i heart the happy hair man

Yesterday I sat in the hair salon for 5+ hours as I got my hair straightened. I don't care that it gave me a butt ache, or if indulging in such vanity is anti-feminist, what matters is that it only cost $8. That's right, a process that usually costs $200 in the US, or $40 here in China, was SUPER cheap yesterday as part of a New Years Special.

The only drawback: the chemicals definitely seeped into my brains because I ended up developing a huge crush on my hair stylist. WTF? haha. One reason is that I seriously don't get out enough: the only dudes my age that I've been able to look at for more than a few minutes at a time are my students, and the line there impenetrable. So being able to look at this dude (hair styling is "men's work" here) for the better part of my day was quite a relief. Plus he smiled the entire time. The default face in Fuling is hardly ever a smile, so this was a real treat.

But what really got to me was when it came time to flat iron my hair. As he'd run the flat iron through my hair, he'd gently blow off the steam from the roots to the tips, over and over and over. Who the fuck does that??? After five hours of being in mirror land with him, I was completely hypnotized. When he was done, I stumbled to the cash register, where he successfully convinced me to buy a VIP card and to return on Monday for a hair wash. WTF. I wonder how long a hair wash could possibly take? :P Clearly, I am intimacy starved. Not a good thing.