Hair, shoes, & the “W” word

Sideview, complete with rogue fluff at top

Hair

I got my hair cut! It was amazing! It feels like old news already, but here are some photos. The haircut was free since I’d had a bad one earlier in the year, but it felt very posh all the same. I probably can’t afford to see the same stylist next time, but it was great to have someone talk with me about my hair in such a thorough manner and spent 2 hours (!) cutting it and teaching me how to make it do nice things.

I’ve been doting on my hair since the cut — letting my curls do what they will, not dragging a comb through it all willy nilly. It’s a refreshing change to not just roll out of bed, patting my hair down into an acceptable shape as I head out the door. There’s definitely an investment in self that happens when one primps.

Straight from the salon

My beloved shoes (Palm Springs, 2004)

Shoes

In a freak of nostalgia, I’ve been longing for pair of shoes that I loved to death in 2002. They were a great clog style from Camper – from the Cornucopia line: black leather with a rounded toe, a red rubber clog bottom, and a lovely lime green leather strap running around the top of the foot and wrapping around the arch of the bottom. Hard to describe, and I’ve had trouble finding any photos online. These were a big deal purchase for me, as at that age I hadn’t even spent more than $60 on a pair of shoes. But I went for it, and I loved those poor things to shreds. I still had them when Sky and I met, and for our first Christmas he fashioned new leather straps for me (out of some lime green leather he’d hunted down), but shortly after the bottoms split and were deemed not repairable. Sad day! I did find another pair on eBay a few years ago, but they were the wrong size (made in a different country than my originals).

Letting go of something you loved wearing is hard. I once knew a girl who would buy a second pair of a style of shoes she liked so she could wear them once the first pair wore out. At first I thought she was a GENIUS, but then I began pondering the idea of wearing the same style of shoe for 2, 5, or 10 years. How would that look or feel? Isn’t change good? Letting go, good? So I’m trying to think of that as I ache nostalgically for a pair of shoes I wore ten years ago. Let it go, Robinson.

Wedding Convert

While sussing out our invitation/wedding zines, Sky and I talked a bit about what we wanted out of this whole experience. It was an interesting and good conversation. Without relying too much on gender, I’ll admit that my overall feeling about wedding planning so far was very stereotypicaly male – I didn’t care a lot about the hows, or what things looked like. I kept insisting that people are going to show up, it’s going to be awesome, we’re going to eat good food, and then hang out and sing campfire songs. Done and done.

I’ve also been dragging my heels at getting my grandmother’s dress looked at, at arranging some refashioning. Finally Sky reminded me that if we want to embroider our outfits, I’d better get cracking at the dress thing. I guess when the groom is bugging the bride about getting the dress sorted, it’s time to dicuss things.

So I’ve been thinking about how I feel about weddings, brides, feminism, class, and all of that good stuff. Part of me still feels that the whole wedding hoopla just isn’t me and isn’t us. We have a cluttered, fun house full of interesting things, but the idea of decorating kind of give me hives. I want things to be pretty, but we’re going to be next to a LAKE with TREES so I feel like that kind of covers things. At the same time, I look at photos of weddings online and see all of these lovely decorations and wonder if maybe I should be more excited about gigantic balls made out of tissue paper. I think a lot of this is a knee-jerk reaction against being girly. I can’t put a finger on what that means, exactly. I just know that I don’t want bridesmaids or professional makeup or twee invitations or take home wedding favors. So much of that seems like it would be out of place. I see weddings that cost $3,939,829 with multiple dress changes and Out of Towner bags and all I can think is HOUSE YOU COULD BUY A HOUSE. They are so impractical, and feel weird and anti-feminist and hetero-normative and daughter-selling creepy to me.

Sky and I talked about that, and how freaked out I get when I start comparing myself to other folk I know getting married, who go to Wedding Expos and have been thinking about this day for most of their lives. I’ve thougt about being married, but didn’t ever give much thought to the wedding part. But at the same time, I do care. I want this to be a good time for my friends and family. I want it to feel festive. I want it to be a celebration. I think these will be the natural result of the wedding itself – with or without matching place settings.