Hair cut: (The Dermatologist prequel)

okay, so this story actually starts 2 weeks ago when I went to get my hair cut. I have attempted to get my hair cut at least 4-5 times since I have lived here, but it has not really worked out, and at the first sign that it might not work out, I chickened out. Curly hair is very common here, and the people here are very beautifully put together (cough*vain*cough). So I should not be afraid, but I have had some bad haircuts in my life, and really wanted to make sure that I would get someone who would know what she was doing.

So, one of my friends and her mom were getting their hair cut one afternoon, and decided to go with them. This friend has wavy hair, and is a great English speaker, so I knew that 1)they lady should be capable, and 2)my desired cut could be communicated correctly. I just wanted a trim. Living here for 1.5 years without cutting my hair, it has grown long, and I really like it. Some of the ladies here have gorgeous long dark curly hair, and I have turned into a wanna-be, I guess!

The lady trimmed it, but suggested that I cut the front a little shorter so that it would fade to the length in the back. But on the first cut in the front I held my breath as she cut 6 inches (I am NOT exaggerating!!) So then I started praying (also not kidding!). For those of you without curly hair, when my hair is wet it is long. As it dries it springs up--which is why my hair looks shorter latter in the day than the morning. (It has taken me years to learn curly taming skills!) So when you cut my hair it looks longer than it is, and then I lose like 2-3 inches as my hair dries. Oh, and some hairs are curlier than others, so there are always a couple straggling ringlets that I have to trim a second time later, because they hang lower than the rest of my hair. So what she said was a fade is now like a steep incline! Thankfully she cut very little off the length in the back.

Anyways, she straightened my hair after she cut it. Which I love! I only do it a couple times a year, because it is so much work. Here though because of the 90% humidity. My straight hair lasts only 45 minutes to an hour. And then it is wavy (which is still cute!) and that will last 2 days till I wash it. So as she was straightening it, my friend's mom (who I really love. I even gave her a mom's day present in the Spring) starts oohing and ahhing over my straight hair. Afterward, we had a miniphoto session in the salon. The stylist was telling me how to pose while mom took pics on her cell phone. Mom even told me that I had to stop by her office building on the way home and get a picture made with my straight hair for her. She insisted, even after I tried to get out of it with the excuse that I didn't have any make-up on. It had all melted off in the blow-drying straightening process. (the stylist took at least 2 breaks in the process to wipe sweat from her face with a tissue!)

So I loved my hair straight, but now that I have washed it, and it has curled back up the front is a little too short (it comes to my mouth and is just barely long enough to tuck behind an ear), and she cut alot of it short, and didn't leave as much long as I wanted. Self consciously, I feel like it is a grown out mullet look, although friends assure me it is not.

I don't have any good pics yet or I would post them. Those are coming soon. Wow, this is a long post and I have not even gotten to the reason for the dermatologist visit which was supposed to be the subject of this post. Please bear with me a little further. Sorry dad and any guys that you had to read all about boring girls hair.

So in the midst of cutting my hair, the stylist stops, because her fingernail ran across a mole on my scalp. She very animatedly proceeded to tell me that I should have it removed because it could break off and get sucked into my brain and possibly kill me. She said that moles below the chest were fine, around the neck was sorta dangerous, but on my head was very dangerous. Then mom starts telling her story about getting a mole removed once. (this is a typical living overseas/difference in culture, and medical practices example. Ask anyone who has lived overseas and I am sure they can list all the medical advice they were freely given which is not true. Like ac or cold water making you sick, or a personal favorite: in Turkey I was told if I sat on the cold concrete patio I would not be able to have children--in the summer heat I took the risk and sat on the cool concrete!)

Back to this story though: I have known I had this mole since I was little, but I had not thought about it as a problem, it is hidden by a lot of hair. Anyways, so after this incident, I decided to look at it for the first time--which involved several mirrors and then a digital camera. haha. And I realized that it was oddly colored red. I had an RN friend and her visiting mother, who she called sorta a mole expert look at it and they suggested that I have it looked at. So I made an apt with a dermatologist. And that is the set-up for my next blog post which will be the visit to the dermatologist this last week.

(As I write this, I am wondering if moles are a taboo subject? Do we talk about them in America? Is it gross that I am writing about them? I mean everyone has them, so it must be okay, right? Also are warts okay to talk about? I need to know about this for my next post.)






Okay, now after proofing my blog post, I wonder if I write poorly. I rarely finish a thought without interrupting it with another thought in a parenthesis (kinda wonder if this is annoying, or makes the story hard to follow?). This would not fly in English class, but this is a blog not English class, so inshallah (Lord-willing) it is okay. One of my pet-peeves about myself is when I don't finish my sentences. It is a bad habit that I do way too often. Even yesterday I caught myself saying, "maybe up on that hill over there, we can ...." instead of a complete sentence "once we arrive at that hill, we can look around, and I can tell if I have been here before." This could be attributed to being an introvert and lots of times we don't vocalize thoughts, comments, or ideas, because we think others won't care or they are not important. I need to work on this. Wow! so that is a whole other topic for a whole other blog post. I was just wondering if using parenthesis to insert little comments, is like speaking in incomplete sentences. (hmmm....)