that was then. this is now.  not that anything has changed, this is just what i sat down and thought to say.

   you know i had a really good day today.  i got up early-ish and read my book for a while, chatted with some marvellously interesting people and then ran from my couch to shower to haircut.  (more about that in a moment).
   from there i went, rented a couple of movies for this evening, got ones that i wanted to see, picked up a sub for break-lunch and came home to eat.  managed to have two more chats with perfectly darling people and headed out of my house to a movie.
   on my walk to the movie i stopped a couple of times, took some oddly interesting pictures, stopped in a bookstore and a music store.  Didn't buy anything though. 
   got to the theatre and used gift certificate i received for my birthday to see Blade 2.  it was actually really good for a vampire kick ass movie and i am happy i saw it.  from here i went to virgin and picked up a CD i had been looking for for a while.
   this is perhaps of note... i don't like hard rock much, i never liked grunge. don't know what it is...i think i just need harmony and melody in my music and this never really seemed to be a part of what that music was about.   well a few years ago, quite a few actually, i a weird drug related experience i fell in love with ministry.  about as hard and industrial as you can get. 
   it never made me like other similar music mind you, just ministry and a few others.  i mean, it took me years to find the next band that i liked in the same way and that was Meat Beat Manifesto.  (i guess not listening to it much would make it difficult to find new stuff). 
   Anyway a month or so ago i went and saw the movie Queen of the Damned (a perfectly rancid, horrible example of movie making, do not go and see it).  i did not like the movie (as you might be able to tell from what i just said.  in fact, i pretty much hated this film.  however there was one thing about it that i did like, like a lot even.  The music.  i don't know what to call it, if anyone out there knows, please inform me, cause i like to be able to label things but i am going to call it industrial trance for the lack of a better term. 
   Since that date i have been searching for the soundtrack.  Hard to find, mostly because of the movie tanking i would guess.  I am listening to it right now.  Much louder than i listen to any music ever.  i think that if they can hear it, my neighbours think that i have been replaced.  It's quite different than the normal Holly Cole. 

   After this purchase i went to the Vancouver Art Gallery and hung out for an hour.  The hour was not nearly enough as they have this new exhibit about Cyborg culture.  Which basically tracks the inclusion of notions of robotism and cyborgism in our culture throughout the last century.  It included studies in anime, literature and film.  Very interesting. 
   Even more interesting was an exhibit by Douglas Gordon.  There was one piece that he did (he does mostly video installations) that has a film noir movie on three huge screens across one wall. there are three showings, each delayed from the next by about a minute.  Each with its own set of speakers playing the sound for the movie at that point.  the result is a cacophony of sounds rising into almost a crescendo as your mind combats the short term memory effects of just having seen a scene out of the corner of your eye as you see it again.  i was saddened when i had to leave as i had spent over 15 minutes just standing there transfixed.  I will be returning.

   After the gallery i returned to the theatre, spent another gift certificate and watched High Crimes.  A not bad, but not great, thriller staring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman.

A short Diatribe about my Hair.
   by spad.

   Ok. i like my hair, i admit it.  I freely admit it.  It's ok, i am vain about it, i have soft, shiny, smooth hair. Others like my hair almost, but not quite, as much as i do.  On the other hand, i don't put a lot of effort into my hair.  I do have two different types of shampoo and conditioner that i alternate using and one of them is a salon product (although i am rather unhappy with the current salon product that i am using and will not be buying it again).  But these are the only products i use and it only gets one brush a day, after i get out of the shower.  In fact this is one of the reasons i like my hair so much, it does what i want it to with minimal effort.
   I have never really cared overly much who cuts my hair.  I have a very simple hairstyle to cut and just about anyone with 20 minutes training and their own pair of scissors could handle it.  While i was in school and moving around and such, i probably had 15 or 20 different people cut my hair.  I don't think i can ever remember being disappointed much with any one job. I'm just easy going in the hair department.
   With the exception of Vinny, before moving to Vancouver i doubt i could tell you if i ever even had the same stylist more than once.  I mean they have a lot of turnover at Supercuts you know?   (oh my god, i don't believe it, they have a website!!!)
   Vinny was an experience all to himself.  He was my hair stylist (if by stylist you mean barber) for my time in Kingston while i was going to School.  Vinny had a lot of things going against him.  For one he owned his own shop, a 70 year old dilapidated shack, it was dirty, dingy and old.  For another, there was always a line up of about 4 in front of you, no appointments.  It did take him an average of 10 minutes per haircut though.  For another, pretty much the only dialogue you would find in the shack was about hunting or fishing.  For a last, about three times a year the shop would be closed for a week with a sign on the door that would indicate which hunting season he was closed for.   On the other hand he had two very important things going for him; a haircut cost $4.50 (i tipped to $5) and he did a good, fast job.
   When i moved to Vancouver 4 years ago, i sort of looked around for a Supercuts or some other chain of Hair Salons because they tend to be the cheapest but soon discovered that i lived in the wrong place for a chain of hair salons.  I scoped out and went into a place here one day, basically because it wasn't horribly expensive, i needed a haircut and it was close.  Twenty dollars seemed like a little much at that point to pay for a haircut but it was as satisfactory an experience as every other i had ever had so this is the place i went back to.
   After i had been there a few times, a few times of answering the question, 'who would you like to see,' when making the appointment,  'whomever,' i started asking for a specific person.  I guess Kane had done my hair a couple of times in a row and had made the effort to give me his card.  I had liked what he had done to my hair and it now seemed easier to just say Kane when asked the question.  Before you know it, i have a stylist.
   I get to go around saying things like, 'i have to go and see Kane today,' or 'I have to consult with Kane before i choose a colour for my hair.'  Very pretentious and cool sounding. I began to like it. I began to like having an ongoing conversation that just took 7 weeks off in between.  With Kane i began to experiment a little, i coloured my hair for the first time with Kane, i streaked it as well.  I liked Kane. We had a relationship.  As i understand it, this is something that people do all the time, especially women-folk.  People have important relationships with their stylists.

