Cut Your Hair

O.K. I guess I was bored and I am totally experimenting here. If you don't know what I mean, turn your sound on. I thought it would be fun to add music that goes with the posts, so I'm trying it out. I did it pretty quickly so I don't know if I did it the best way possible using the best tools possible. The placement of it looks strange to me on the right side over there, and I have no idea which web sites are best for this type of thing. Also, I come up with some old song titles that are not easily found on the music sharing web sites of the young and hip. Raise your hand if you had no idea that each blog post title is a song title. Yeah, it's my thing. It might be obvious if your music tastes and knowledge range from Barry Manilow to Depeche Mode. I use whatever fits. I don't know if I'll continue adding the audio, but if anybody has tips or opinions, let me have 'em. For now, I just added the songs I could find on the particular web site I used.

So the title... I got my first Hong Kong haircut Saturday. I was a little nervous since I had been happily going to the same woman in Manhattan for about 12 years. Also, I got one haircut in a foreign country once before while I lived in Seville. The Barber of Seville is a tragedy, right? It was for me. My hair was about chin-length at the time and I just wanted a trim. The woman lifted up one side and cut everything off. I couldn't stop her from doing the same to the other side. I came out looking like a 10-year-old-boy. It was the only time in my life I've ever cried over hair. It was pretty awful, but nobody would say anything to me until one bluntly honest Spanish friend simply said, "Your hair looks like sh**." I think it might have been Thanksgiving day and when somebody in the family called, I don't remember who, I was on my way out so I didn't have time to explain, but they thought I might have been depressed that I was missing Thanksgiving, though it was my hair I was missing. Fortunately, a few days later I flew to London, so my hair grew a little and already looked less horrific by the time I arrived in London.

I guess this is as good a time as any to introduce my theory to the world. Hair and nails grow when you fly; I've known this for years. I am not alone in this observation. I think my friend Karen also noticed ages ago when we first went to Europe in high school because she was wearing nail polish when we left - an obvious growth marker. And Paul wholeheartedly agrees. We think the longer the flight, the faster the rate of growth. I was shocked and thrilled one night recently because we were watching The Colbert Report and Stephen Colbert was speaking to an astronaut currently at the space station. The astronaut said that he was about 5'3" when he left earth and that he is up to almost 5'5" now. That must have something to do with my theory even if it's on a much more accelerated scale, right, right???

Anyway, the hair place I chose had a nice laid back atmosphere and the stylist was really friendly. I tried this particular place because my former stylist had a client who lived here so she kindly asked her for a recommendation and this stranger then kindly emailed me with the name of this place, Hipp.Fish. I also read that the stylists there could cut curly hair which is a rare talent in this city. My hair is sleek and straight at the moment - there was ironing involved - my appointment lasted almost two hours and the stylist got backed up with her next appointment because nobody ever realizes just how much hair I have until they're buried up to their elbows in it. She said more than once, "You're right. This is tricky." So I can't tell how satisfied I might be until I reluctantly wash the straightness out of it, but it's probably o.k. She also couldn't believe that I highlighted my hair only three months ago. Highlights: another obvious growth marker. Further proof of the theory!!! (O.K. my hair grows remarkably faster than most, but still... there was a 16 hour flight involved)

The stylist, Christina, was of Greek descent but raised in Wellington, New Zealand. She met her husband here in HK, and he's from Long Island, so it was interesting to talk to her. Being from New Zealand, I had to ask her about Paul's and my new most favorite thing, Flight of the Conchords. Have you seen it? It's a series on HBO and now that we hijack HBO, we've seen about 5 episodes. It's bizarre and silly and we're hooked. Two folk singers from New Zealand come to NYC to try to make a go of it. That's all I can say, except that they also break into song from time to time. It's the funniest thing I've seen in years. Christina said that she hadn't seen it but her Kiwi coworker had and he said he has trouble watching it because the quirkiness of the characters hits a little too close to home and feels uncomfortably familiar.

The other thing we did this weekend was go to a big art fair at the exhibition center here. We had free tickets from Paul's office. Galleries from all over the world showed samples of their stuff, including big names like Andy Warhol, and everything was for sale, I think. We passed on the Warhol. It doesn't go with the sofa. We decided that about one quarter of the art was interesting. The rest... well, I have friends who are more impressively creative with their MySpace pages.

Watch Flight of the Conchords.

And tell me what you think of the audio addition here.