I don't know this girl

While sitting for five hours of hair straightening treatment - wash, blowdry, apply softening chemicals, wait, wash, partially blowdry, apply straightening cream ("Dang you've got a lot of hair!"), keep applying, still applying, okay, wait, wait, check, wait, check, done, wash, blowdry - I read every word in the June issue of National Geographic. The vestige perks of belonging to an organization. In the mountains just northwest of here, snow leopards and their protection programs built out of Snow leopards hidden in the mountains just northwest of here. A little farther north, and a little farther west, heated indoor kindergarten swimming pools built from oil boom money and how long, exactly, will our cheap oil age last. The question everyone is asking, and even I, who swear by a bike or public transportation, dread a little the answer.

During my five hours at the hair place I also got really hungry, finished the candy I'd bought earlier and chugged water to fill my stomach until sweet ZX brought me bread from the apartment at 9:30. He settled back into the couch he'd tired of earlier and I settled back in to wait.

I asked the girl doing the last wash when they usually close. 10:30, she says, but when I apologize she points out that I'm not the only one still there. The woman with straight black hair (remember the old joke trying to identify one of our students) is having her hair curled. The white girl with thick waves is having hers tamed. There are cell phone snapshots at every stage, taken by the assistant, at the slightly sheepish and covert urging of the main stylist. When I think we're finally done the head stylist is there flipping through a very glossy, very European hairstyling magazine. I think at first that he is showing us how most Westerners have nice, soft, fine hair, and I am ready to agree. My hair is a whole lot of mafan. But he actually is pointing out that my hair straightened looks bad so long. I need one of these bobs. "I'll come back tomorrow," I promise when they continue to tsk-tsk over my unflattering style, "I gotta go get some sleep."