My one true beauty

Izzi complained the other day that I haven't mentioned her enough on my blog, even though I've been spending lots of time with her lately. I admitted that I've really only been writing when I'm upset about something, and she said that you were all going to get the wrong impression about my time in London. It's true. I'm still having a great time here, socializing a lot and making lots of merry. For example, last Friday was Izzi's birthday, and I had tons of fun with two-for-one cocktails and a really yummy Mexican dinner. They say that you shouldn't ever eat North American food in London, because Londoners just don't do it right, but I think they, whoever "they" are, are snobs. I've had tons of good Mexican here. La Perla, Benito's Hat, that Tex-Mex place in Notting Hill, and now Cafe Sol in Clapham. All delicioso.

I've been spending lots of time with Alex and with James as well (separately, though, which is odd because we're all friends with each other and we all keep hanging out separately in two's). I have an action-packed weekend, too. Thursday night is my flatmate's live music night (he organizes it and gets cool indy bands to come play), Friday is curry dinner and then Fabric (a popular London club that I've never been to before), and Saturday is a fancy-dress party. You're supposed to dress as your favorite decade, and since I have a beautiful new dress from Anthropologie that is sort of 1920s-esque, that's the decade I'm going for. I'm excited, but I have to work Friday am, Saturday am, and all day Sunday, so I can't go too crazy with the partying and staying out late. :-(

What I really want to talk about, though, is my new haircut. There's a salon in Camden that has a hair academy, and they give free haircuts to people willing to have their hair cut in front of a class. I decided to do this, as I've been wanting a change for a looooooooong time and figured these people would know what they were doing. I arrived on time and they left me waiting for about half an hour. Then a guy came up and talked to me about what I wanted, and decided he might do a long cut with more layers that would emphasize the natural texture of my hair. Then he left for seriously an hour. Then a different guy came out and said he would keep it long, but make it more edgy. He said my hair was a blank slate, and I realized that was exactly the problem. That's why I hated my hairstyle so much, because I felt like when people first saw me, they thought "blank slate, nothing much going on in there." When people actually start getting to know me, they often seem surprised to realize that I'm vibrant and engaging. So I was excited to have a hair style that would tell people that off the bat.

They washed my hair, then led me into the classroom. I was one of three models, and each of us had our own hairdresser demonstrating to the class what they were doing. My guy told the class, "her current style isn't doing much for her." I couldn't help laughing a bit. It felt good to see longs locks of my hair falling to the floor. I was so ready to shed my goody-two-shoes look. But I think that as he was cutting, he got a bit scissor-happy and decided to just keep going. He had said he was going to keep it long, but the end result is...well, kind of a mullet. The first thing I thought when I saw it was "Joan Jett." Alex gets Farrah Fawcett and I get Joan Jett. Great.

At first, I was pretty happy with it, but as the day went on, I started to get really self-conscious about it. The bangs look great and I LOVE them, but the long hair is just too thin. There isn't enough of it. Overall, though, people have been really complimentary of it. I expected to get ridiculed at work, but everyone seems to like it. Just not me. Oh well, I'll try out some different styles today and see if I can get it to where I like it.

I took some pictures, but they actually look better than the real thing! Which I suppose is good, as normally pictures of me look worse than the real thing. Anyway, here they are, in all their chestnut-y glory:



And the morning-after shot.