My Hair Versus The Aveda Institute
Yesterday was a big day for me and my hair. I had been putting off a haircut for awhile and it was time to get rid of some of my locks. It was a growing concern of all who knew me and was taking on new and different shapes daily depending on the weather and the amount of hat time I gave it.

I started going to the Aveda Institute about a year ago, which is to say three haircuts ago. The run down on the Aveda Institute is that it’s a school, a training ground, a learning center for those who wish to be beautiful and get paid to help others reach the same goal. It’s cheap cause they’re just students – so you take a risk. Your first sign of doom, that something could go horribly wrong occurs just after you walk through the frosted glass doors. You are immediately asked to sign a waiver, letting you know that no matter what happens on top of your head you may not come after them with shaking fists and loud voices. When you sign that slip, all bets are off. It’s basically a crap shoot and one I had been fairly lucky at so far. I was rolling sevens and feeling confident. But like a fine day at the race track, not all your horses can win, place, or show. Some just stumble out the gate and fall on a game leg. That was my hair cut yesterday. A disaster by all accounts. I think I could have walked into the Minneapolis downtown prison and handed a scissors to the first inmate I saw and received a better and more timely cut.

I wanted to say “deals off” as soon as I saw the girl. I believe at a beauty salon any type of profiling is O.K. She was literally half my size, the tinniest person I had ever seen. I didn’t think this would be physically possible. Sitting down in the chair, slouching as far down as my back could stand it, I still don’t think she was able to see over the top of my head. I was an idiot for not putting an end to this hilarity from the word go. My student had hands that were scared and timid, as if they were new and she was just getting used to them. The scalp massage was just strange. She moved one finger gingerly over my melon in a fashion that was very similar to how I use my track pad mouse – gentle and wandering. Everything she did was performed in this anxious timid way, but very calculated, which translated into many long minutes and then a couple painful hours. When she finally got around to cutting my hair I barely even knew she was at work. I couldn’t feel anything happening. Still today, I don’t think she did any real cutting of my hair. Thankfully, every 10 minutes or so she would call over an instructor who would take the scissors to my head violently and rapidly for about 15 seconds and then hand the scissors back to the student and say, “looks good”. I think the instructor cut more hair in an accumulated 60 seconds then this poor little girl did in an hour and a half. I kept asking questions like “shouldn’t you use that scissors thing with the comb to thin my hair?”. Which got a “Yes” but then I never saw the tool leave the polished chrome of her table. I usually like to get a straight razor to my hair to finish off the cut. It gives me that uptown look, but I couldn’t stand the thought of a straight razor in this girls hands so I kept real quite and walked out of the joint knowing full well that I would soon need to turn to a professional for a supplemental haircut.

Sitting in that chair for two hours I did have the fortune to get a good vibe on the Aveda Institute. It’s a very interesting culture. I enjoyed watching the foreign janitor up on a ladder polishing the same piece of wood (pun intended) for over an hour as he kept close watch on the 50 or so girls working the floor. I was struck by the site of the lone male aveda student who was chubby, had bad hair, and a shirt that was open way too far. He looked very uncomfortable as he sat alone at his station trying to give his disembodied practice head a weave. It was one of the saddest things I had seen in a long time. I would also like to write about the pervasiveness of what I can only call the Christina Aguilera 
Syndrome amongst the practicing students but I must now go get my own hair ready for the work day.