Whoever said the phrase "patience is a virtue" never had to grow out a really short haircut.
     Let me explain: A few short months ago (January to be exact) I chopped off all my hair. My reasoning behind the cut was the usual--a bad breakup, a need for a new identity, a chance to make myself better, chicer somehow. I chose a picture of Sienna Miller during her Edie Sedgwick emulation phase when she had a really awesome short 'do that looked so good on her, I assumed it would look good on me too. So, armed with my Sienna photo, I entered my hairdresser's salon and asked for the chop.
I never did get exactly the right cut. This wasn't the fault of my hairdresser, she cut it really well. My problem was that my hair wasn't long enough to start off with in the front to get the right look, and so I ended up with a completely different cut, more of a choppy pixie, longer in the front and shorter in the back a la Agyness Deyn. It looked good, some would even say it looked really great on me. I initially hated it, but then I learned to love it.
     My short hair made me different. My white-blond pixie chop made me stand out in a sea of long-haired women. I both loved and hated this attention-getting feature of my hair. There are times when a girl just wants to blend in, you know? But with my look I was destined to stand out, like it or not, for better or for worse. I would get lots of comments from people, mostly women, saying that they loved my haircut and that it suited me perfectly. To my delight I even got a few comments that I looked like Edie Sedgwick, which I guess was the initial inspiration for the cut, in a roundabout way. For every five good comments however, there was one or two of the backhanded comments that left me reeling. One former coworker, while severely intoxicated, told me that I looked like a lesbian. She clarified saying, "Oh, I obviously know you're not a lesbian, but why did you cut your hair?" A homeless man on the street told me, "Don't worry about that hair, darlin'. It'll grow back."
      I know I should have been stronger. I shouldn't have let these few negative comments in a sea of positive ones get me down. But the truth is, growing up I got made fun of. A lot. Mostly about my appearance. Luckily I grew out of my awkward phase sometime around my senior year of high school, and since then I haven't had to face the barrage of mocking tones and jeers like I did in elementary school, junior high and part of high school. But ever since I have been a little extra sensitive to the feeling of being made fun of. I've always been different, and as I've grown up I've learned to become accustomed to that and even to embrace it, but when I chopped my hair off it brought all those feelings back to the forefront.
     Don't get me wrong, I loved my hair short. At times. At times I hated it. Overall however, I just got bored with it. There's only so much you can do with short hair. I myself have always had what I like to refer to as "Style ADD." I always have to change my appearance for whatever reason. I think I've had just about every hairstyle, style of dress, hair color, etc. possible. I've been a preppy, a tomboy, a fashion victim, and a hippie. I've had long hair, short hair, and every length in between. I've had hair that went from blond to dark brown to red and then black. And let me tell you, getting my hair back to blond when I got tired of the black was a feat unto itself. I owe my hairdresser Toni a lot.
     The salon I have been going to for years a small place called Hair Gone Wild in a town called Rio Linda that I have to drive two hours to get to from my home in San Francisco. I travel this distance because Toni, my hairdresser, is a hair guru of the highest order. She has always been really good to me and my high-maintenance, white blond, style-ADD hair. She's been with me through many different transformations, and has always given me exactly what I wanted. Toni had mentioned to me that she had hired a girl named Jocelyn that does hair extensions, and that if I wanted to they would be more than happy to put some on me. I was both for and against getting the extensions. A part of me thought that I should just work on being patient and wait it out. Stop being so worried about your appearance, I would think. I hated myself for being so insecure and vain. There are much bigger things to be concerned about in this world. I would discover some new and clever things to do with my hair during the growing-out phases, right? I was worried that the extensions would look too obvious on my short hair, that people would see the attachments, and that I would have a sort of Britney Spears-esque extension mullet. But I also really wanted to give then a shot. It would be fun to have long hair again, if only for a little while. If worse came to worse and I hated them, I could always just take them out, no harm no foul. Just a little waste of money, really. I only wanted to grow my own hair into a short bob, so I could take the extensions out as soon as my own hair grew long enough.
     Finally I made the decision that the short hair had to go. I would go through different hairstyle magazines and find different mid-level cuts that I liked that were a few inches longer than my short pixie, and would mentally calculate how many months it would take me to achieve that length of hair, given that hair grows about 1/2" per month, I've been told. The answer to all of these calculations was this: too long. I am genuinely and extremely impatient as it is, and waiting for my hair to grow, especially through awkward phases, seemed like agony. And so, I decided to take the extension plunge.
      The hair was ordered, the appointment made. I wasn't sure how long I wanted to go, exactly. I didn't want really long, Barbie-like hair, but it seemed like a waste to go through all the trouble of getting extensions and not getting them just a little long. So I went through magazines and found cuts that would work on me. Given that my own hair is so short (about 3 inches or so is the shortest layer on top) so obviously I would have to go for a layered cut in order for the extensions to blend in with my own hair and not have it look like Billy Rae Cyrus gone blond.
     When I arrived at Hair Gone Wild at the appointed time, I was greeted with a very cheerful and excited-looking Jocelyn, the girl who would actually be applying the extensions. The reason for her excitement was this: they had gotten the hair earlier, after having to order it special due to the difficulty of color matching my very platinum-blond locks. But they got the hair, and to her glee it was "the best quality hair I've ever seen." And it was. The EXACT match of my hair color, soft, long, blond unprocessed locks. I don't know who the hair doner was, but it must have been someone in some Swedish or Russian town with very blond hair, because to get this color blond without it being processed is a miracle unto itself.
     But got it they did, and as I sat in the chair Jocelyn went about sectioning off my hair and cutting the wefts to fit my head. She then would sew a bead-like attachment into the weft every centimeter or so, and after that was done she would attach the weft to my head by pulling a small strand of my own hair through the bead and back, and then crimping the bead together to clamp my own hair in and close it. So no glue, no damage to my own hair. It was absolutely painless.
     After about 3 hours, we were done. Then the extensions had to be cut. I decided on a long shag-type hairstyle that fell just below my shoulders. After all was said and done, I looked in the mirror and it was surreal--I had hair again. What would normally have taken years to achieve naturally, I had achieved in mere hours. The feel of hair brushing up against my back was a completely long-forgotten sensation that was brought back to me in an instant. It was great. Weird, but great.

