Which Itch is Which?

My impetuous drive won again as I walked into the salon at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I had the time to kill and didn't feel like waiting until Wednesday. They took me in right away and gave me coffee while I waited for about 10 minutes until one of the hair washer girls was free. During that time my 'stylist', 'hair dresser' whatever, came over and I told her what I wanted which was, just a little off the back and some framing in the front. She suggested I try a conditioning mask to help the tangles and I agreed. Big mistake. After the wash, the hair washer girl set out to apply the conditioning mask and brush my hair. Actually she used a wide tooth comb which is such a no-no, I should have knew what I was getting into right there and left. But I though- eh, she is just the hair washer girl, the stylist will know better. However, hair washer girl was doing enough damage in the mean time, taking her good old time too. She finally asked another girl to come over so I had two people trying to brush and apply conditioner. When they were FINALLY finshed, they wrapped me in plastic wrap and set me under a heater for what was supposed to be 5 minutes. 15 minutes later after I am totally freaking out because I have 45 minutes to concert and should have met up with Peter 45 minutes ago. The second cup of coffee didn't help the anxiety either, but I slurped it down all the same. At last, the chic starts snipping and I told her 'cut off the dead ends, but leave it as long as possible because it takes so so long to grow.' Did she listen to me? Did she know anything about new techniques for cutting curls, or even old ones for that matter? No, no, she did not. Snip snip went at least 2 inchest of my curls, cut across in a straight line, gone.

The whole cutting process lasted 15 minutes. She blow dried me, I paid and left. I arrived at Peter's 10 minutes later feeling really quite sick, we rushed off to the concert and made it just in time to fight through the animal crowd with our zaprosienia guaranteeing our seats, and sat down to enjoy the show. My neck however was really, really itchy and I figured my skin was just a little irritated from all the stuff in my hair. The concert was going longer than I thought it would, and I started to feel really sick again- like there was a rock beating against my head and another one in my stomach. So we skipped out with enough time to catch the 9:20 wkd, made it to the train at about 9:05 and sat on the train waiting. During this time I realized something was drastically wrong, ripped off my coat only to find my arms, neck, and chest covered in hives and the rest of me starting to swell. Fearing a repeat of October 1999 when I was hospitalized for going into shock, I told Peter we had better get to a pharmacy while I was still breathing and swallowing. There I downed some pills and we headed off to the Lazar's to wash the crap out of my hair and off the rest of me. I figured by that point if I was still breathing and swallowing I wouldn't need the hospital, and I turned out to be right. However, within the next hour I totally swelled up and looked like some asian sumo wrestler who had been attacked by wolves. Peter gave me calcium to drink and Daddy Lazar drove me home to Podkowa where I spent a very fitful night trying to sleep instead of scratch. Today the swelling is almost gone other than my freakish eyes.

So that was my near brush with death. The hair cut in the end I suppose is okay. It's werid not feeling my hair on my waist though, but I think it looks a lot healthier. At anyrate, Peter and I are off to the Philharmonic tonight to catch another concert. Hopefully our outting will be less eventful than last night, or Kris will have the right to start calling me a 'date failure'. ;)