Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Nicole, hair artist

I love my hair dresser, Nicole.
I've only been to her twice; the first time was a year ago, the second time was today, and I put in a whole year of waiting for her; a year ago I had a single haircut from her that satisfied all my hair neuroticism, then she went away, had a baby, has just finished her maternity leave and is now back to work, and I was in there today, back in her care.
During the year she was away I got haircuts from other people, but none of them felt right, not the way my hair felt after that one time she cut it, a year ago; I knew I had found my one and only. I mean, anyone can cut off hair - not that big a deal. But it takes an artist to be able to feel through it and decide on the basis of how it feels, how to thin out the hair where it grows in too thick and feels too bulky, and where to leave it alone because it's the right thickness, and how to leave it thicker over flat spots on the skull (like where one was left lying too long as an infant) so the head looks symmetric and round even if it isn't, and so that when I run my own hands through my hair I'm not painfully aware of how my now aging hair is a lot thinner in some places and by comparison way too thick in others.
The difference between all the other hair dressers in town and Nicole is like the difference between some random kid practicing a cartwheel on the lawn, and someone from Cirque Du Solieil performing in LUZIA.
Nicole is definitely a keeper. She might have another baby some day and I'll have to make do with other hair cutters, but really, she is the only one I will ever feel bonded to.

Friday, September 23, 2016

When autumn leaves start to fall

I'm in a particularly ambivalent stirred-up disquiet mood today. I blame the change of season, partly..
One of those (thankfully rare) windy rainy autumn days out there..
The one and only patient I had booked today cancelled with only a half hour notice. Grrr.

In other news, I am so restless or anxious or something today that I had a hard time focusing on editing. Yup, last edit before my beast of a book gets published. A very nice PT I know wrote a gracious foreword for it, which reinvigorated me for most of the edit this past week.

But today is Friday already, for some reason.

And I've got other things on my mind, alas. I will move my office soon and I still have one travel/teaching gig to deal with this coming month.

Hopefully THIS move will be the last, ever, until I die.

Opportunities like this do not come along every day.

A couple weeks ago I got a phone call from a PT I met years ago while doing a short stint at the local work rehab facility in town. She's a lovely person, young, early thirties, three children, wants to open a new clinic in town. She invited me to join her there, rent a room (WAY cheaper than the outrageous rent I'm paying right now, and which rises each and every year.. in a building that, shall we gently say, has seen better days) for about half what I pay now per month, for the next 5 years. Her new clinic is in a brand new strip mall close to the hospital which used to be a separate catholic school, but has now been repurposed. (Seriously, there just are not enough catholic children anymore to warrant a completely separate school for them.. I guess.)

Anyway, it's lovely, fresh, lots of light, clean, large.
We checked for any conflicts of interest, having two practices in one location, but it seems there is no problem with our licensing body about that.
My soon-to-be PT roomie/landlady who will be subletting to me recently went out and got certified to be a yoga teacher. So the place will be a yoga/physiotherapy center. Which is OK by me, because I asked her if it would mean I would have to put up with any talk about chakras and she said no. :)

So anyway, I have the phone company coming in a week to move my phone number to the new place (yeah I know... old fashioned landline, but gad I hate cell phones and smart phones..); I have atrociously overpriced movers coming the first workday of October, mostly to move my atrociously overpriced hi-lo electric treatment table over, plus odds and ends. My brain is already leaping ahead, planning how to pack and what to pack and what to toss. I will toss the desk, as there will be no room for it in my new room, and my new roomie will let me share her charting area where my file cabinet will sit anyway.

It will be expensive to move and I had to buy out the remainder of the current lease because the property-owners in this city are nothing if not money-grubbing, seems to me.. However, averaged over 5 years,  at half the rent I'm paying now and no increases for 5 years, I'll still come out ahead. Yay me. Plus, it looks like I'll be getting a treatment room with a window! And it's exactly the same size as the treatment are of the room I currently work in, so all the necessities are going to fit.