      I do have to admit that I wasn't in love with the extensions right after I got them. I felt a little bit like a stranger in my own body when I looked in the mirror. It took me a few days to get used to styling my long hair again (with these high-quality real human hair extensions, you can treat them just like your own hair. Wash them, blow dry them, curl them, what have you). And after going back to have my haircut slightly altered (I took off a couple more inches and had Toni razor my ends a bit to make my new hair look a little more edgy, a little more like me), I am proud to say that I LOVE my new hair. I still worry a bit when the wind picks up and I think that people can see my attachments at my scalp, but the truth is that when extensions are applied correctly and styled with care, unless people are REALLY looking hard they won't be able to tell at all.
     So if you have ever wanted long hair but could never grow it very long, or if you suffer from hair thinning problems, or just want a change of style, I recommend giving extensions a try. It doesn't hurt your hair, and you get instant results that are a fun change.
     After all, patience is a virtue. But so is making yourself happy.

Writer's note: Special thanks to Toni and Jocelyn at Hair Gone Wild in Rio Linda, CA. Email them at hairgonewild@yahoo.com with any questions or inquiries.

After being anti-MySpace and anti-Facebook for many years, I have finally joined the rank of the internet-friendship trend. I broke down and joined Facebook. I know, I know, I'm not just late to the party on the whole Facebook thing, but the party has been broken up by the cops already and everyone has gone home. OK, they haven't gone home, because the minute I finished filling out my little Facebook profile, I found about 50 people that I knew. Some were close friends I see on a daily basis, and some were people I went to high school and college with oh-so-long ago. It was actually kind of neat to hear from the guy who worked as a bouncer at the bar I used to work at three years ago, or the girl I knew from high school who was always too cool to talk to me, but now somehow notions such as coolness and cliques have gone out of the window and we are now able to freely converse in an internet medium. Or a few ex boyfriends. Eek (it's OK though, I can take the high road. I'm happy for you and your new girlfriend. Even though she has a horse face).

