Tuesday, December 29, 2009

just a little off of the conversation

Why is it that if someone is cutting your hair you feel required to talk to them? Or they feel they need to talk to you. Is it the proximity?
Perhaps I'm overly taciturn when it comes to this, but I don't particularly want to talk about my life in detail when someone is washing, drying, twirling, cutting, spraying, or curling my hair. To me the two activities are highly unrelated and often forced.
One way to mitigate the awkward conversations is to pick a transient place: a salon in a mall, barber college, or a beauty supply store, which is what I typically do. But as I sat in Beauty Brands today, as quiet as I liked, I wondered if really what I should be doing is declaring a salon mine and developing a relationship with a stylist.
Not just a "so how are the kids" rapport. The kind of relationship where you talk so much you disregard that your hair has looked "okay" or even close to bad for years. The sort of regard you have for them causes you to not only pay for a mediocre look but tip for it as well. And you walk around like that until the next time. Or you get a trim somewhere else and feel it is an infidelity.
I'm still undecided.