It's not so much do what you like, as it is that you like what you do

Those lyrics from Stephen Sondheim's genius song Children and Art, from my favorite musical of his Sunday in the Park with George; have become my motto during this sobriety, and in this stage in my life. If you asked me “what do you like to do, what would you wanna spend the rest of your life doing that would bring you endless pleasure?” my answer would very easily be, musicals. I could sing, dance, and act all day long, that is my passion, but I have wasted a lot of my parents money attempting to conquer that goal, well a half ass attempt to be quite honest. So when I was sitting in my hairdressers chair for my first haircut while I was in rehab, and asked him for a job as a receptionist at his salon, and he returned that with a “you know, you always come in with such amazing, creative ideas for me, why don't you go to school for hair”, I thought to myself, well its not musical theater, but I do love being creative, and I could definitely see myself growing to love this art. So even though I would drop my scissors in an instant to do a musical, I realized that if I do want to follow that dream someday, I have to do it after I am self supporting through my own contributions. So I am going to school to be a hairdresser so that when I have enough stability I can go out on auditions, and try my hand at musicals again. It will be a while before I can do that, but I will be able to do that someday, and that is what I am working towards, my dream is not dead, it's just on hold for now, and it is things like the AALA show that let me express myself in that way that help me in hanging in there, so I am grateful for my growth and look forward to becoming the man that I am supposed to be.

And i'm getting better, getting stronger...

So I have been getting a lot quicker at performing haircuts, this last Wednesday we had a cut-a-thon at school on Earth Day, because Aveda is the most green beauty company out there, so we gave away free haircuts all day. Anyway I thought I would only be able to perform one haircut in the four hour period I have, but I was actually able to do two, which I was very surprised by! Anyway, something came up morally for me that day. I cut myself with my scissors twice, and obviously bled. When I was being driven home from school by my friend, and classmate Sean he was suggesting that I tell people about my HIV and Hepatitis statuses, I disagreed. I don't think that I have to disclose my health status to anyone, I mean he knows because I trust him and know that he is a trustworthy person of keeping my privacy. I mean I guess I divulge my status so freely to anyone who reads this blog, but I don't really feel the need to, especially since I never come into contact with anyones blood. It's not like I am a doctor, or a nurse, or anything in the health field. So I think it is my absolute right to keep my status to myself.

Face, face, face I give face, beauty, face...

Wow, what a week I have had. As I mentioned before this was my week of finals at school, before I head to the floor to take on real clients. It has been a rollercoaster week for me, emotionally. You see along with doing a final haircut on a model, we also have to do these things called benchmarks, where they time you on how long it takes you to do certain things. Such as a long layers haircut, a perm set, and a full head highlight foil. The last class that went to the floor had a whole week of preparing before doing these benchmarks, they barely gave us one day to practice before our benchmarks because there is a big ol transition going on at school, so we get the shitty end of the stick! So Wednesday night we had our highlight benchmark and we started an hour later than planned, and therefor I wasn't able to finish before class was over. I totally beat myself up all night and the following day. I thought to myself I had no business being a hairstylist and that I would never amount to anything. The next day I spent all day looking over my notes for our next procedure, the perm set. That totally helped me out, and I did it in one hour and twenty five minutes (we were alloted two and a half hours for this) so I felt really good about myself. My self esteem had been restored back to it's normal level.

Cut to today, the day where we perform a haircut of our choice on a live model (benchmarks are performed on doll heads) I had looked over my notes, and I also went over a video I took of the DVD instructing us how to do the cut my roommate and I had come to an agreement on doing. So all the way to school I watched the videos on my Zune, and went over all the sectioning and stuff that I had to do. I get on the floor, and start performing the cut. I start out slow, but good, my confidence is at a moderate level and my nerves are leveled out as well. I finish her right side, and it looks flawless if I do say so myself, but the second I put down the last strand of hair on her left side, I stare at her and begin to panic. I forgot to take into account that I am right handed, and therefor when I move to do her left side I must angle my fingers in a different way so that they match the other side. So instead of her left side mirroring her right side, I have created an asymmetrical do (aka the Posh Spice). I immediately begin to panic, I get very anxious, sweat profusely and my eyes begin to swell up because of this (I think) HUGE faux pas I have created! Immediately, my model/roommate/friend turns to me and tells me to calm down, that I have not done something that can not be corrected. I compose myself, say the serenity prayer a gazillion times and begin to create a new strategy with my instructor. So we calmly looked her over, and he helped me in getting my shit together enough to make her hair look its best. So in the end I am grateful that I have this amazing understanding friend who was able to pull me out of my neurosis and bring me back to earth to finish a fabulous new do, if I do say so myself. So in the end it all worked out fabulously! I am done with hell week, and will start taking on clients on Wednesday of next week. That is a total different mind fuck, but if I can get through this mistake, I know I can get through anything. Below is the result of my first full on haircut on a real live girl! AND WHAT!?



