Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Una's job is to inspect all new clothing. She approves.
And no, I didn't get it specifically to match my dresser.

Yesterday, The Gryphon got a hair cut from my hair stylist. This was something of a big deal, since he has long hair and hadn't had it trimmed since before we started dating, almost two years ago.

It wasn't so much that he didn't want to go to a hair stylist as he hadn't gotten around to it, and the hair stylist friend who used to cut his hair had stopped working at the salon where he used to work. So I made the process easy by calling and making an appointment.

When he met my hair stylist, she asked him first what sort of cut he was looking for. He said he just wanted a trim. Then she kidded, "What does she want?" and nodded at me.

I was quiet and quickly averted my eyes. Not for any particular reason, but mostly because it was funny. I'm terrible about things like that, but I was in a silly mood. Of course, then The Gryphon thought that I wanted him to cut his hair short.

I tried to reassure him. "I want you to be happy," I said, only realizing as the words came out of my mouth that this could be misinterpreted to me "but it doesn't make me happy." Hastily, I added, "I like your hair."

He does have nice hair, which is fine and curly. It's lightened over the five years since I've known him, partly because of the growing influx of silver hair and partly, I believe, just from the sun. I have a picture of him from about five years ago where it's a dark brown, almost black. Today, it looks more like a medium brown.

My hair stylist approached him delicately, as if afraid that he would be touchy about what she did. But he was relaxed; he even closed his eyes, not bothering to watch in the mirror. She asked if he minded if she touched his sideburns, and he said that was no problem. Same thing went for his eyebrows, and even though he'd never had anything done with them, he had no trouble letting her touch them up.

By the time she was done, his hair looked much as it had when I met him five years ago, and I think he's going to be much happier with it now. It will be much easier to deal with. This morning, for example, he didn't wake up with what I call "Beethoven hair," where his hair used to frame his head in a crazy frizz. Just for the record, I also have silly hair in the morning, particularly if I go to bed with it damp. But I don't look like Beethoven. I probably look more like a hedgehog or something.

I am currently flying high, having gone shopping this morning for an outfit to wear to the formal dinner my Dad takes me to every year for his medical convention in early May. Instead of buying some sort of frou-frou dress at a high end department store for $200 or $300, a dress I'd most likely never wear again, I decided to check out Target. I thought maybe I could find something by designer Isaac Mizrahi, like I had for New Year's.

Unfortunately, the little black Mizrahi dress I'd seen on Target.com wasn't for sale in this store, but after a little creative thinking I found the perfect outfit, in the junior section, of all places.

The dress is a strapless number with a top that's so tight-fitting I won't need to worry about accidents, and it's got a low waist that's very flattering, as well as a flirty skirt. There's a flower pinned to one hip, which I could move to elsewhere on the dress or remove altogether. It's a psychedelic paisley pattern mixing rose, pink, orange, green and purple.

To make the outfit more formal, I'm pairing it with an antique white brocade jacket, tied with chiffon in front. The jacket can be removed, should I overheat during dancing, and the dress looks just as nice alone.

The best part: the dress and jacket are a size Junior Medium, which is equivalent to a small in regular women's sizes. In fact, when I was trying on dresses in the women's department, I was trying on either size 8 dresses or smalls.

Not all of them worked so great, of course, since I am gourd shaped. This means that any dresses with a straight line bulged out in an unflattering way around my belly and hips. It's simply a matter of finding things that work well for my body shape.

And all the time, I'm getting happier with what I see!

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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