Celebrity Treatment

When you move to a new city you have to start everything from scratch. That means new grocery stores (what is this Vons nonsense and where is Safeway?), new easily accessible restaurants (hello Pollo Loco, goodbye Noodles and Company) and new routes to find all of these things.

I dislike having to circle around a grocery store several times before I establish the layout. Who doesn’t put bread by the deli?? I dislike hearing my body tell me it only wants Noodles and Company’s macaroni and cheese but having to settle for the Loco Value Menu. And getting to these places is a separate story (perhaps even blog post) entirely. I have done U-turns, casually turned around in driveways and even parked my car to pursue finding my destination on foot, all to familiarize myself with my new surroundings. This almost always results in me being either 15 minutes late, 25 minutes early or profusely sweating by the time I arrive.

But one of the biggest challenges I face here in LA is finding a new hair salon. Now, I have quite possibly the easiest hair to cut. It dries in roughly 4 minutes, saving my stylist from dealing with the peskiness of thick haired clients and there is no curl to tame. Working with my hair is a lot like cutting perfectly cooked spaghetti.

But no matter how clear the directions to cutting my hair are; there is still anxiety that arises with a new salon. I found a salon close to my place through google maps (how else does one find a salon in a new city?) and the fear that I experienced for the well being and future of my hair took years off my life. The stylist told me he was going to give me the “Beverly Hills Cut” and because I am embracing all that comes with this city, I agreed. But when he pulled all of my hair forward into a ponytail at my forehead like a unicorn, I began to wonder if the “Beverly Hills Cut” was a hazing tactic to all new LA residents, an initiation of sorts.

As I watched him cut at my hair, I gripped the armrests of the chair and reminded myself that he is a professional. I could tell by his laminated certificate jammed into the corner of the mirror. When he commented on how quiet I was being, I tried to explain, but I was too paralyzed with fear to muster anything more than a smile. He took that as a blessing to continue and I sat for several more minutes, unsure of what my hair would look like when this ponytail in front of my face came down.

Luckily for me, and all of you, this story has a happy ending. My hair looked great. I don’t think it looked “Beverly Hills” great, it looked a lot like “Boulder” great, but I was just pleased to have hair at all. I strutted my stuff out of the salon knowing that when people asked me what kind of cut my hair was, I could confidently say, “Beverly Hills”. Unfortunately that's not a thing. If anyone had asked, in the first 22 years of my life, "what kind of cut is that?" I would have answered, "hair" and walked away. But now that I have an answer, I can't wait to be asked! Ah, California, you are so different.