What Lana Knows About Hair

This morning I looked at my hair and decided that if I didn't get it cut in the next hour I would hack it off myself with the chicken shears. I haven't had a regular hairdresser since my beloved *can't remember her actual name since it was three years ago but she was awesome* left to return to the country. So I made an appointment with Lana's hairdresser, because her hair looks great, and it had to be better than the chicken shears.

Ten minutes later I was en route to meet Lana herself before attending my hair appointment. And as I parked the car and walked up to the cafe, I looked down at myself and realised the horrible truth. I was wearing a shapeless white top over a tank top, pared with nondescript jeans and flat boots. It was a disaster. My hair was going to look terrible.

this is what can happen if you don't dress well

I'm not dressed cool enough to go to the hairdresser! I texted Lana, overcome with panic.

Change! she replied, knowing exactly what I meant.

I'll have to buy clothes! I wrote. Or you'll have to swap with me. Do you look cool?

Of course, she responded. Cutting edge. So to speak. 

Well, she didn't look cool, at least, no cooler than me. She was wearing jeans and a plain black top, with Birks on her feet, and there was no way I was going to get a decent haircut in that outfit.

I considered buying something new, but there was no time, and besides, there was no money. Lana was prepared to shout me a coffee, but not a Zara ensemble, not even to guarantee the beauty of my coiffure. I considered stripping down to my tank top to show the stylist my tattoo, so that he would know I was worthy of an of-the-moment look. But that seemed a little far fetched, and there was a nip in the air, and so I trudged to my appointment knowing I was doomed.

Lana knows, as I do, that a hair stylist will only give you the cut he thinks you deserve. If you are daggy, you will get a daggy do. If you are hip, you will walk out looking like Miley Cyrus. If you are me, you will walk out looking pretty much the same as you always do, though with a head full of expensive product you felt too guilty not to buy.

Happily, the hairdresser seemed to accept my assurances that I was very young and groovy, despite all evidence to the contrary. He gave me a lovely cut, leaving me with a bounce in my hair and expensive product in my hand.

But my experience is the exception, not the rule. Listen to me. Listen to Lana. Wear your very best outfit to your hairdressing appointment, and make your stylist believe you are worthy of good things.

My hair is looking nice. But if only I'd worn my cute French top, grey skinny pants and Zara heeled boots, I would have looked fantastic.

10 (New) Plagues

Here's a rare Biblical reference for you:

In Exodus, Pharoah refused to let the Israelites out of Egypt. So God came down on him really hard, with a series of 10 plagues intended to change his mind.

They were pretty awful. Blood, frogs, lice, flies, diseased livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness... and then, when all that failed, death of the firstborn.

Of course it's a parable. It has to be. I mean, if God was omnipotent, he'd just let the Israelites out of Egypt himself. Or, you know, kill Pharoah.

But it's a good story. However, it's one that needs updating. Frogs, lice and boils? Come on. These are hardly disasters in this day and age.

No, I think we need new plagues, ones that would devastate Pharoahs of the modern era.

The Sixth Plague - EARWORM

And I have some suggestions:

1. Bad hair day EVERYDAY. What Pharoah could cope with having crap hair every single day of his life? It would destroy his confidence and hence his leadership.
2. Paper cut. Small but devastating.
3. Itchy bum. More maddening than lice, itchy bum also causes embarrassing public displays of bottom touching, which would completely undermine Pharoah's authority.
4. No coffee. All God would have to do is destroy coffee supplies around the world and Pharoah would collapse in a pathetic heap of despair.
5. Insomnia. The absolute worst. No elaboration required.
6. Earworm. Just get Gangnum Style stuck in Pharoah's head for days at a time. He'll cave. No question about it.
7. No Mobile Reception. A Pharoah can't lead if he can't communicate. He's going DOWN.
8. Advertorials. No TV programs, just endless loops of AbToneFit promos and offers of saucepan sets with free steak knives!
9. No Wifi. Pharoah will die of despair on the spot.
10. Zombie invasion. Just because.

Top Eight Times I Feel Eight Years Old

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being chastised by the nice dude at Bob Jane T-Mart. I came in to get my tyre repaired, and he examined it and shook his head.

