Samson and shagging (Lesbian Hair Part II)

The more eagle-eyed and elephant-memory-ed, will recall that a few entries ago I did a botched job on my lovers thatch (as in head...oh gosh, of the head). Anyhow, I was to cut her hair, and it all went horribly wrong when yours truly got a little drunk and distracted and sheered in a disorderly fashion. Cue lover sporting a subconsciously sculpted James Dean crew cut rather than the shaggy do (yes, we're still talking about hair here) she admittedly "distinctly" asked for ("distinctly" has become inexorably linked to the request since that fateful day). I was due to have the favour of barbering reciprocated immediately after but I have been waiting for the dust settle and the memory to fade, lest recrimination rear its fuzzy head or my fuzzy head for that matter.

A month on, the time is now and I am due to put my head on a platter for my beloved. Samson style. OK, it's imperative, I have an interview coming up and I think I look like Rapunzel. Now, all of this could be avoided by visiting the professionals but I feel they waft around a title they often do not deserve, in fact some of them shouldn't be allowed to carry sharp objects (ie. scissors) as they have a sadistic streak that they unleash on unsuspecting heads. All this while waffling about forthcoming vacations- perhaps they think the only reason someone has their hair done is because they are going on holiday, but to be honest I've never really linked the two.

As is becoming evident, hairdressers really stress me out as they have no idea...
a) how to follow simple instructions (that or they think they know better what to do with your very own head and also that they have the right to do it),
b) any idea of proportionate time scale- if I pay a lot (rare) then I don't want my botty to barely touch the chair before they're flapping at my neck with a towel, if not (usual) then several hours I consider excessive.
Furthermore when I say "no mousse", this is a considered decision and one I stick to, no matter how many times another insists it is necessary. I have even been surprise squirted in the past by rebel hairdressers. I then have to endure a humiliating walk home with any small projectiles- eg. catkins, dust all sticking to the top of my head. It would be so much easier to simply walk in and say "make me look gay again". But alas, no.

Just before our wedding a few years ago, my lover and I (the two bride-to-bes) visited a hairdresser, for a "cut" rather than a "do"... only to emerge with matching fluffy bouffants. My hair is the only straight thing about me, so this is in itself quite an achievement, it really is normally straight as a dye (indeed why is a dye straight? or is it die- the lesser known singular for dice- as in numbered cube?). To make matters even worse, the hairdresser did that really painful thing (with the misnomer feathering) with the scissors that makes one's eyes water uncontrollably (note the generic "one"- it's not just me, such eye watering is universal I assert). This is not crying from pain (I say puffing out my chest), but rather, I deduce, the triggering of an otherwise latent reflex by said hair abrasion which in turn triggers the tear ducts. Never again, not even if it's the lovely Shane from the L-Word behind my chair... well OK then, now I mention it.

I digress, hair-Dress It Yourself. I have "distinctly" asked for the cut that the woman from the Matrix has. Another reason I have my lover cut my hair is that I can make these requests earnestly without seeing them smirking in the mirror. These things are reflective for both parties, someone should tell hairdressers this as they gurn and scoff at each humble request or instruction while in full view. Incidentally I wonder if an occupational hazard is that they position themselves behind friends in bars and talk over the back of their heads about Tenerife. Don't get me wrong, I am not an elitist snob, if I were I would have to snub my self. I am simply hairdresser-phobic, I see my head as a fairly important part of my anatomy and am accordingly proportionally fussy.

And so, in preparation for the coiffure, I see lover has quaffed a beer already. I am feeling optimistic and am telling myself this is to calm her nerves and loosen up her creativity. And so time for some same sex shagging (hair that is), Matrix here I come.

Sitting on my laptop

My lovely other half just said, "I could hear this noise in the background, which I assumed was you talking to me darling". Now, had distance been a factor here then this would be understandable, had she been straining to catch my words from afar: up a tree perhaps, or maybe if we were both hanging off a mountain face together by grappling hooks with a vertical crevice keeping us apart...But we weren't. Another extraneous variable that would account for my inaudibility would be background noise- an overwhelmingly noisy environment (what's a whelm incidentally?). Standing on a busy street in New York, perhaps, trying to make oneself heard over the din of traffic, or on the dancefloor in a gay club,maybe, competing with speakers that tower over us (the electric type).

But no...proximity-wise, my lover was happily perched upon my lap surfing the computer while I peeked out from behind her regaling her with what I thought to be a few well-chosen bon mots. Other than the very faint whir of a laptop (the electronic one, not mine- my lap doesn't make noises like that, I hasten to clarify, before I acquire a reputation I don't deserve.) Incidentally, why lapTOP? There is no lap bottom which I can determine. I digress, in short, I was not drowned out by background noise, I was the background noise.

A more aged friend of ours once commented that, when a couple have been together more than a couple of years, what was previously intelligible speech between the two becomes a mwa-mwa-mwa noise. The best impression of this (not wishing to mwa mwa into my computer mike and then spend the best part of the day trying to upload it)...this being an key point I am trying to convey here so I am eager to reproduce it exactly..Is to be found on the commentary of Season I The L Word, when Katherine Moening-Shane- is narrating an episode and complains that she always hears herself like the teacher in Peanuts (the televised cartoon), she then proceeds to do a very funny impression of herself "warble-talking". (If clarification of this point is not yet another good reason to buy The L-Word then..words fail me, which they already have once today).

Another recent insight I had, which hit me like a near Biblical revelation, was when I noticed my lover echoing back the last few words of my sentence, in order to imply unity and accord.
The dialogue (is that word still appropriate or should I say monologue?) ran thus...
"Me: "Awww look, rabbit is so cute"
Lover: "Rabbit is so cute"
Me: "I wonder if she's fallen in love with your left mule slipper, she probably thinks it's another bunny"
Lover: (in sing-song nursery voice to appease crazy-people or the very young): "Another bunny".....
Cue protracted pause with whirring of my pink cerebral cogs as I replay this last snippet and realise I've been conversing with an echo. I could simply have been talking in a tunnel to achieve the same effect. While I slurp on my coffee I rewind through other interactions where I can retrospectively detect this phenomenon. I realise, not only have I been appeased while my lover was half listening but I have quite enjoyed myself chattering on. I derail this train of thought before I forever traumatise myself with the length of these dialogues.

I have been trained in counselling, this of course teaches this technique. Evidently I wasn't there the day they covered insight.
My lover and I have been together over half a decade now. That's 15% of my past that I've been head over heals in love, and 100% of my future. An expert in body language may be able to determine from the earlier pose that the garden is rosy despite the this audible hiccup.
Besides, I have confirmed I checked with my lover and everything is great. We had quite a good conversation, it ran thus:
"When I speak to you my love, I am talking rather than waffling?"
Lover: "Talking rather than waffling"
Me: "Like in the early days, you still hang off every word?"
Lover: "Still hang off every word"