On the importance of a haircut before traveling...

David sporting his new shorter Mod hair, courtesy of his trusty hairdresser in New York.

One of the things one deeply misses when spending time away from home is one's hairdresser. In Hamburg, I had my hair butchered by a hairdresser at what seemed in all its appearances a posh salon -- awards on walls and framed magazine clippings featuring its glories. What ensued at this salon was a nightmare: my hairdresser and I could not communicate with each other (I spoke no German and she spoke no English); she kept barking "Pony, pony!!!" at me (which I later learnt referred to my bangs), and before I could process, she had lopped off a huge chunk of my hair to create this "pony," which was a very architectural-looking mass that would be, henceforth, my "bangs"; she continued to cut despite my best efforts to gesture to her that I did not want my hair short, and finally, upon seeing that I did not appear to be happy about all this, she took out a flattening iron and straightened my hair pin straight.

I had never cried after a haircut. This Hamburg experience would inspire my first tears shed for a haircut gone wrong. And it happened a day before opening night. I cried all the way back to the hotel room, inconsolable, David trying to make me laugh yet hardly able to mask his disbelief at the most atrocious haircut I had just received. I locked myself in the bathroom and wept hysterically that my life had been ruined, I would never leave the bathroom, would never be seen outside, would certainly not attend the glamorous premiere the next evening.

Then something snapped -- a sense of deep injustice boiled in me. I unlocked the bathroom door, retrieved my coat, declared to shocked David that I was going back to the salon to demand someone else fix my hair. So I stormed all the way back into the city to the posh salon (with David championing my decision), demanded to see the top stylist there, explained about my hair and about its consequences on my life. I was firm, I am proud to recall, neither hysterical nor angry. And the top stylist fixed it (still not perfect, but now I was able to leave the house and be seen again). It turned out he was invited to the opening night of our show as well, so we said we would see each other at the party. We never did.

This Hamburg experience made us very careful when getting our haircuts abroad, or by people other than the hairdressers we have come to love in New York. I know there wouldn't be a language problem in Las Vegas or LA, but, hey, one never knows.

TM