"You drove on that when it was flat, didn't you?"

Yes, I did, it's true, but in my defence I didn't realise it was flat. I just heard a funny grinding sound, and felt my car pull to the left. And a grinding sound and a pulling sensation could have been anything at all (which is what I kept telling myself as I drove home on a flat tyre).

So the man told me off, and I felt like I was about eight years old. And it made me think of all the other times I feel about eight years old (as distinct from the times I feel about 88, which is a different list altogether).

Top Eight Times I Feel Eight Years Old

1. When buying a car, getting my car serviced, dealing with the NRMA, getting car insurance, or indeed having any discussion that involves the words 'car', 'tyre', 'engine', 'brake pads' or 'alignment'. Hell, even the word 'petrol' makes me anxious.
2. Being at the hairdressers. Something about the absolute powerlessness of sitting in a chair whilst someone wields a pair of scissors reduces me to virtually a fetal state. Particularly after they take the first snip.
3.  Being at the dentist. Except substitute 'whirring machinery pointed at your mouth' for 'scissors', and multiply the fetal state by about a thousand.
4. Going to the doctor and presenting with symptoms and being told there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. There is nothing quite so infantalising as discovering you are a hypochondriac. Except for...
5. Going to the doctor and presenting with symptoms and being told there is something wrong with you. And then it doesn't matter how old you are; you become eight years old again and want your Mummy!
6. Being pulled over by the police for any kind of traffic violation. (I say this purely hypothetically, of course.)
7. Anytime anyone talks to me about the sharemarket, particularly futures trading. It is stupid and doesn't make sense and I will stick my fingers in my ears if you bring it up again.
8. When my parents are cross at me. That is the WORST.

When do you feel eight years old?

What IS It With Men & Hair?

The other day I got my hair cut. It's not a big deal. I didn't get a buzz cut, or a mohawk, or - god forbid - a mullet. I got a fairly standard, chin length, concave bob; you know, shorter in the back, slightly longer in the front. My hair is curly so it bounces up. But it's not that short, and it wasn't that drastic a cut, and at the end of the day it's just hair.

So why did my husband freak out so much?

Okay, he didn't exactly 'freak out'. He didn't cry or throw things or rent his clothes or tear his hair or run of the house screaming 'WHY, KERRI? WHYYYYYYYYY?'

If my husband had his way.....

But he did look horrified.

"I hate it," he said to me. "I hate it!"

I shrugged. "I really like it," I told him. "And there's nothing I can do now, anyway."

"Grow it!" he pleaded, despairingly. "I want you to grow it back! Now!"

My husband is 46 years old and has a masters degree. I hadn't anticipated his faulty grasp of the laws of biology and physics, but it's always interesting to learn new things about your partner.

"You do know hair doesn't grow six inches overnight?" I asked him.

"I can't look at you," he cried. "I'm not going to look at you till it grows back!"

"Okay!" I said. I poked him in the chest. He looked at me. I giggled.

Since getting my hair cut I've discovered that many men seem overly invested in their partner's tresses. They become distressed or unsettled if she cuts her hair significantly, with the level of upset proportionate to the number of inches trimmed. It's like a Rapunzel complex, only without the eternal youth, and I have to wonder what it's all about.

Perhaps men subconsciously link their own masculinity to the length of their partner's locks. Or perhaps some primal instant links long hair with fertility and the ability to skin and cook a woolly mammoth. Or perhaps they just like to see hair on the pillow that's not theirs. I DON'T KNOW.

All I know is that I love my new hair. And my husband seems to be getting used to it. Or at least, he's stopped talking about how little hair I have. Which is good. Very good. Because once we're on that topic, let me just say....

Just When I Think I Haven't Mortified Myself Enough

So. I have a treat for you.

Just when I think I can't possibly expose anymore of myself.

Just when I think I can't share more of the intimate and mortifying details of my life.

Just when I think there is nothing left to laugh at.....

This turns up.

Remember that TV mini-series I did when I was 16? Well, none of the footage remains, and sadly my only VHS copy of the show disintegrated long before the invention of the DVD.

However, an intrepid reader, Suzie, dug this up from the archives of the Australian Film and Sound Archives. A very short clip from my series, Butterfly Island, showing me, as Sally, with Grandma hair, Harry Highpants shorts, no bra, and a man wearing long white socks.