Since I will be out all day today at rehearsal I figured I would post my video for the week. Since the title of this post refers to Ms. Bebe's rap in RuPaul's Cover Girl (Put the Bass in Your Walk) I have decided to put up one of my favorite videos of her, her duet with Elton John covering his original Kiki Dee duet “Don't Go Breaking My Heart”...and I just fucking LOVE when she does the Cher bit in this! WHOA Chastity!

I get wings to fly, God knows I'm alive!

Wow have I been crazy or what? It is Wednesday morning, it is hump day and I can't wait for the weekend to be here for two reasons: I will have finished my hell week at school, and rehearsal's would be here!

School is going pretty good, I am very excited because this is my week of finals before I head to the floor and start taking customers. This is very scary for me, cause they are not like friends who don't mind a nick here or there, and are getting a free service. These are paying customers who have a very clear idea of what they want, God knows I wouldn't wish myself on myself, as I am one tough customer when it comes to hair. I got a 91 on my written test, now I only have my practical test on Friday on my live model, where I get to perform a haircut on her. My lovely roommate has been gracious enough to volunteer herself to be my first guinea pig. A lot of my insecurities are coming out this week and I am extra sensitive when it comes to my abilities, I am trying to work through them and I am sure that with the help of my friends, teachers and especially my higher power I will do a great job on her, and whoever comes in through the doors of our salon.

As for rehearsal's they are going AMAZING, Sunday we did two amazing things! First we met with a cheerleading instructor who helped us in learning some stunts for the finale, this totally took me back to high school when I was the co-captain of our cheerleading squad, the one little caveat to the whole thing was that my base partner (the other guy lifting the acrobat with me) is a little taller than me, and they might have to replace me because I can't seem to get his legs even, and if I end up doing another smaller stunt I know my ego would be a bit hurt by it. If that does happen I do have my big number to stroke it back up, as that is the second thing we did that day. We staged my number from beginning to end and I couldn't be happier. This character reflects me in so many different ways it's not funny. First of he smiles and sings through a whole bunch of tough situations, which I totally identify with, as I was always taught to put on a brave front, and not show your true feelings out to others as much as you can. And finally there is a line in my song, where I am supposed to happily say “Bring me a disease that he got from his ho, oh” and the reason I identify with that so much is because the reason I zero converted was because my boyfriend at the time would not have sex with me and/or date me seriously until I was HIV positive too, so I am trying to incorporate all of this into this lovely cheery number of mine.

So at the end of the day I am still tired as all hell, but my life could not be better, so I am definitely immensely grateful.

Gimme a head with hair, long beautiful hair...

So as I mentioned a couple of days ago I have finally gotten my hair stylist mojo. You see I felt like I was at a disadvantage when I started hair school, I didn't grow up doing my friends hair (like most girls in class) and I didn't have my passion for hair growing up, I had (and still have) a musical theater bug. I knew what a couple of things were because I love getting my hair done and my ex was a hairdresser.

The first month and a half of school I felt like a total retard, I couldn't get the jist of any of the procedures and nothing was sinking in, for a while I felt like maybe I had made a mistake in choosing this as my field of work, but then a couple of weeks ago we started studying men's haircutting. Suddenly, everything clicked with me, I found my own way of taking in the information and executing it. I suddenly became really good at it, I was finishing my haircuts before everyone else in class, even those who had been there since August (I started in December), and I wasn't cutting corners, or doing a lousy job, I was doing the haircut we were supposed to with the desired outcome.

