My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [67]
Stacey sits back on the couch and crosses her arms. “You are a complete dork. I want to know what you’ve been up to, so start talking.”
I scrunch my eyes closed and try to think. “I can’t remember what I e-mailed you last. Did I tell you about the black tar heroin I bought in Chinatown?”
“You did. Ever find out what organic bird tongue was?”
I bob my head, causing an avalanche of all this stupid hair. Did I mention these extensions are making me mental? First, I had no clue how much upkeep they’d take. Every night when I sit down to watch television, I have to spend an hour separating them, or else they’ll turn into dreadlocks.130 I have to use special shampoo and only boar-bristle brushes because plastic ones would yank out the bonds. But I forgot one morning when I was on tour and accidentally pulled out four sections, thus giving myself a heart attack because I thought I was going instantaneously bald.
I left the pieces on the counter because I didn’t know if I should save them or what, and when I got back to my room, housekeeping was there. And the poor cleaning lady was all, “Does missus have the cancer?”
Now that I’ve got a couple of inches of growth between the glue and my scalp, the extensions are more like a whole headful of tiny bear traps. My hair’s kind of like a small utility belt and would come in handy if I wanted to, say, carry batteries or a small flashlight or something up there.
(Sidebar: On the bright side, my sunglasses always stay firmly in place.)
Every time I try to run my hands through my hair, my fingers get tangled up. I spent fifteen minutes in Target last week trying to extricate my bracelets from my ponytail. Mortifying.
I never realized walking around with an extra head’s worth of hair would be the equivalent of wearing a woolly cap all the time. I’m constantly sweating, and I’ve taken to carrying napkins so I can blot my face whenever needed. Which is often. Somewhere there’s a Hindi chick with a sleek, sassy bob who’s thanking Shiva daily that she’s rid of all this foolishness.
Personally, I’d take every bit of it out myself right now, except I’ll be damned if all the big hair doesn’t make me look almost exactly like I did in college.
“Bird tongue is definitely a leaf, not a drug.” I slip a pencil out of my purse and surreptitiously begin to scratch. Did I mention the itching? Oh, yeah, there’s itching. So much itching, I want to tear my scalp off. “I did some research on bird tongue and supposedly it’s all fancy and gourmet, but the tea it makes isn’t anything spectacular. I thought it might give me super strongs or be like an organic amphetamine or something, but pretty much it’s just green tea. Maybe it’s making my immune system all tough, but in terms of flavor, eh. I’d rather have the hundred and eighty bucks.”
“At least you got a great story out of the experience.”
“No, pretty much I just confirmed how much more work I need to do on myself.”
Stacey pulls a face. “Well, I strongly disagree, but what else?”
I got done with my tour two weeks ago, but it feels like forever. “Um, oh! Check this out—I’m in Los Angeles—”
“After San Francisco?”
Scratch, scratch, scratch. I dig deeper with the pencil, and I think I feel the lead break my skin. That can’t be good. Maybe I should have used the eraser side?
“Right. I’m in LA and I’m in this car driven by a complete maniac. Traffic was brutal, so my schedule was beyond tight. To make up for it, my driver, Richard Fucking