I figured I could either show it to you myself, or wait until someone else outed me.

And so, without further ado, here it is.

My shame.

An Australian Girl In London, Part 2

I am still in London, and I am still having adventures. I have not yet met Prince Harry, or even a less interesting royal figure like Prince Charles, but I have been touched by the hand of a wizard.

But we must start with breakfast.

I found a lovely restaurant called Muriel's kitchen where my mum and I took our morning meal. (I think that sounds very British, don't you?) There were platters of toast with little crock pots of butter and big glass jars of jam. There were steaming mugs of coffee and eggs any way and muffins and beans and spinach.

And then there was some disgusting black pudding made with the blood of a pig that British people seem to call 'food'. I will eat London eggs and I will munch London bread, but if they think I'm dining on some slab of bloody intestines that looks like a slice of car tyre... well, all I can say is, GIVE ME MY VEGEMITE.

Later that day I felt a tug inside, and was compelled to return to my spiritual home. No, not Australia! My real spiritual home. WESTFIELD. Sigh. Do you not know me at all?

My mother and I descended on Westfield London with tremendous enthusiasm. The shops! The food court! The even more shops! I bought about 20 billion items, at least three of which were for my kids. And I felt calm again, and at peace, for the first time since I left Australia.

The next day I began my publicity schedule. But I was having a bad hair day, and I couldn't possibly do publicity for my book with bad hair. So I found a nice salon and I enquired at the counter if there was anyone who could cut my long, curly hair.

"Oh, congratulations, you've won the hair lottery!" beamed Steven (as, I later learned, was his name).

"Really?" I asked. I was skeptical.

"Oh yes," he assured me. "I can fit you in with Julian. They call him the hair wizard, you know. He will transport you to new hair heights." (And no, I am not even kidding.)

I was keen to be transported to new hair heights, so off I went into Julian's arms. Well. Julian turned out to be a devastatingly handsome, 24 year old, straight Portugese hairdresser with the arms of a Greek god and the hands of a celebrity stylist. He did transport me to new heights, and not just of hair. It was a very good morning, and a very good cut.

After that, I did my interivews. I was dazzling. Well, at least my hair was. Given that the interviews were both on radio, that may or may not have been relevant.

But I felt really, really happy with my day. And I'm loving Juli... I mean London, to bits.

BASTARD

As conscientious blog readers will know, I set up an Elliptical Fucking Trainer in my office the other day. Aside from worries about whether I would ever get it assembled, and whether - if assembled - I would ever use the damn thing, my primary concern was how my husband The Architect would respond.

The Architect is a man of vision. Our home resembles a clean, white spaceship (or at least, in his vision it is. In reality, it's more like a messy white spaceship with Spongebob memorabilia scattered on the concrete floors, and Nutella smeared on the Improbably White Couch).

The Architect designed both the exteriors and interiors, and is very specific about what he will 'allow'* in the house. Minimalist white furniture is encouraged, despite the presence of three children and a bunny. Clear plastic stools are celebrated. A futuristic pod takes pride of place in the corner. And the dining table is made of steel and glass. Practical, I know. Sigh....

Wall hangings are few, and carefully chosen, and decorative items are sparse. At the beginning of our relationship The Architect even tried to limit the number of photos I could display to five at a time. Of course, I completely ignored him, but he really did try.

So given his delicate aesthetic sensibilities, how on earth would The Architect accept an Elliptical Fucking Trainer? It has no beauty, or designer features. It's a machine, and an ugly one at that.

But I wanted my EFT. I wanted it bad. And so I hatched a cunning plan. I decided to smuggle it into my office when The Architect wasn't home, assemble it myself, dispose of the packaging, and when he inevitably noticed it, pretend that it had been there for months. Sounds absolutely infallible, right?

I shared the cunning plan with the two older kids, and enlisted them to help. We practised saying "Dad, it's been here for months, are you going mad?" for a least a week before the EFT arrived. And on the day I brought it home, we practised again whilst waiting for The Architect to walk in the door. We were primed. We were ready. It was time to take him on.

