It’s Gonna Be a Bad Hair Year

The phones lines in the ex-pat female community are buzzing. It seems our favorite hair stylist has retired suddenly and prematurely. The only other incident I can remember causing such a such consternation was the thwarted chemical bomb plot, or figuring out who was evacuating for Iraq War II and who was staying. Hair is serious business.

You have to understand how dire the ramifications M’s departure are. She, and she alone among 30-40 of us searching for years, could DO foreign hair. Really do. Covering gray with colors that look humanly possible. Highlights that didn’t look like tiger stripes. A cut that lasts for a month (for 4JD!!!) without having to go home afterward and even out the ends yourself. Oh yes, I know there are many talented stylists in Amman, but we are more comfortable with heterosexual females who don’t charge a Jordanian monthly salary equivalent for the ‘works’ before an event. And male hair washers who take liberties ‘massaging the scalp’ way down around your neck. Yeeeeyuck, that gave me the willies. It’s hard to slap a guy from that posture, I tried.
“Kinzi, what are we going to do? What are YOU going to do? Have you called her? Will she reconsider? Will she go to another salon? Can she open one in her home? Is it her husband? Ask her if she would consider doing a group of us at our house.”

Why do I get all the questions? First, because I have become a Network Queen – I recommended her to all of them, so their hair is now my responsibility. I take this burden seriously, for they are my friends! Also, because my friends saw all I have been through, ‘hair-wise’. They saw the time I went to the neighborhood salon to ’support the local businesses. I went in needing a trim, what can go wrong? Well, once she found out I was “Amerikiyya’ and mish “Bozni”, she went into a political tirade that punctuated each sentence with “Bush – THWACK”, lopping off a huge, long chunk of hair! Yes, I paid the price for my county’s foreign policy in hair on the floor (small price, compared to other times, but that is for another post. And nothing compared to the people who are REALLY paying the price next door). It was up to my ears, but at least my ears were intact, which I had begun fearing at one point.

They also watched as I went on to another stylist. I was doing a bit of ‘mid-life crises-ing’, and wanted to go a little blonder. That was the year I decided if I am sending any men to hell for looking too good, I might as well look good doing it – why should my husband have to look at a frump for a wife? Well, needless to say, I came out blitzen-blonde, whoa, my friends were SO kind “it will grow, it will grow”. But, what to do with roots while growing? Stuck was I, until I met M.

M could cut your hair, you could sleep on it wet, wake up and toss, and look great! good-bye sishwar! She tamed my Gwen-Stefani blonde, highlighting those roots, girl, she was GOOD. At Christmas I was unfaithful to M, I had a coupon for a free cut at a swank Sweifiyya salon and thought ‘why not?’. The guy was amazing, an artist, and he did a great job…but when I went home and tried to re-create the look, impossible without a can of spray and another set of arms. Wake up, toss, and I looked like Farrah Fawcett, now, at 60. Oh well, I thought M can fix it. Whoops.

So, now I need to hone all my skills of diplomacy, negotiation AND wasta, and BEG M to help us out. The coiffure(s) of the ex-pat community is relying on me.

(My husband would say “This post has no socially redeeming value”. So would my dad)