Times They Are A Changin'

I looked at the old women in the salon getting primped and fluffed by very flamboyant gay men and skinny bleach blonde girls talking animatedly with their clients and wondered at all who are making their ways as the mechanics of fashion. Just like a car mechanic will get under the hood of a car, allowing themselves to get covered in grease, flecks of road bits and gasoline; so will the hairstylists of our era undertake such feats of tinkering and tooling around.

By the time I was done with my session, I felt like a suped-up version of myself. I was invited to be a model for Bumble and Bumble's styling school and I haven't regretted a single moment of waiting patiently in my chair as a girl sweeps my hair all over the place with graceful fingers. I never realized the potential in beauty schools. These people training to be better beauticians always need models to come in and allow themselves to be guinea pigs for a few hours, but the results: like having professional hair cuts and designs for free! Woohoo!

Change is always scary for me, though. I feel like I can't quite take in the reality of a change unless I assign a certain amount of anxiety to it first. So, after getting my hair colored I walked in to the bathroom and looked at myself and became panicked. Crap! I look nothing like myself! I look like an impostor! I look like Jennifer Lopez! And even after I got home and had my sister play the "calm Natalie down" game, I felt only marginally better about the anxiety that was threatening to make me put on a wig.

To calm down I looked up what the Republicans were saying about the Re-Election. Now, there's a group of people who know what I'm going through to a certain extent! I read a couple of excerpts from a couple of Tea-Party members that was sent out stating that "America was Dead" and that we are all headed for Doom. That made me feel better. Those people are freaking out over a whole lot of issues and I'm scared over a couple of new streaks in my hair.

Well, here's to change! Here's to the first dye job I have ever had done professionally (first job was done in High School by my teenage cousins). And I'll leave with a quote from Bob Dylan, who sums it up so eloquently:

"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'."