From that day on my self esteem as far as hair styling is concerned has been growing exponentially and I have total confidence that slowly but surely I will master all haircuts presented to me and that I will make a great hairdresser some day.

Where my girls at?

So yesterday I got my first F (I would like to say it was my first one ever, but that would be a lie, DAMN YOU trigonometry!!) in school. The reason I got it is simple, I don't know any girls. See last Friday we had our first test on a real person, now all we've learned so far are women's haircuts so we had to bring in a girl ourselves, immediately after getting the assignment I looked through my phone and found only ONE woman's name on there (my mother and sister don't count) and she no longer lives in LA. So one of the girls who works in the retail store at school said she would get me and this other girl at school a couple of models for our test. So the day before our test I asked if we were still on (I admit I should have checked earlier in the week) and she told me that her friends had canceled. I was all bent out of shape trying to find someone with long hair to use for Friday, with no avail. So I just didn't go to school that day, cause I was gonna get an F either way with no model there, instead I did some home work, and went to go see Rachel Getting Married (which I FUCKING LOVED btw), luckily I will get to make up for it in the next couple of weeks.
This event did make me start to think why I don't have any girlfriends, and the answer is pure and simple I don't like girls. Don't get me wrong, women I love, it's just a lot of these LA girls my age act so bimbo-y and stupid. I can barely tolerate when boys do it, but girls just annoy me when they are all giggling and going “like OH MY GOD, did you watch the Hills last night!? Can you believe what Spencer fucking did to Heidi, like WOW” I can hear my friends right now saying: “But thats how YOU act”...TRUE, but i'm me...I mean I guess its probably true what they say that you hate in others what you don't like about yourself. Also I shouldn't just write off all girls cause of what they look like. So I guess i'm gonna open my mind into opening my life to include girls in it.
Something I don't want though to be honest is to have a Will & Grace relationship, as funny as that show was I used to find myself yelling at Will half the time “DUMP THAT BITCH ALREADY”...those two were in DIRE need of a CODA meeting(co-dependents anonymous). The last time I had a fag hag in my life was in college (shout out to my girl Melinda Gallucci) and i'm fine with that. Maybe I should just try a new way of having girl friends, smart funny women who have some substance to them, and with long hair of course.
BTW I've never watch an episode of the Hills, i've just heard their fucking names repeatedly and figured that would be a show that vapid brainless bimbos would watch

A New Day Has Come...

As I get ready to go to bed tonight at 230 in the morning I am grateful that I have gotten through another day drug free; and today was quite the stressful one for me. It started calmly enough by heading over to my sponsor's for our weekly meeting, and that went quite well, but the rest of my day was one of doubt, realization, and acceptance. The first little bump in the road was when a friend of mine asked me to cut his hair. Mind you i've only been in school for 5 weeks and have had no hair experience before in my life. It was supposed to have been an easy trim of the hair, but him being obsessive compulsive and me being a zygote in haircutting did not a good combo make. I was sweating like Amy Winehouse going through customs from the stress, and lo and behold I fucked it up, and he proceeded to ask me to just shave it all off, which I did . He said it was no big deal, which I believed , but I still beat myself up, it totally created so much doubt in me as to weather I will be a great hairdresser someday or not.
Cut to hours later going to my old apartment in West Hollywood to get my car jumped so I could get a friend of mine to drive it to my sober living's neighborhood (I still haven't gotten my drivers license back from my DUIs), first the battery died midway home, and we had to get towed the rest of the way home via rope, not truck (which I don't really recommend for anyone) and because we didn't want to hit some old lady crossing the street (your welcome you old coot) we swerved suddenly and my car hit my friends car and left quite the little dent on him. ANYWAY, when I got home I realized that it was the last bit of my past life that I had left. It saddened me for a while, but then I realized that even though in that life I had a car, and a one bedroom apartment, I didn't have any real friends. When I was out using I couldn't get anyone to go with me to the movies , let alone take time out of their day to help me move my car. So even though I find myself shopping at the 99 cent store quite often (something I SWORE I would never do before) I welcome this new day with open arms.