Its been 7 months or so since I visited the coiffeur. About a week ago, I woke up and noticed a split hair... a long split hair.... with about 20 different splits in it. So I decided to gut it and go to the coiffeur here in France again.

The first time I made this enquête, I felt like a miserable failure and walked out with what the girl wanted to give me instead of what I wanted. It was frustrating and expensive and I gave up and returned to my mom who trimmed my hair for the rest of that séjour in France.

This time I started by hunting around in the little streets around the Sorbonne, my new school. Certain places advertised for student rates and so I began hunting for their prices and watching through the windows to see what kind of work they were producing. I say all this because I am quite attached to a talented hairdresser that I have in Portland- namely Jen at Salon 181. I miss that girl.

The going rate for students in spendy Paris is still 3 times what I payed Jen, but I took the dive today and met my new coiffeuse Marie. I chose a little place a block from my new school and across from a little park where they once beheaded people and just two steps from the café where Jonathan and Karen secretly met all of 4 years ago.

I took a photo along, trembling as I pulled it from my shorty's backpack as she said she couldn't "see the coiffe". Mince! I let her talk and tried as hard as possible to assimilate all the new vocab, but since I had been up since 6:30 when the glass recycler came by, and I had spent a good 3 hours in french class and the phonetics lab, my best was to follow what she said. She gave my head a good washing and quickly whisked it forward into a ponytail and wacked it off. I was a bit scared but I relaxed as I watched her mold it into a nice cut, layered around my face. The head wash was done in cold water which was quite refreshing considering its about 40 degrees Celsius, but she had to insist on styling my new head and swiftly applied her hairdryer to my rebellious hair. I thought my scalp would broil.

Voila! I have a new doo! still quite long but with all the possiblilities of "chic" to "rebel" and a new coiffeuse.