I'm a hair stylist, and also brilliant genius. I'd like to cut and/or color your hair on the cheap, drink beers with you, maybe eat some cupcakes. I like to talk about your hair, how I'm a brilliant genius, what I've learned recently from a gossip blog, the news and how I feel about it based on my philosophical liberal arts degree, and also how much Sarah Palin's pageant up-do infuriates me.
A couple weeks ago it was picture day at school. Picture day. And I mean picture day like it was back in the days of laser-light backgrounds.
Leave it to beauty school to pull these shenanigans. A photography duo came in with a super classy presentation board: "Glamorous!!!" was on this board 4 times. Color me convinced!
In anticipation of our turns, my classmates John, Laura and I practiced poses. Mine was the flared-nostril creep smile.
John liked my nostril contortions.
The Laura lazy eye.
All the while, this sort of thing was happening:
Holy Moses. Laura did a bang up job showing that chick up:
And John followed suit. Leather fedora wooo!
And then it was my turn. I tried to look extra presidential.
Later on that week I had a bunch of my favorite people over for something of a hair party. It ended up being weird, because while I was alternately dyeing and cutting, everybody drank and watched whatever bullshitty television was on, but some good hair was done at least and seriously that's what matters more than fun, people, come on. Gave Michelle pink tips. So hot right now.
El, Allie and Wendy each express - in order of appearance - bewilderment, horror, indifference. Ha, thanks guys. Hair!
I don't usually watch Oprah, but I caught it today and was sucked in because she was spotlighting families in Ohio who were all hooked on heroin. They explain in gruesome and heartbreaking detail that after very little time heroin addicts don't use the drug to get high anymore, they just need it to keep functioning at all.
A certain acquaintance of myself and Caroline's from high school who was 1 question short of a 1600 on his SAT that I was spying on Facebook actually thinks Palin is a good choice, mainly cause it 'pisses Democrats off'.
I mean, seriously? I've always said I've lived in bizarro world but the fact that Palin could become our president by some fluke is downright Alice-in-Wonderland. That people could even contemplate supporting her... well, I've named the condition, and it speaks for itself.
I had a really lovely weekend, and I hope that you did too. On Sunday, before heading to my buddy Jeff's apartment in BK to watch football on his beautiful television because Wendy was there already watching the REDSKINS WIN (woo!), I visited the fam on the Upper East Side for one of my little cousins' birthdays. He turned 5 and as we stood around the birthday cake and candles were being lit, he said, "Whoever in this room went to the war is my favorite person," and then looked at his mom, my aunt, and clarified definitively, "and he's your father." Our grandfather was in Africa and Italy in WWII and a prominent reporter for the Stars and Stripes newspaper for the duration, which led to his nearly lifelong career at the New York Times upon his return as well as his war memoir which was published recently. He's 88 now and 8 years ago he had a stroke and has been confined to a wheelchair since, and he's really just not the same Pop=pop that I knew growing up. I was a lucky little person. The point is that I almost keeled over from the sweetness of that 5-year-old's sentiment. And also the kid has really great hair.
I didn't read or watch the news all weekend so today when I arrived at work and checked out the CNN website as I usually do, I was greeted by the news that Republicans failed to deliver enough votes to pass the bailout that McCain scrambled to take credit for earlier today (on the GOP side, 133 voted against the bill; 65 for it). My favorite part is that the GOP leaders are faulting Pelosi for making a "partisan" speech right before the vote. Here's Barney Frank's (D-MA) response: Here’s the story. There’s a terrible crisis affecting the American economy. We have come together on a bill to alleviate the crisis. And because somebody hurt their feelings, they decide to punish the country. I mean, I would not have imputed that degree of pettiness and hypersensitivity. We also — as the leader will tell you, who’s been working with them — don’t believe they had the votes, and I believe they’re covering up the embarrassment of not having the votes. But think about this. Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country. That’s hardly plausible. And there are 12 Republican members who were ready to stand up for the economic interest of America, but not if anybody insulted them. I’ll make an offer. "Give me those 12 people’s names and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are and maybe they’ll now think about the country.
To further today's barage of uplifting news, an important truth that McCain has finally sort of admitted is the reality of his health plan in an interview with Stephanopoulos. But here's what he doesn't explain, in brief: 1. ELIMINATING TAX EXEMPTION INCREASES PLAN COSTS FOR THE NEEDIEST. Because it means he's equalizing the tax treatment of employer and individual plans, it effectively baits healthy workers into buying cheaper and worse insurance on the individual market instead of through their companies, and increases costs for sicker folks.
2. TAX CREDITS DON'T COVER HEALTH COSTS. McCain's "credits" decrease proportionally to growing premiums, because McCain gauges his initial $5,000 credit on inflation, not premiums and since premiums grow faster than inflation, the effect is a large tax increase on the middle class. Some 5k "gift," eh?
Here's how that works (and I ganked this very helpful explanation from the Wonk Room: http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/09/28/tax-increase-mccain/). For a couple earning 40k and paying $13,800 for insurance, “McCain’s new tax credit would cut their taxes by $50 in 2009, but because the credit quickly falls behind rising premiums that are the basis of the current tax break, the family would pay $1,169 more in taxes in 2013…[and] would pay $2,809 more in taxes by 2018."
I have to put something uplifting in here. So here's my #1 favorite scene from the entire Curb Your Enthusiasm series:
COURIC: Explain to me why [Alaska's proximity to Russia] enhances your foreign policy credentials.
PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our– our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia–
I gave my presentation on the Circulatory System in class today, brought my laptop to school in order to show the Schoolhouse Rock video as planned, but my speakers weren't nearly loud enough and I had to scrap the idea. Luckily, I'd completed an entire game of Circulatory System Jeopardy on construction paper - after spending quite a long time designing it to the tune of 24 answers/questions in 6 categories I felt that it might be a trite idea and too time-consuming - and the class got totally into it!
I didn't even have prizes, or sugary snacks, but everybody slapped their desks like buzzers and frantically answered questions about hemoglobin and the superior vena cava and in the end my teacher told me to save it so that 6 weeks from now when the next class is presenting I can come back and preside over the game again. There's a reason I was voted class president of beauty school, people.
At the top of my agenda for the next student council meeting: there are never paper towels in the bathroom and all of the first aid kits are empty! When I am learning how to point-cut I repeatedly cut my knuckles with my shears and what the hell am I supposed to do, bleed in my clients' hair? Come on!
