Friday, May 9, 2014

What's Making Me Happy: May 9

I got my hair cut this week. This is not normally a big deal, except for years I've only had tiny trims, done at those $10 hair-chop-shop places, and only about twice a year. So it's been a) long and b) boring. For years. I feel I'm setting the stage for a big "I got it all cut off!" revelation, which did not happen and will never happen again barring chemo or something setting it on fire. (You haven't seen me with short hair. It's scary. Trust me.) BUT. I did do an actual style, with an actual proper stylist, which was daring enough for someone who is the Ebenezer Scrooge of hair. Afterward she was done with me I looked like this:


Haha. OK, just my hair looked like that. It stayed that way for about 5 minutes, the time it took after the stylist had finished toying with it until I paid and walked out into the maelstrom that is springtime in these here parts. As soon as I stepped out of the salon I looked like this:


Which is pretty much how I remain unless I take a flat-iron to it. But STILL. I went out of my comfort zone and did something a little bit different. And it's nice to know I can rock my Ellen Pompeo look when I put my mind to it.

I also discovered a fabulous new artist this week, of the musical variety. Her name is Phildel, and she's got a backstory that's just waiting for a biopic. "Phildel" is really her real name, an amalgam of her Irish mother (Della) and her Chinese father (Philip. Don't ask). But although she spent her early years in the "moderate, liberal culture" of working-class Britain, when Phildel was 9, her mum married the man who worked beside her at the local grocery. Her new stepfather forced Phildel to change her name to Zara, took away all her possessions, put her in a headscarf, and banned music from the house. He was rather religious, it seems. "It’s impossible for people to comprehend, if they’ve always known music at home, the vacuum in your mind when you grew up without it," she said in a recent interview with the Guardian. Silence became a weighty thing, her mind filling the emptiness with bits of remembered melodies. She found a piano at her school and carved out the tunes playing in her head. Her debut album is named, appropriately, "The Disappearance of the Girl."

Check out this track, the one my daughter and I have been listening to nonstop since we discovered it on Pandora. You can hear the tinkling, ballerina-music-box quality of the piano; the keening melancholy of her voice.


And here are some protesting sheep, for your amusement:


Happy weekend, everyone!

14 comments:

  1. I was totally waiting for a picture of you! The truth is, your hair has never been boring but gorgeous and I'm sure that the new do suits you really well.

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  2. Loved your bit about the new haircut. Too funny! I've never been a "hair person" and although I've considered getting a decent cut from someone who actually knows what (s)he's doing, I always end up getting one of those crappy ten-buck butcher jobs.( It doesn't always suck...)

    Phildel's voice is lovely. I don't even want to imagine a world devoid of music.

    Those sheep were pretty baaaaaad.

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    1. The crappy butcher jobs ... well, first, we're not too far off with that analogy, since barbers used to be surgeons back in the day. Bloody battle nearby? Need a gangrenous limb chopped off? Call the hairdresser! Does not inspire one with confidence when walking into a salon, does it? Second, this last time when I went in the stylist almost cried when she saw what the last butcher had done to my hair. I guess it wasn't very even at the bottom. :( (But at least my head was still attached to my shoulders.)

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  3. I just applied the Phildel strategy to my own name & realized my parents could have named me "Marvin."

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    1. Ooh! Let's all play this game. I could have been Olinda. (Olin + Linda.) I mean, now that I think about it, I'm surprised nobody came up with that before. It's hella better than Brangelina. (Though maybe not as good as Marvin, for a girl.)

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    2. ooh, where s the pic of the new hair-do? I got bright red highlights...

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    3. Or Lindo, Lindol..Lindoli ??

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    4. My husband would have been "Marzel."

      Marvin and Marzel forevah!

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  4. Phildel's step father sounds awful. Being left in silence is a horrible image.

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    1. Yeah, I don't think he's part of her life anymore. She ran away from home when she was 17 and stayed apart from her family (including mom and sister) for some time.

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  5. Poor Phildel! I can't imagine one of my favorite things being taken away from me like that.

    I guess I'd be Pamrick. yay.

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    1. Pamrick has a good ring to it! I mean, at least as good as "Phildel." :)

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  6. I thought your hair looked shorter yesterday!!! I'm still laughing at your post-wind photo (but I disagree, it doesn't look like that AT ALL ;-))

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