say goodbye to shampoo...

Friday I woke up debating if I should share my brewing germs with any auditioning theatre companies. I decided against it and instead went back to Nia to shake my bones for the first time in a long while. I spent most of the day preparing for my coaching with Laura which was great, again!!!, despite my strange throat. I am finding that I have a lot less opera in my MT sound than I thought and it's not going to be as great a divide to "cross-over" as I had anticipated. Which is great! Yay! We had so much fun going through bunches of new songs I'd learned, trying to find that middle ground between what I imagine the MT sound (a little bit too nasaly for public consumption!) and my natural "legit" voice. I know this is really technical and boring. Sorry. I'm just excited that it's not going to take me years to find a marketable sound in theatre. Yippee.
As I was walking home from my coaching in the fashion district, guess who I saw again?....Jay McCarroll, season 1 winner of Project Runway. I love my celebrity designer friends...maybe someday he'll pass me one of his cool bags as I walk by. I can dream.
Friday night I met up with Adrienne and her friend from work, Robin for a movie and dinner. I am embarassed to admit that I spent $11 on (cringing as I write) "Wild Hogs." Oh dear. It was actually pretty enjoyable despite some serious bad writing and questionable lack of acting. We walked down my favorite avenue (2nd Ave) for several blocks before deciding on Jackson Hole, a diner, famous for burgers. Yummy turkey burgers with gigantic fries. Robin is a singer-actor and while she isn't pursuing theatre as a career right now she has been on Broadway and was full of advice for me. It was so nice to meet her and see why Adrienne is such a big fan of hers! We continued our conversations (and splurging) at another diner closer to our house called, "Burger Heaven" where we split a few desserts.
Seri and Bradley came over for some tea and some play with Gracie after their dinner date with one of Bradley's high school friends. It was a good time, oh yeah, love those Quartons!

Saturday was the big makeover day with my 4pm appointment set at Devachan salon, the mecca for curly hair. So much more on that to come!
I was excited to go back to my Sat. morning dance classes. I was sad not to see Gail at Nia but still got a great workout making shapes and shaking my bones. I also was thrilled to be back in Abby's class. We did hip-hop which is a struggle for my white, goody-goody body but I did my best to look mad and fierce. I'm not quitting my day job...or whatever.
Adrienne accompanied me on the big adventure. Devachan is in the heart of Soho, the trendy, trendy part of town. It was super-crowded on the street and we found the salon hidden away, in the basement of a building with a doorman. Already, the mystique poured in. I had to check in and then exchanged my coat for a silky gold robe. I sat with excitement next to Adrienne. Apparently Jeffrey, my stylist, was running a little behind, and so we were offered tea and enjoyed the hibiscus-y concoction immensely. Yum! Already, I knew this was going to be a flavor-ful experience. We chatted up a really sweet man waiting for his wife to get her hair colored. He didn't know about the cult of Devachan and was shocked when two girls checked in and announced they had come all the way from DC for their curly lock haircuts!
Well, after a few more minutes, Jeffrey introduced himself to me and then sat me in one of his chairs. It seemed like he had two or three other girls at various stages in their Devachan experience while he was working with me. I enjoyed him ssssoooooooooo much. Honestly he not only spoke a foreign curl language (lots about the inner and outer weight of my hair and how my curls had become too friendly with eachother) but also with a pretty thick Malaysian-Chinese accent. But he had a great sense of humor, I loved talking to him about Malaysia and he was so passionate about how to treat curls! I got the giggles several times when I watched his intensity in trimming each dry curl. I had to bring Adrienne over to experience the joy! After he did the dry cut and started explaining how my life was going to change (no more shampoo, never again, no combs, just fingers and water-based products...i think he nearly fainted when I told him that I had used mousse that morning!!!!), I had the extreme pleasure of getting my carefully trimmed curls washed and "set." The wash station was like a reclining massage table with a mosquito net and complete with delicious smelling products and a great head and neck massage. Loved it! My hair-washer also dried my hair and applied gel with paper towels? and then clipped pieces of it for added height and then put my head into an extremely fast hair dryer. After it was "set" my curls definitely looked different and Jeffrey seemed pleased. He talked me through my entire program...lots of conditioning, scrunching, drying with paper towels and no shampooing....and my favorite line, he said, "Call me anytime you have questions." He is like my curl doctor! Based on my overly-friendly curls and the "inner weight" issues, he doesn't want to see me for another 7 months. Can I really wait that long? It was so fun and a totally other-worldly experience. I feel like my hair has changed forever!
We didn't finish at the salon until 6:30! and went straight to Macy's on 34th for some makeup ideas. We went to the Prescriptives counter and I got color-typed again and to my astonishment I am actually a yellow-orange. Another life-altering revelation! We were starving and Adrienne remembered a fun diner in Times Square. Note to everyone...don't eat in Times Square, especially diner food, you will get ripped off! We decided to have a last indulgence after a week of splurging to propel us into Dr. Oz allegiance...we stopped at Carnegie Deli for a slice of 5th Avenue Pie to share. Totally full of calories and needless sugar, I honestly don't need to ever eat it or anything like it again.