My point being, I am the perfect candidate for Facebook. Unlike my roommate (whom I also grew up with and went to high school and college with) who can keep in contact effortlessly with every single person she's ever met, I am what is known as "antisocial". I'm not really a gab-all-the-time on the phone person. I will go months without talking to my best friend, who lives 45 minutes away. If you don't make the effort to contact me, well don't be waiting by the phone for me to call--it ain't gonna happen. So Facebook presents a great opportunity for people like me to reestablish and keep in contact with people whom I probably would have never talked to again without it. It's minimal effort, which is perfect for me. Effort is not my friend. I will not be contacting him on Facebook. So for anyone else who is extremely late to the party, I recommend giving Facebook a shot. You'll have fun finding that dude who used to live on your floor in the dorms or that guy in gym class who you never talked to for whatever reason. It's great and a good way to take a trip down memory lane.

But I still refuse to join MySpace. So there. 

     Holy drag queen, Heidi! OK, Project Runway, I'll give you another chance. You've redeemed yourself with this episode, at least for the time being. This was such a great challenge, and it was the first time where I thought almost everyone did a really good job. There were several reasons why I loved this episode, and they were:
1) The abundance of really funny terms and catchphrases regarding the drag outfits, including: a) Keith's outfit being described as a Chewbacca monstrosity (followed by sound effects by Suede and Blayne) b) Tim's reference to Blayne's outfit as a Pterodactyl in a Gay Jurassic Park (enough said) and c) Michael Kors saying that his Aunt would have seriously worn Jerell's dress, and called it a "bar mitzvah moment"
2) Guest judge Ru Paul (what happened to her? Welcome back!)
3) Sequins, sequins, and more sequins (with some feathers thrown in)
4) Almost everyone doing a good job, especially Korto, Joe, Kenley, Leanne, Suede, and Terri (I actually thought that Terri should have beaten out Joe for the win this week, but they were both really close, so Joe's win didn't upset me too much. Plus Joe's model was so cute!)
5) Not one person really tanked it in my opinion, and only a few did less than stellar jobs, like Keith (OK, I guess, but needed more excitement or sequins or something), Blayne (I liked it, but was bordering on TOO over the top and the falling-down wing made it look poorly made), and Daniel (he needed to go. Besides the choice of fabric, it was a pretty dress. Not a drag queen dress). I didn't think Jerell's was half as bad as the judges did. That's where the judges and I differed this week. I thought Blayne's was worse and should have been the third one in the bottom, not Jerell's.
6) Daniel getting kicked off. If I had to hear another comment from him about his "high taste level" I was going to shove some couture fabric down his throat.
7) Joe's Ann-Margaret-on-steroids model. I LOVED her. So cute, yet so scary at the same time. Salute, sailor!
    If you missed this episode, I highly recommend getting in on TiVo or catching it on repeat. It will be worth it, I promise. I have a feeling next week is going to be a bit of a letdown after this one, but for now I'll keep my pessimistic vision blurred by shiny sequins and keep a hopeful thought.

