see if it grows on you, then come back and talk to Greg about a touch-up.” How in the seven wonders of the world can you ‘touch-up’ hair that no longer exists? I didn’t want to ruin April’s day, so I left without crying and without telling her how upset I was. As the owner, I felt I should communicate to you directly that there is at least one customer who has left your door in sadness and, once I had reached Cumberland street, tears.<\/p>\n I am severely displeased with the whole situation, and am dreading my time on stage tonight. Another person might not have written this – it can be a difficult thing, confronting a stylist with your dissatisfaction when you’re feeling ugly and emotionally vulnerable – but I felt it was my responsibility to let you know that this important and happy day has been cast into shadow by my awful haircut.<\/p>\n With great sadness, Dear Greg May, It seems I have just become an ugly statistic; an exempla to all, living proof that yes, it really IS a bad idea to get your hair cut\/coloured on the day of an important occasion. It is a big day for me: I am convocating from my Master’s degree in English from […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consciousness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n“No, I grew up in Oakville. I went to high school there, came here for university and stayed.”
\n“Oh, cool.”
\n(5 minutes pass)
\n“So, have you always lived in Toronto?”
\n“Uhhh… no. No, I lived in Oakville<\/i>. When I was younger<\/i>. In high school<\/i>.”
\n“Oh, cool.”<\/p>\n
\nPipes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"