Reading: The Professor and the Madman

Moving: House-strolling

1 April 2000: Straws

This morning RDC made smoothies for breakfast. He gave me a defective straw again--how come it's never he who gets the straw whose accordion-joint is split, hmmm? When I got up to get myself a non-defective one, I noticed something dreadful. I called my sister. It was almost 1:00 in Boston. I could tell when she said hello that I'd woken her up, but I didn't say anything helpful like "Hi, it's Lisa." That's not my style. Instead, I said,
"We need more straws."
"Whaaat?"
"Remember a few years ago for Christmas you gave me a box of bendy straws? Well, we're almost out of them, and we need more. How're you?"

The conversation went uphill from there.

When I had my hair cut a few weeks ago, I didn't notice until I washed it for the first time, two or three days later, that the woman had cut it unevenly along the bottom. Grrr. It took me until today to coordinate a session with the salon. I went, and I am much pleased. Dwight evened it up and did a gorgeous job of blow-drying it. I was going to say that he convinced me to cut it short, but that's hardly a credible assertion. I would be such a basket case.

I never know what to talk to hair-cutters about. I have not assumed for several years now that they have any interest in my private life, unless I have known them for years like Frank. (I should have brought Frank with me when I moved to Denver, except he probably would have convinced me by now to cut my hair short.) The place is in the Wash(ington) Park neighborhood, and I mentioned that we were looking for houses nearby. Dwight said it was a great market, and he never could now afford what he paid for the building five years ago.
"But I thought Anne owned the salon?"
"She's my partner."
Okay. But then he continued, "We have a daughter together."
I managed not to bolt. I managed to say how when I first came to the salon, I had met the little girl, and how she wore a black velvet party dress [(black? for a four-year-old?!] with pink tights, because that's what she liked. Dwight grinned. "That's my girl."
But inside I was reeling. They have a daughter together? One of the most tenacious prejudices in my life is that straight men are not allowed to cut my hair. Business partner I can handle. Co-parent implies yet another level of partnering. There is just no way this man is straight. Unless he cultivates the gay act to put women at their ease. Or, I continued working this out in my head, he could be bi. Bi men might be allowed to cut my hair. Parenting, and co-parenting, need assume no sexual relationship, I concluded with a sigh of relief.

It's all Cynthia Heimel's fault. She advised in Sex Tips for Girls not to let straight men cut your hair. When I first read this book in 1989, that stricture conveniently supported my thus-far five-year love affair with Frank, and I decided to live by that advice. Her theory is that all straight men secretly want all women to look like their sexual ideal, but not all women can look like Princess Diana or Princess Leia in the beginning of "Return of the Jedi." I expanded the rule to include gay women.

And if he is straight, which I seriously doubt, I'm overturning that rule. He did a beautiful job. It's all even and he didn't take much off (but I notice anyway, and it feels so short!) and hangs like silk. I'm going to enjoy it for the ten hours it lasts. I wore contacts for the cut, of course, to make sure I could see what he was doing, and I'm keeping them in for yet another Dot Org meeting reception tonight.

It's at Ocean Journey, ya-hooo! These are expensive events (with messed up catering or not) and even if Dot Org usually held meetings in Denver (it doesn't; the meetings usually roam), I don't think the staff would always be invited. But it's also a major anniversary for Dot Org, and the D.C. office got a gala event at which Bill Clinton spoke. Is that too much information? It's not as if anyone who wants to know can't figure it out. Anyway, my point is that if the D.C. office gets the President, then I don't think a few otters and tigers are too much for the Denver staff. Plus, I can chart out for RDC the Backwardness of Lisa and Jenn.

Grocery-shopping in Alfalfa's, I saw a display of yellow tomatoes. That were meant to be yellow. In size between a largish cherry tomato and a smallish regular tomato, firm, and with a peculiar sheen--I'm not used to waxed produce anymore. But yellow tomatoes--that just looked wrong. Mutants, somehow. I told RDC it looked like Bunnicula had been at them.