Another episode, another chance for Project Runway to prove to me that I'm not wasting an hour of my time every week, and yet again I was disappointed. Some of the designers did good work, but yet again I was really put off by the judges' picks for the top and bottom.
First of all, Korto and Joe's outfit was AWFUL with a capital A. I'm surprised Brook Shields didn't vomit all over it. Tim was right when he said it looked like a giant sweet potato. But the real problem I had was with the gold dress underneath the sweet potato. It fit so horribly! When the model did her last little pose at the end of the runway, it looked like the top of it was all bunched up and about to fall down. So I think that this one should definitely have been in the bottom. I wonder if the judges deemed it pass-worthy because Korto had immunity and it would have been more interesting to have non-immunized (is that the right way to use that word? It reminds me of germs. With the way this season's going it kinda makes sense) designers in the bottom? Whatever. Sweet potato? Try sour potato.
Then there was Kelli and Daniel's leopard monstrosity. It was bad, but I didn't think it was THAT bad. Korto and Joe's was WAYYYY worse. Though I think making it 2 separate pieces was a mistake, the top was way too short and cut weird at the bottom. Very dynasty. Kelli probably should have gone home though. I still haven't gotten over the terrible coffee filter boob dress she won with on the very first episode. And if Daniel talks about his high taste level again, I'm going to scream.
Now for the underdogs: Jerell and Stella really surprised me this week. Maybe with their tacky powers combined, they've created a new and awesome power to wipe out the rest of the designers? After last week's Olympic disaster I didn't think there was any hope left for Jerell, but he proved me wrong. I think they did great. This one was probably my favorite.
Kenley and Keith: Good job too. I don't know what the model did at the end when she untied the shoulder parts, but it blew my mind. I wasn't sure about the fabric on top, but the bottom was really nice. It just didn't really pop too much. But I think they did deserve to win. It was really close between them and Jerell and Stella.
Terri and Suede--blah. Just blah. Not horrible, but not great. I don't know why time liked it so much. It looked kinda clownish to me. And I thought that Terri was kinda mean to Suede about the top he made. Once Tim said he liked the top though, she sure changed her tune.
I kind of liked Blaine and Leanne's outfit. I definitely think they took a risk and I though it looked good. It definitely was a Hell of a lot better than Korto and Joe's and Terri and Suede's. The top with the leather shoulder details was killer. Loved it. Judges--you suck. Except for you Michael Kors, you're hilarious.
I CANNOT wait for next week. Even though I am in disagreement with the judges, I love Chris March and love even more the idea of the designers having to dress drag queens. Awesomeness wrapped in awesomeness! Until next week.

As I am learning to cope with my gradually (and SLOWLY) growing out hair, I've been experimenting with different styles for the in-between times. One that I've learned how to master, and which is actually pretty easy to do, is a forties style finger wave, ala Jean Harlow or Gwen Stefani in the picture on the left. It's super easy, you just have to style it with a comb and bobby pins when it's really wet and let it dry overnight (if you want more tips on exactly how to do it, this website is very helpful). But I'm worried that it's too fancy or high-fashion a style for the daytime. Granted I wouldn't do full-on makeup like in the picture, but this hairstyle always seems to be a go-to for celebs on red carpets and other special occasions, so it seems like it should be relegated for VIP events only. So is this hairstyle too fancy for the day-to-day? What do you think? I really like it but I'm reluctant to seem too high-maintenance or like I stepped out of a time machine. Help!

As someone who has thought frequently about, but never actually has, putting angry notes on cars parked stupidly on her block (it happens all the time, and in San Francisco where parking is such a hard thing for everyone, you'd think people would be more considerate than to park right in the middle of a 2-car spot. But you'd be wrong), I got a really big kick out of this website called www.passiveaggressivenotes.com. It's just a simple website that posts different notes left from people or by people griping about different beefs they have. Some of the notes are really clever and downright snooty and hilarious. It's a good way to get a chuckle and realize that other people are just as secretly angry as you are, if not more so.

So, for anyone who thinks their leather boots are too shiny and pristine and you really like that distressed, beat-up, worn in look, I have some tips on how the experts purposefully rough up their shiny shoes. I watched a video from the people at Free People, showing how they perfectly distress their boots photographed in their catalog. Methods include running them over with cars, driving over them with bikes, and tying them to the back bumper of a car and dragging them along the ground for a while. So for all you out there who are willing to risk bodily injury to your footwear, this is the way the pros do it, believe it or not. Just make sure your footwear can hold up to the punishment.

