The first time in almost 15 months!

Well, I finally did it. I haven't gotten my hair cut in almost 15 months. The ends were split, it was wild, unkempt, bushy, and completely out of control. Mom took one look at it and told me that I was getting it cut. I said, OK, but who's gonna pay? The reason I'd gone so long without a cut is that I haven't been able to afford the nearly $100 it costs me to get it done. Usually, my friend does it for me in the salon where he works, and he only charges me what the salon charges him. In other words, he cuts my hair for free in the salon, but he's not going to take a loss on doing me a favour.

Oh, and I should point out that it's not just a cut. It's a shampoo, cut, styling, and two-process colouring. That's right. Because my hair is jet black, it has to be bleached first, and then coloured. Even using the heat lamp, it takes nearly three hours from the time I get there to the time he's finished with me. So that's why it's so much. I think if I had to pay the full price, it would be somewhere around $180 or so, plus tips to the shampoo girl and my friend (I do try to give him at least $10 as a tip, because he really isn't making any money off me, and many times when he knows I'm doing really bad with money he'll tell me to keep it--great friend!)

Welp, this year, I got a Mother's Day gift: Mom decided to pay for me to get my hair cut. Here's the before picture, which was taken by my friend, I'll call her "T", while we were picnicking on some devilishly delish food from Cosi in Glen Island Park in suburban New Rochelle, New York:














And here we are coming out of the Salon (I pronounce it like a European: "SAH-lon"). Mom and I were driving around Bloomfield, CT, and she spotted the place that she thought I would like to get my hair done in. It was a quaint looking place. The first place she tried to take me to was a barber, whom she said did a good job with all the people she's seen coming out, but I've been going to a stylist at a Salon for so long that I just didn't feel comfortable with a barber. So off to the stylist I went and here I am coming out (is it just me or does my new 'do look a little 1980s?):


















I know this isn't the best of shot as it really doesn't show off the new 'do. Mom took that pic of me using my camera phone, a Sprint Sanyo MM-8300. It took her a few times to get it right, as she's never used a camera phone before and she's not the most technologically-savvy person in the world (but I still love her!). Also, English isn't her first language so sometimes there's a bit of a language barrier, too...

So knowing that this wasn't really going to show off the new 'do, I decided to take a snap of myself. I took it in my brothers room, facing the wrong way. You see, the windows (and source of light) are behind me, instead of in front of me. Even though my camera phone has a flash, it's nearly three years old and has a poor resolution (although the resolution was superb for camera phones at the time -- 640x480 pixels, or VGA resolution). So here's the self-taken picture of my self:

















Finally, I was getting a little tired from Gathering today so I took a break and went into my photos. I used IrvanView, which is a great, quick image browsing program that's free for personal use.
The license either doesn't allow commercial use of the program, or requires you to pay a fee or something (I haven't really perused the license as I should have; knowing that it's free for personal use was enough for me as that's all I use it for). Even though it's a really great image viewing program (it supports most image formats out there, and even some non-image formats, as well), it has some basic image-editing features throw in as well. So I tooled around with some of these features, and came up with the following result, which, personally, I think looks better than the original:


















So, what do you think? The one thing about getting my hair done is that it made me feel a bit better about myself. Not thinking that I was always looking like some hooligan or something with wild, untamed hair that wasn't all that healthy, with split ends and what not, not to mention the highlighting at the tips so you could tell I hadn't gotten it cut in quite some time. So it was kind of a boost for my Depression, as well.  I don't feel so bad about being seen in public (excpet for the weight thing now) and I don't feel self-conscious when going out on a side-job that I can pick up every once in a purple moon to help supplement my disability income. Now, if only I could drop the 100 or so pounds that I put back on after my accident, my self-image (at least in terms of my appearance) would be pretty darned good! =b

By the way, you might have to view the images in this article by clicking on the image in the image carousel, which is located in the top-right corner of this article, in order to view them full-size. You can also comment on these images, individually, as well.

So let me know what you think of the pics, and the new 'do!