"Hi," said The Architect, walking into my office and kissing me on the cheek. "How was your day?"

"Daddy!!!!" cried Boo, who had been standing on the EFT.

"Hi Boo!" he answered, and picked her up and swung her into his arms. "I missed you!"

Er... HELLO husband??? Are you BLIND???

"So what's going on?" he asked me again. I just shook my head blankly.

"Daddy, I been exercising!" said Boo. "On the machine!"

"Great!" said The Architect, leaning against the EFT. "So what's for dinner?" I scanned his face. No hint of recognition. No hint of surprise. NOTHING.

The big kids bounced into the room, ready to do their part. "Hi Dad!" they said uncertainly, waiting... waiting... nothing... nothing...

"Hi kids! Let's go play!" he answered. I couldn't take it any more.

"DO YOU NOT NOTICE ANYTHING?" I yelled.

"What?" he asked.

"THE THING YOU'RE LEANING AGAINST."

"You mean, our Elliptical Trainer? We've had it for months, right?"

I looked at him hard. And I had to admit. He got me. He got me GOOD.

I hate that Elliptical Fucking Trainer.

*I use inverted commas to represent his illusion that he is actually in control.

No Dinner, I'm Straight

Last night I straightened my hair. That isn't unusual. I straighten my hair a lot, generally when I have somewhere to go or someone to impress, and I don't want them to notice that I have dreadlocks under my curls like a Rastafari bongo player.

The thing is, last night I had nowhere to go and no-one to impress. The only thing that was on the agenda was ‘Home Duties’*, and the only people I could potentially impress were my kids (who think my hair looks 'weird' when it's straight because I 'don't look like Mummy') and my husband (who has seen me on the toilet with a pore strip on my nose, so is probably incapable of being impressed at this point).

What's more, it was raining outside, and the forecast was for more rain, so I knew that my hair would remain straight for approximately 21 seconds once I left the house this morning, and, as any woman with a GHD will know, half straight hair is far worse than hair that is not straightened at all**.

Even more significantly, I still had to bathe the toddler, feed the kids, do some laundry, clean up, supervise homework and make the school lunches, and I didn’t have time to straighten my stupid hair.

So why did I do it? Because the straightener was there. Yes, I saw it when I opened the bathroom cabinet, an idea popped into my head, and despite the fact that the kids were waiting for dinner and the toddler was prancing around naked from the waist down, I just had to use it. Like an older Jessica Watson, the straightener was my boat and my curly hair was the sea***.

It happens a great deal. I’ll have a long list of urgent and important things to do, and I’ll get completely sidetracked by some non-urgent and irrelevant task. Like painstakingly cleaning our entire white couch at 6pm on a Saturday night when guests are about to arrive and there are clothes strewn all over the floor, a mountain of toys on the table, and several days worth of dishes still in the sink. Or suddenly deciding I need to trim my fringe at 7.30am when I’m supposed to be getting the kids to school. (Never try that one. The kids arrive late, and it takes a $120 hairdressing appointment to repair the damage.)

So what is it with my constant segueing? I feel like the only way I could keep on track is to stay in a bare white room with no distractions until the task at hand is complete. Trouble is, it would be difficult to prepare dinner, bathe the kids or get them ready for school in a bare white room with no distractions. I mean, for one thing, where would the food and the clothes live?

So for now, I shall continue my careless ways, starting one chore and ending up doing something completely different. I mean, even this post took me three hours to write.

I straightened my hair again in between writing.

It rained this morning, you know.


*using ‘Home’ in the sense of ‘Crap’
**actually I use an FHI, but I presumed none of you would know what that is
***just threw in that Jessica Watson reference to keep my post fresh and newsy. Cool, huh?

Bad Hair Life

As a 40 year old woman* who's given birth to three children, there's not all that much about my appearance that I can be thrilled about. What with my varicose veins, wrinkles, pot belly and post-breastfeeding boobies, I'm not quite the young, firm goddess** I used to be.

Still, there's a modicum of atttractiveness that I still cling to, one feature of which I can be rightfully proud: my long, lustrous, curly, brown hair.

So why, oh why, is motherhood conspiring to take that away from me too?