Until now, I would have considered this a guilty pleasure. One of those things that you're not supposed to admit to liking, even though you secretly love it. But I'm ready to declare openly to the world the following secret: I love the E! reality TV series The Girls Next Door. For those who aren't familiar with this subversively brilliant show, it follows the lives of Playboy impresario Hugh Hefner's 3 girlfriends, Holly (main girlfriend), Bridget and Kendra (read their cast bios here). Which basically means it chronicles the lives of these three surprisingly charming and funny girls, each with their own completely different and engaging personality. Holly is hopelessly devoted to Hugh Hefner, and is yearning for the day when they'll marry and have a baby (a day that most likely will never come, sorry Holly). Bridget is relentlessly happy and upbeat, usually the type of person that annoys me but with her it's more endearing than bothersome. Kendra is a tomboy with a habit of delivering funny one-liners that make her look both completely bimbo-tastic, yet possibly secretly more clever than we all think.
    My appreciation of this show used to be in enjoying the dynamic of these three girls and they way they live their daily lives and interact with other people (namely, how many times they can get into various states of nakedness in the course of a day). I've always secretly thought that Holly and Kendra hate each other, which has been made more apparent recently with rumors of Kendra's leaving the show due to tensions between her and Holly. But lately I've discovered a newfound appreciation of the show. During times of trouble or depression in my life, which seem to strike every once and awhile (mostly that week right before my period starts), it's the perfect show to watch. Think about it: these are three girls whose biggest problems in life are: 1) what cleavage-enhancing outfit to wear that day, 2) how to control their many yapping dogs, and 3) which lavish party are they going to RSVP to and/or host. It's pure escapism. I find that I can watch and dream of a life like theirs where my every need is taken care of and I have fun all the time (though in my dream scenario my boyfriend would NOT be an 80-year-old, sorry Hugh).
    So if you've never seen the show, I recommend checking it out (they're not paying me to advertise, I promise). It's not going to change your life or provoke any deep thinking on your part, but it sure is going to want to make you go out and do something fun. Or at least buy a new push-up bra.

I am very disappointed with Project Runway so far this season. I usually love the cocktail dress challenges, because who doesn't like a pretty party dress, but there was only one or two out of all the designs that I even would deign to consider OK. They all tanked it this challenge, if you ask me. I know, I know. They didn't get to choose the fabric (I feel especially sorry for team Ugly Brown Fabric) but they still could have done a lot better I thought. First off, the only ones I liked were the oompa-loompa's (oh, sorry, I mean Blayne's), and Terri's. And neither of them were in the top three. As for the top and bottom three, Kenley's was the one I liked the best out of the top, Suede's was OK I guess but didn't deserve to win. Maybe if the top of the dress fit better, and I did like what he did with all the bias strips. But I never really like a tutu on a dress. And Stella's? As much as I love a rock-and-roll dress, I thought hers just looked simple and tacky. The bottom three were all awful, partially because of the Ugly Brown Fabric (two out of the three both had the UBF). Korto's fin dress was a little over the top, but not half as bad as some of the others. If the fins had been trimmed down a little I think it would have probably been in the top. I thought that Emily's (Hello!!!! Short!!!!! How could Nina have not said something about that?) and Joe's (boring boring boring) should have been down in the bottom before Korto's was. At least she showed a little imagination. Wesley's was bad and fit horribly, but I really wish he could have stayed. His ideas and designs were good you could tell, I think he could have done a lot better with different materials. I think I would have kicked Leanne off before him. Oh well, c'est la vie. I really hope that the next challenge wins me over. Don't get me wrong, I'll still watch it even if the judges and designers continue to piss me off, but I won't enjoy it. You hear me, Heidi? Hopefully next challenge Tim will say "Holla at your boy" and there won't be any UBF.

I recently rented a movie recommended to me by a former instructor of mine at design school called Unzipped. It's a documentary filmed in the mid-nineties following designer Isaac Mizrahi during the making of one of his collections. I have to say, quite entertaining, even if you aren't really into the design thing like I am. Because it was filmed during the heyday of the supermodel, you get to see very interesting footage of a pre-Nicolas Sarkozy Carla Bruni (gorgeous and very young-looking), Naomi Campbell (diva), Linda Evangelista (whiny and attention-seeking), Cindy Crawford (frighteningly likeable and normal), Shalom Harlow (not really sure, didn't talk much), and a very pissy-looking young Kate Moss (there's a really interesting scene where a young and brand-new to the modeling world Amber Valetta is interviewed by a local TV station, and Kate is sitting by watching and looking pissed that someone is getting more attention than she is) at the height of their careers. And Isaac himself is so charming and talkative throughout the whole movie, he just flits from insane subject to insane subject. I kinda think he might have ADD. But it lends to a great movie about the reality of the fashion world, so I highly recommend stopping by Blockbuster to pick it up. Plus the fashions in the show are sort of wacky and very outdated, so you can have a good laugh at the same time.