My sister and I had dragged Luke to a store called Vintage Buzz, recycled clothing in the front, boutique cigarettes in the back. My sister started chatting up these very hip adults while I searched the racks for hidden treasures. One of her cool conversational partners was a stylist. He wanted to work with my hair. Of course, I was interested.
I started visiting him after school, and he would do my hair for free. Then I'd go to first period and dazzle all of my classmates with the next phase of a mutating bob that would have cost thousands of dollars to maintain. Bangs, no-bangs, wildly colored bangs, layered, highlighted, lowlighted, brown with blond racing stripes, etc. I spent many hours at the Sebastian pyramid in the West Valley testing out new cuts and products, and it was great, except for that time when the company's master stylist poured a gallon of hairspray on me, let it dry, and then insisted on combing it out. Ouch!
After high school, I had to leave my precision cutter for months at a time. Funny thing: the scholarship money didn't cover fancy coiffures. Plus, I was in hippie central, and it was rubbing off on me. One of my fave professors was a Marxist, and she scoffed at department store purchases. She bought all of her clothes at Salvation Army. Her genius was evident, and I greatly admired her, so I wasn't eager to blow all of my extra cash on the Marc Jacobs dresses I'd try on at Macy's in SF. Add to this my being in a long-term relationship and my having grown accustomed to walking Telegraph in my jammies.
Thus, the years at Berkeley proved a bit taming. I returned to LA with my sense of style in the sewer. I was a poet and a composer, and I had no intention of buying into superficial shet, but boxViolet was growing, and our look was becoming more and more of a consideration.
Our former drummer, Nate, wasn't into flash either. He had a little ponytail when we met him. As soon as I could, I sat him down in my bathroom and lopped that off for him. This made him far more appealing to women, and he started dating a fashion-conscious lass, who one day remarked, "You guys are artists. You should be dressing up."
This girl with a very boring bob sans bangs or color or any kind of product was calling us lame. It was a bit of a wake-up call.
Since then, I have been re-birthing a braver version of myself, the girl who is down for anything, like Lil' Kim in Magic Stick. Ohhh, I, too, have a magic box, except mine is purple because it's a band, not a vajayjay.
When I was at the salon last weekend, I was planning on getting trimmed back into my Twiggy do, but when I showed him some pics of Jean Seberg for next time, he got excited. Apparently, his enthusiasm was contagious, as I remember hearing him say, "Well, judging from your hair history..." but I forgot to listen to the rest, my being so appreciative for having such shared experience to go on. He continued, "Most people do it backwards. Now's the time to have short hair--when you're young and beautiful, not later." I asked how long it would take to grow out if I hated it. "Six months."
"Ok. Let's do it."
A gamine, mere millimeters away from a buzz, entered into my hair history.
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