Melt my hair to stone

I’m very experimental with hair.

Hairimental, as I like to call it.

I should clarify. Although, I’ve done some amazing designs on my eyebrows and elsewhere, I’m specifically talking about the hair on my head.

You pervimentals.

I can’t stand hair monotony – or monogamy for that matter. I cheat on stylists all the time. I guess it has to do with my upbringing.

Growing up, my parents let anyone take a scissor to my head. My next door neighbor, my dad’s barber, my brother. Anyone. And, if I wanted a fancy hair style, my mom armed herself with a can of Aquanet and 100 bobby pins and went to town. For my senior class trip to Disney World’s Grad Night, I asked her for luscious curls. And, God bless her, she tried everything from electric rollers to goopy hair gel. As a last resort, she poured an entire 40 ounce bottle of Budweiser over my head, as she had heard leaving beer in your hair automatically gives you Shirley Temple curls. Well, I can tell you first hand, that theory is as false as this story is true.

After high school, I took hair matters into my own hands. Literally. I gave myself haircuts. When I did have some money I had my hair cut and dyed by a woman that worked out of her living room.  But, I stopped paying for hair help, as soon as I discovered that hair dressing was one of the many hidden talents of my gay boy friends.

Gays, as Kathy Griffin likes to call them.

It was many years later, when the gays became architects and lawyers and didn’t have time for my hair, that I discovered places that had separate hair washers and hair blow-dryers. Places where they offered wine and canapés, while they rang up my credit card in amounts greater than or equal to the monthly installment of a Honda Civic. In frequenting these types of places, along with an odd twist of fate, I befriended a celebrity hair stylist. It was great. Until he showed up to my job coked out of his mind, claiming I had traded hair services for a free cruise (this story will be featured in my upcoming book, “Stories of FOMO”). I sicked a lawyer on him, shaved my head and, when my hair grew back, I never used the same stylist for more than two cuts.

Seriously. My motto became: Never. Ever. More than twice.

Apparently, my motto for everything.

Last week, however, I broke the rule. I had my third appointment with my latest hair-tist.

How could I not? He is incredibly talented.

He is also moody, melodramatic, self-centered, sometimes absent and completely high maintenance. He is prettier and thinner – and in a month he makes way more than my combined gross household income. He has a terribly deep accent, which contributes to our constant miscommunication. And, he’s crazy.

Yet, I found myself rolling in the deep. Wholeheartedly.

I kept fighting the feeling to call for a third appointment. Hoping to just find someone else, but the more I thought about leaving him, the crazier I got about calling.

So, there I was, in the salon, on my third appointment. And, lo and behold, there he was with another client. Like a jealous girlfriend, I marched right up to him and gave him a kiss on each cheek.

“That’s right, little client sitting in his chair,” I thought. “Him and I, we kiss Euro style, ‘cuz we’re tight. So wipe that smile off your face. He clearly loves my hair the best.”

It gets worse.

I sat patiently while he finished working on her bangs.

“Seriously lady,” I asked in my imaginary conversation with an unsuspecting client. “You’re subjecting this artist to work on your circa 1988 hair, complete with yellow streamers covering your forehead? For shame.”

While giving her the stink eye, my man caught my glare and winked at me. His small gesture brought a smile to my face.

But, only for a moment.

I quickly became angry with him. He was way too smiley with her. Way too talkative. With her. With her bangs. Who has bangs? She’s not real. She’s a stranger. Him and I have history, or did he not remember? Three appointments! He once told me that he’s never felt another head of hair like mine before. But, now he was touching someone else’s. And then a fire started in my heart, reaching a fever pitch, finally making me see that I had been played, to the beat.

So, I threw my Vanity Fair with Angelina Jolie on the cover and got up from my chair and said, “Nevermind, I’ll find someone like you. I wish nothing but the best for you two.”

And they clapped for me. A lot.