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Your narcissistic narrator is a shade more blonde tonight. Got my hair cut and highlighted today. I go where a bunch of the other resident foreigners go for trimmings, a place called Toni & Guy's that’s run by a woman named Songjoo. I guess there are T&G’s in London and in Dallas - maybe other places, I dunno - but I’d never heard of the place until I came here. It’s been about six months since my last visit to Songjoo, and she wondered to me where I had been. Funny how hairdressers know when you’ve strayed from them. I went home about 3 months ago and had my hair done there, so I had a good excuse.
I don’t know why I waited until my mid-twenties to start playing with colors. I had my first perm when I was about 10 or 11. Didn’t think twice about it; of course, every perm in my life has been a total disaster, so I’ve learned to think twice about anything chemical squirted onto my hair. But the color thing is really odd. I realized today sitting in the chair, how conservative I look. It really doesn’t match the iconoclastic inner me. Makes me good at fooling people I guess. In the past, people often said I looked innocent, and now people tell me I have a "gentle" disposition. Heh. Dave could tell ‘em otherwise I spose. I’ll ponder this another day. Right now I got service on my mind:
So I’m sittin’ in the chair reading. Eventually one of the young hip "style technicians" bops over to ask me what kind of color thing I want. I tell her, and go back to reading. She returns with the tub of goo and a bunch of foil and starts sectioning off my hair. A few minutes later, two other hip kids come over and start doing the same. In all, three people worked to foil my whole head. This is the part of Songjoo’s set up that qualifies it from other salons I’ve frequented. Usually there’s one person who does the color, or one person who does the perm, and definitely only one person doing the cutting and drying. But here at Songjoo’s T&G’s, there’s like a whole group of hip young people standing around Songjoo ready to hand her any tool, or sweep up any hair, wipe sweat from her brow, etc. - just like surgical assistants. When you walk in the door someone grabs your coat, another asks what you’d like to drink, and yet another supplies you with reading material.
When all was colored and cut, two people blew dry my hair simultaneously. How nice. So, yeah, I’m a bit blonder than I’ve been in ten years. Now I kind of look like I did when I swam in chlorine a lot that first year of high school. Pretty cool…until it starts to grow. That’s OK: It’s just hair and it grows. I can deal.
I mentioned I’ve been reading a book on evolutionary psychology. It’s making me angry, but I promised myself I wouldn’t even attempt to approach that here. However, since a good deal of evolutionary info comes from anthropologists studying hunter-gatherer societies, and groups of our closest genetic neighbors, I figured it’d be a good time for another episode of Subway Anthropologist:
On the train coming back from T&G’s, I was packed next to four military guys. They were looking geeky and young, as military-types tend to look. As is Korean custom among close friends of the same sex, they were standing with their arms around each other, nearly embracing. One guy had his arm around the neck of a pimply-faced friend who was talking. I don’t know what he, or any of them, were saying; I don’t speak the language, remember? And anyway I had my CD player cranked. Peter Gabriel, in case you’re interested.
OK, so one guy’s got his arm around the neck of his buddy with the acne problem, who is talking. The guy with the arm starts playfully pinching his buddy’s soft skin at the base of his shaved neck. Then he starts feeling the fuzzy short hairs just above. Can’t blame him, really: It is soft-looking. While his friend is talking, I see the arm guy zero in on his buddy’s cheek, leaning closer for a good look. I see that he’s examining a prominent zit. He says something to his friend, and then he starts using the hand that was playing with his bud’s neck to squeeze the zit.
Remember, now, the subway is full of people.
OK so he’s squeezing, but it’s futile; the zit is ornery. His friend starts protesting. Probably he’s embarrassed or in pain. But, as is the case when you are drawn to pop, and it doesn’t pop, you keep going until you’ve annihilated it anyway. So, the guy enlists the use of his other hand and really starts squeezing, his face showing grimace. His buddy’s head sways under the pressure. When the zit finally bursts, depositing pus on the guy’s hands, he quickly wipes it onto his buddy’s nicely pressed BDU’s. It must’ve hurt because I heard the guy say something. I imagine he’s chastising his friend and worrying that now he’s got this huge hemorrhage on the side of his face, probably dripping and ruining the purpose of his camouflage outfit. He keeps feeling the spot and then checking his fingers for signs fluid.
Felt like I was watching a documentary on human grooming behavior, narrated by Peter Gabriel.
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