Monday Musings: Birds, Bobs, and a Television I Can Tolerate

My hairdresser here in Vancouver is very careful and precise, which is important because when your hair is thinning, every strand matters. A few careless snips can take months to recover from so I can’t go to someone who’s casual about that.

We talked through all of it…my face shape, hair texture, the thinning, and what might actually help, instead of just sounding promising in the chair. At one point, I told him I didn’t want to look like Little Lord Fauntleroy. He looked vaguely confused, and that’s when I realized the reference may have expired with my generation.

For years, I’ve added layers in hopes of creating more volume. This time, we did the opposite. He cut it blunt, straight across, so you don’t see through the ends as much. He only took off about two inches, but it feels like a completely different approach. I’m still playing with it, but I think I love it. Or at the very least, I’m not standing in front of the mirror feeling like my hair looks straggly. We briefly chatted about going even shorter but I chickened…maybe next time.

We also did something this week that I don’t think we’ve done in more than 24 years. We bought a television.

I realize that sounds completely unremarkable, but it felt strangely significant to me.

I grew up in a house where the TV was broken for a long stretch. The screen didn’t work, so I remember sitting on the floor as a little girl listening to Bewitched and trying to figure out what that funny little sound was. I knew Samantha was twitching her nose, but I couldn’t actually see it. Eventually, the television got fixed, and we’d watch Star Trek together as a family on Sunday nights, but that was about it. My parents read. I read. Television was never the center of our home.

The TV we have in California was handed down to us by our son about 15 years ago, when he upgraded and realized we didn’t even own a smart TV. That tells you pretty much everything.

So walking into a store and actually choosing one together felt deeply out of character. I cared less about the technology than I did about how it would look on the wall. I didn’t want a giant black rectangle looming over the room like a modern monument to poor decorating choices, so we chose a Frame TV. I suspect I’ll appreciate it even more once I can make it pretend to be art.

Which is apparently what happens when your design preferences finally overpower your lifelong indifference to television.

My daughter and I also spent some time browsing the Sephora sale in person. I don’t know if this is universal, but every Sephora I walk into has the same overpowering smell. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t enjoy being sold products I already know I don’t want, which is why I usually prefer shopping online. But it was more fun with my daughter because she has a much higher tolerance for retail chaos than I do. The place was packed, and I was reminded very quickly why I like to click “add to cart” from the privacy of my own home. Still, I did manage to replace a few things. You can see my other favorites in this post.

So that’s been my week: forest air, a new haircut, and discovering I apparently do have opinions about televisions after all.