   Well, a strange and unsettling thing happened to me on Thursday.  It had been two months since my last cut, i was getting shaggy, so i called up the salon and asked for an appointment.  When i was asked the question, i said Kane.  Only this time it met a sort of shocked silence.  Kane had left two months ago, didn't i know this? (as if i keep tabs on the goings on of a hair salon)  I was taken a little aback.  What did they mean Kane was gone, Kane was my guy, Kane did my hair.  Most importantly, i walked into the salon on an early Saturday morning, closed my eyes and drifted away, answering his questions about my life on autopilot as he cut my hair without asking how i wanted it.
   That was the most important thing about our relationship i think.  We didn't have to talk about my hair anymore.  I didn't have to answer the questions about what to do with it.  We knew, he did the same thing each time i came in.  The most we did was banter about whether i was going to let him colour me again soon.  I didn't have to answer difficult questions early in the morning.  He knew what to do.
   I think i recovered ok.  I answered her questions.  Yes i would like to make the appointment still.  Yes it would be for Saturday morning at 10.  No i didn't care who the appointment was with.  No, i didn't care if it was a man or woman.  Yes, someone named richard would be fine.  Sure it was great that i would be VERY happy with richard.  She made a point of stressing how happy i would be with richard.  Perhaps she understood that losing your stylist was a traumatic experience.
   After this i gave it no further thought. (ha! do you believe this.  i kept wondering what had happened to Kane and knew that i was going to miss him).  Saturday morning comes along and i leave the house just slightly too late to be on time.  I walk fast but i do arrive 2 minutes late.  For some reason it was in my mind that i had to make a good impression on the new stylist. Why? I don't know, don't ask me such things, perhaps i have a hyper-polite gene or something.  I am told that he would be with me in a second or two (Kane was always ready for me when i arrived, but i don't dwell on this fact). 
   I sit and read, for some reason, a little discomforted.  I don't know why, a new stylist has never bothered me before.  A woman comes in and sits down beside me, she is wearing a Queens sweatshirt and whereas this might be enough for me normally to strike up a conversation something about today makes this impossible for me. 
   After reading for a while i realize it is 20 after 10.  Twenty minutes?  They would keep me waiting this long when i am trying to make a difficult and possibly traumatic transition to a new stylist?  By this point i think i have allowed myself to think of this situation within myself as perhaps a little difficult for me to have to deal with all on my own. I am just starting to have thoughts like, 'how dare they do this to me. first they let Kane go, now they let me wait for 20 minutes for his so-called replacement. this richard?' and 'I'm going to get up, walk out of here, without saying anything to them and just try another salon.'
   Moments before i am thinking about allowing myself to come to some sort of conclusion, the receptionist speaks to me.  'Finally,' i think to myself.  Only it is not good news.  Apparently they have made a mistake.  they hadn't told richard about my appointment they told him that he had to be in the salon at 11. The receptionist tells me that i can reschedule with richard or Fiona can take me right then.  Well, i certainly don't know richard from adam and have no idea if he is worth a reschedule (i think it would have to be cyndi crawford cutting my hair in the nude for me to readily admit they are worth a reschedule at this point) so i say i will go with Fiona.
   Well, Fiona is annoying. She starts the most pedantic annoyingly meaningless conversations about nothing.  Even when i try to make it interesting she injects dullness right back into it. right now, i tell you, i am missing Vinny.  talking about hunting would have been far less painful.
   On top of this, she manages to pull my hair while she is cutting it with the thinning scissors.  More than once, more than twice.  I guess the one good thing to come of all this is that she actually does a good job in the end.  My hair looks good.  But did i mention that i have never had a bad cut in my life and that most semi-trained 11 year olds could do a passable job of it? 
   When i get to the counter to pay i ask the receptionist to put a couple of extra dollars on the interac for a tip for...and i ask her name again, because i have forgotten it (in fact at this point i am not even sure it is Fiona anymore but that name works as well as any other).  The receptionist tells me the name and even helpfully searches out and gives me her card.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that i wanted her name so that i could ensure that she never cut my hair again.
   you know how people have a rebound girlfriend or boyfriend after they break up with someone. well, i am considering Fiona my rebound hair dresser.   At least i don't have to think about this again for another couple of months.