Never Done: Got my hair cut for a costume (Oscars Party)
Second time (and Superfine's) a charm. I made a second batch of meringue, and I did four things differently. I waited until it wasn't raining. I beat the egg whites until they formed soft peaks before I started adding in the sugar. I added the sugar in slower. I used Superfine sugar. It came out perfect. Stiff and white and ... perfect. By then I had gotten some pastry bags and tips so I could sculpt my meringue into swans. Or a swan.
I spent way too much time looking at Google images of meringue swans (try it, you might get swept in) but then ultimately, I realized that I didn't want my swan to look beautiful. I wanted my swan to look like it just threw itself off a stage onto a mattress with a shard of mirror cutting into her gut, and a pool of blood emanating from the wound. So after all the careful planning of how to make a beautiful swan, I whipped out a suicidal one in about 30 seconds. I loved her as soon as I made her.
But how to make the mirror shard? The blood was easy -- sauce from any red fruit. (I chose strawberry.) I actually considered using broken mirror, until it came to me. Old fashioned sheet candy. I bought corn syrup for the first time in at least a decade, borrowed a candy thermometer from Melissa, and before I knew it, I had boiling bubbling sugar on the stove. I don't even remember why or when I made candy like this when I was a kid, but it all came back to me, like second nature, especially at the moment that I got to pour the candy onto the buttered cookie sheet. After it cooled, I lifted it off the pan, and broke it into pieces, and one of the formed the perfect shard for the swan's demise.
Meanwhile (the candy takes a while to cool) I got the rest of the house ready for the party, and one by one, eight friends called or texted to say they couldn't make it. (As much as I wish each of them had been there, the nine of us who did watch together used every chair in the apartment, such is urban hosting.) I moved the table, I cleaned the bathroom, I swept the apartment, (I decided not to vacuum the couch, which sheds black and white feathers, so that anyone who would sit there could pull feathers out of their shoulders, like in the Black Swan.) I made hummus, salmon dip, and guacamole, and then it was time to figure out my outfit for the evening.
I usually wear a sea moss green with gold brocade gown my mother had made for herself in the 60s, and go as myself as if I were really at the Oscars, which one year I hope to do. This year I wanted to be more specific, and was thinking about all the gray-haired actresses or characters I could be (or actresses who should be gray-haired by now, but dye.) I was leaning towards Helen Mirren or Helena Bonham Carter as themselves, Melissa Leo in The Fighter (but I hated her performance) or Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right (my new glasses, and I could wear sweats all night) -- or possibly a combination of all three (Annena Leo Mirren, in the gown, some wild red shoes, the glasses, maybe some white face makeup, and a wicked Lowell accent.) But Dana, who came over early to hang out, took a strong stance on behalf of a single look, and she favored Annette Bening's LA soft butch, only she also favored the greeting-the-sperm-donor look, so we chose a white button-up with long cuffs, and my only slacks (black.) But what to do about my hair?
It's a fact that my hair has been feeling a little grown-out and dull lately. And it's also a fact that it's been at a challenging length for working out -- not long enough to put in a pony tail, but still long enough to hang in my face. So I've been thinking about getting it cut again. I wasn't planning on getting it cut super short, but in an instant, I decided it would be completely fun and also a little insane to get a short, choppy Annette Bening haircut for my Oscars costume. So Dana and I walked down to 7th Avenue to see if Melissa at Pamona, who gave me my last hair cut, had a free hour. (Turns out Dana used to get her hair cut at Pamona when she lived in this neighborhood.) Melissa was there, and she had time free, so we took out the photos of Annette, and went for it. There was a point along the way of the hair cut, when it was shorter in the back and sides, and longer in front, when I thought -- you know what? Stop. That looks great. Just like that. But we were in service of a costume and a bold new look, so I let her keep going. As a costume, with the ton of product I let her spray, paste, and smoosh into my hair, it came out pretty good. The problem is that in every day life, because I have a huge cowlick on the right side of my head, and so I look like a lopsided puffball mushroom, even with a moderate amount of product. (I hear it looks pretty cute from behind though.)
So for one night of portrayal of Annette Bening's portrayal of a tightly-wound LA lesbian with a perpetual glass of wine in hand, I get to embark on the process of growing my hair back out, with some weeks or maybe months of looking somewhat goofy. What's interesting to me about this is that I don't really care how I look. I mean, I want to look good. I want to look great. But also, I love the morph and the transformation. I love the ways that process, which is usually so inner, can be physicalized and externalized. I love the discoveries that come every day, millimeter by millimeter, strand by strand.
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