Now, before you jump to conclusions, I am not going grey, and I am certainly not going bald. But my hair is being hijacked in an even more insidious way. By lice.

Yes, my family has been hit by a lice infestation again. As my daughter says, it's like Santa Claus has come and given her lice eggs instead of presents***. A Santa Crawls, if you will. And, though I don't have lice this time, I have had it before (though please do not ask me to speak of it. The memory is still too painful.) So when my daughter has lice, I need to whack on the lice treatment. Otherwise it will be me teeming with hideous insects too, and god knows I've got enough problems to deal with. Like children. And a husband.

It happens time and time again. Off goes my daughter to school, freshly scrubbed and beaming, only to return seven hours laater with dozens of horrid little visitors in her long, fair hair. So not only must I spend hours chasing her around the house, plyinng her with lice-remover and torturing her with a fine-tooth commb, I must then spend my own precious child-free time engaging in evil-smelling preventative anti-lice measures.

No more good hair days for me. I skulk around the house topped with creams and potions, my sticky hair buried under a shower cap for hours at a time. When I venture out, it's with a tight plait slathered in layers of conditioner in the hope that the remaining creatures will perish due to lack of oxygen.

Of course, my husband doesn't have enough hair to warrant treatments, and will never know the torment of dragging a tiny comb through about 20 million hairs. The insects check him out, decide the terrain is too barren, and start looking for other, more fertile heads to plague. Like mine. So, as with weak bladders, cracked nipples, caesarean scars and stretch marks, lice are a cross the mother must bear on her own****.

And now I shall go and rinse the lice foam off my hair, and plaster on some more preventative goo before I venture out in the world. Then I'll pick up the children, with my hair in a bun, hoping that today, my kids are coming home alone.

*using '40' in the sense of 'was 40 very recently'
**using 'goddess' in the sense of 'just your average woman who hasn't given birth to three children
***(quite an interesting metaphor coming from a little Jewish girl)
****except, I suppose, for men with really thick, long hair, but they tend to be World Championship Wrestlers, or rock stars from the 70s, neither group of which is likely to come in contact with young children with lice

How Nicole Kidman Stole My Life - Part 2

"LOST IN CATERING"

The first impediment to my brilliant career was my hair. Why, I hear you ask? After all, Nicole got through with hers, and it was frizzy and red.

Well let me tell you, red curls are a dream compared to the short grey hair that I was sporting.

Yes, for my foray into fame, I had short grey hair. Of course, I didn't have short grey hair in the weeks before the shoot. I was 15 years old, for god's sake! I had gorgeous brown curls, hanging down past my shoulders. But after the director decided I needed blonde streaks, and the hairdresser made an error with the mixture, I turned grey in a tragic bleaching accident. To try to cover it up, they then dyed my entire hair, which left me grey, but with streaks of orange. To try to cover that up, they cut my hair to my neck. Then my ears. Then above my ears. Then it lost its curl, so they permed it. The final result provided an excellent solution to the problem of a 15 year old girl playing a nearly-18 year old. I now looked approximately 65.

Still, the good news was that I was still very slim, and - after several production sponsored sessions at the solarium - tanned. So off I went, with grey hair and stars in my eyes, to Queensland.

The mini-series was being shot as a film, and films are shot out of sequence. All the exteriors were being photographed in a six week shoot on a small island near Cairns. Cast and crew would be accommodated in the motel type facilities, before returning to Sydney for another six weeks of studio work.

And it was here, in Queensland, on location, where I personally erected the next hurdle on my path to superstardom. More like a roadblock, really.

It had to do with what I put in my mouth.

Film sets are notorious for their lavish catering. Full, hot breakfasts, morning teas of cakes and pastries, stodgy lunches, more sweets for afternoon tea, massive dinners with a selection of desserts, and suppers for night shoots. They are designed to help the mostly male crew to keep up their strength for the physical exertions of the day (not to mention their physical exertions of the night, another thing film sets are notorious for, but that's another story).

For me, it was a paradise. Up until now, my mum had been primarily responsible for what I ate, and she kept a very healthy home. I'd eat the dinners she cooked, and make breakfasts and lunches from the selection of ingredients in our kitchen. Away from her and my dad, with buffets on display five times a day, every single day, I went a bit beserk. Porridge and french toast for breakfast, muffins for morning tea, burgers for lunch, cakes, hot chips, ice cream, pasta, schnitzels..... My costumes got tighter and tighter, my cheeks got fuller and fuller, and with my short grey hair I took on the appearance of a molding Mr Potato Head.

