A Trip to the See-lon

Living in Western Massachusetts and the Bay Area of California, even staying in Westchester County NY, I have gone to places to get my hair cut, styled even on occasion. These shops could honestly and rightly be called "salons", "hair places", even a "spa" or two. However yesterday I had a whole different experience. You know the place in "the neighborhood" where your grandmother spent the better part of Saturday morning, like thirty years ago? Well I'm here to say those places still exist.

Sure there are salons out here where BC lives but I am on a budget. There is a nice looking one just about two blocks away - convenient I agree but a tad pricey. For BC this place is too "frou-frou", she tried and felt all the extra attention was wasted on her. She likes to get in, get out. Given all that I decided to go where she gets her lovely salt and pepper, er, can't say locks - she wears it quite short, um hair cut. I had plenty of warning from BC about this establishment. "It's where all the blue-hairs go." "I might be the youngest client they have." Um, okay.

Upon arrival I was enthusiastically greeted and welcomed by Nancy who apparently runs the place. Her hair was teased about 3 to 4 inches high and colored, well I'm not quite sure how to described other than distinctly unnaturally blond. On the counter was a small menorah with bright silver candles. As she moved there were delicate sounds her jewelry clanking together while she warned me that she was trouble, with a wink. The gentleman who would cut my hair was finishing up with a client, who if I based his talent on her I would have ran out screaming. Her hair was a large mousy brown bubble of rolled, teased, and sprayed within an inch of it's life of something that might have once been hair.

Another woman graciously showed me where coats where hung and even took it from me to place my red with black woven ribbon in vaguely tribal designs coat to spend time with the muted tones of the "blue hairs'" respectable, understated winter apparel. I was offered coffee, which imagining extremely weak Maxw*ll House that had been sitting far too long, I politely declined.

Soon I was in his chair with wet hair that had been shampooed with enough soap to wash Cousin Itt. As we were discussing what I wanted, the client who had just left his chair waved to him saying, "I feel like a whole new woman!". Under his breath but loud enough for me to hear he said "Ugly hair style" and I could swear he shuddered. Politely I responded with "Well it is perhaps a bit dated, but it seems to make her happy." Charbel, (yes that's his name) is fifty if he's a day and he's probably closer to sixty, wore slacks and a tailored shirt which had the first two buttons under allowing just a few wisps of his chest hair to make themselves known. On on arm he wore two serious gold bracelets. He spoke with an accent that was hard to discern but given everything I am thinking possible middle-eastern Jewish background.

As I was readying to leave he came over to take another look at my hair (which seems to be a promising cut by the way) and noticed I had some hairs on my face. As he brought the towel to me to gently brush away the trimmings I simply closed my eyes. "Ah, good you trust me," he said, and with that gave me a peck on my cheek, wishing me happy holidays. At the counter I was delighted that this good cut and amusing experience on cost $31 plus tip! Truly a bargain.

I giggled all the way to my car.

What's in a name?

In my work for "the man" I have been privy to a lot of unusual names,sometimes it's just the spelling that is a little different.  But clearly some are interesting references to totally other things.
For one thing it can be a way to tell folks how your little came to be here.  Chianti  Chardonnay  Vodka  Tequila  I don't know about you but I would have some problem with Vodka. The rest, well, at least have a flow about the pronunciation  that at least makes them interesting.  Also the traditional spellings were used so that makes things a bit easier on the kid.  In the stacks of applications were also names that most of us associate with places, things, or well just not names:
 LaQuinta - I could swear this is a motel chain.  If names help determine your future, well let's not even contemplate this poor child's potential destiny.  Clinique - hm, except for the fact that this name was given to a girl I would think someone was raising a potential drag queen.  Touche - complete with the accent.  Think about how most of use this french word in conversation.  Very weird to go around calling your child the equivalent of "good point!".
British - I get London, Asia, India, Cheyenne, and others.  But British???   Not surprisingly I saw: Eunique (I figure the parent thought adding the "e" give it that unusual edge), Princess, and Precious.

However "MyQueen" just tripped me out.  Can you imagine the parent saying:  "No MyQueen, Yes MyQueen"?  Doesn't that set up one hell of a twisted power balance!  My friend Andrea would be surprised at how many other spellings there are for her name:
Aundrea
Andrey'a
Andria  The other piece that is interesting in the naming I saw was the abundance of vowels, or sometimes missing vowels, and apostrophe's. Do you think that Sh'ron and Sha'ron are pronounced differently? Seriously I pondered this one and I realize I have a hard time hearing certain subtle differences in speech but I really think these would sound the same said by most folks.  Then there are the ones that almost sound like another word: Creola - crayola
Ta'Jeana - tagine
Jiaria - giardia

The siblings sets of names could be truly daunting.
Terrence is the brother of Terraca
Christine is the sister to Christian
Johnnie (m) is the brother to Johnnae (f)
D'Angela is the sister to Angelo D.
Trevon is Jevion's brother
Jay'Veon is brother to Jay'Quon
DaMiyah & DaMahnii

Twins:
Amauki (f) & Amaurion (m)
Mykiana(f)  & Mykala (f)

Mom Lennette liked the doubling up of letters so much that she named one of her children Leannettay

I realize that I sucked at pronouncing words and names, so much so one would think English was my second or third language but there were some that totally stumped me.
Quovozio  Kozon   Nyiarrha
Elijhnane  Tylexcen Dazjha

Sibling sets:
Shawn (m), Shantil (f), Shanell (f), Shaniece (f) & Za'niya (f)
Emprise (f), Se'Marion (m), & Ricae (f)
Ta't'Yannah (f), Tai'Shawn (m) and Tae'Jon (m)

This is just a taste of the names I scribbled down while plugging away at data entry where my rate went from 70 applications to 120 a day. There are more but I suspect y'all would get bored.

On a more serious note even a quick reading of these applications was depressing - all these single young women with children, their lives in a total standstill by parenthood.  Many of these women had their first child at 16, the youngest I processed was 13 but 14 and 15 were not unusual to see either.  One woman was 21 and already had a 7, 4, 2, and 1 year old.  My heart broke when I saw files like this, my body ached with idea of the burden.  Many of these women have had between 2-5 men fathers for their children and are not receiving child support (well at least they didn't report it).  There were many who were only receiving child support for some of their children, rarely all.

This gig also brought out the latent sociologist in me.  Hourly I formed questions about the naming traditions in the African-American community that I was seeing over and over.  What traditions are they borrowing from?  The use of "Jr" and "III" is still quite common and interesting considering the father's apparent non-involvement.  Some of the spellings seem phonetic but are non-standardized.  There's a system for this sort of thing that I cannot find a reference for - you know that one that spells "fish" something like "ghosh"  (I am sure about using "gh" for "f"). The doubling up of vowels, dropping of vowels, odd consonants, use of apostrophes - mind boggling I tell you.