By the time we arrived back in Sydney to shoot the interiors, I had gained a stone. By the end of the 12 week shoot, I had gained nearly two.

The continuity girl was frantic. It was her job to ensure that all the shots filmed at different times matched up to make one cohesive scene, one flawless narrative. This posed a tremendous challenge when the scene showed Sally frolicking in denim cut-offs on the beach, a petite size eight, only to walk through the door and enter the family home, suddenly a rather chunky size 12.

The makeup artist spoke to me sternly, the wardrobe mistress lectured me about my responsibilities, but I was a 17 (ehem - 15) year old girl, away from home for the first time, virtually unsupervised, and I was running wild.

Needless to say, the producers were unimpressed. The mini-series turned out to be reasonably successful, and it was picked up as a regular series. Sally, however, was written out. Apparently, she had left her island home to become a flight attendant. Clearly on an airline without weight restrictions.

TV week reported that I was likely to return for "several of the new season episodes". This several turned out to be "one". So humiliated was I with my big (literally) failure that I politely declined the offer of a day's work, and another girl was flown in for eight hours to play Sally. Apparently she wasn't very good either.

In the end, I went back to school and let go of my acting ambitions. Still, it was fun while it lasted. I had my moment in the sun, light streaming through my orange streaks, my fat cheeks glowing with health.

Maddeningly, though, there is always that reminder of what could have been... the woman whose career mirrored my own, up until she took off into the stratosphere, and I headed back to the buffet for seconds.

Ah, Nicole. My nemesis. Bet you're glad I stood aside.

Shaving It All Off

This may come as a shock to you, but I'm fantasizing about shaving it all off.

I have these fantasies from time to time, when I'm tired of all the trimming and styling. When it drives me crazy that - even after fluffing and adding product and putting clips in it - nine times out of ten it still looks messy. I just think it would be easier to be bald.

This current fantasy about shaving my head (yes my head, what did you think I meant?) has been coming on for a while. And it's luring me in with the promise of tangle-free mornings; of days without frizz; of evenings without my shiny head of cascading curls mutating into a dreadlocked mess of chunky knots.

On days like today, on a Bad Hair Afternoon, in a Bad Hair Week, at the end of a Bad Hair Month, I understand what Britney went through on that fateful day in the salon. I wonder if her 'bizarre' head-shaving may have had less to do with a drug-fuelled breakdown, and more to do with being tired of scraggly, overly bleached, impossible-to-comb long hair. (Okay, so maybe the drug-fuelled breakdown had something to do with it, but I'm sure it was the scraggly hair that was the clincher.)

Most women know Bad Hair Days. We all have times when we long for our hair to be different, whether thicker, finer, straighter, more curly, flatter, or more bouffant. But surely it's not just women who feel frustrated with their coiffs? Surely men feel the angst too? Not all, of course; after all, my husband doesn't seem to worry about styling - the fact that he has still has some hair at all is a source of delight to him. But perhaps men like Vin Diesel and Bruce Willis are bald not out of genetics but choice, having rejected a lifetime of knots and split ends in favour of a shiny, easy-to-maintain pate?

As a young woman, I was full of Hair Hope. I was sure that if I just kept searching, I would find the right product, the right hairdresser, the right style, and the right hairdrier to make my hair perfect. My hair would fall, magnificently, in beautifully defined ringlets, with just the right amount of body on the top, and just the right number of tendrils gently grazing my face below.

Now, as a more, er, mature person, I have come to accept reality. Which is that my perfect hair is never going to happen. The best I'm going to get is a nice cut and blowdry every so often (interspersed with some really crappy ones), creating a look I will only be able to replicate on rare occasions by complete fluke, and never on a day I actually have plans.

So for now, it's fantasies about shaving, which I shall harbour until my hairdressing appointment on Friday. And I'm really going to have a radical change this time. I might even let my hairdresser cut a whole three centimetres off.

What, you think I want to be bald???