Well.
I don’t even know where to begin with this.
Back in September at the DotMom Conference, I wore my hair in a side bun. Think Princess Leia but just on one side and down low. And several people asked me how I did it and Sophie put the thought in my head that I should do a video hair tutorial.
Here’s a picture of me from DotMom with Sophie, Lauren Chandler and her band, and my side bun.
Then I wore the side bun again when I was at Allume. It’s not so much that I love the side bun as it is that it’s the perfect solution to third day hair that needs to be washed. And again, several people commented on it and asked how I fixed it that way.
So I’ve spent the last month procrastinating and waiting for the perfect storm of third day hair and a friend who might be available to record a video of me doing my hair. Understandably, this isn’t something you want to ask just anyone to do because some people might find it weird. As they should.
But I’d mentioned over the weekend that this might be a good week for the hair tutorial to my friend Debbi and she said she could find some time to come over and record me. And so yesterday afternoon while Caroline was working on math homework, Debbi showed up and we headed into the bathroom to make a video that is every bit as amateurish as you’ve come to expect from me.
However, Debbi is a photographer and, thus, she was concerned about the lighting in my bathroom. And since there aren’t a lot of lighting options, I asked if maybe we should raise the blinds on the window to let in some natural light. She felt this might work and so I pulled the cord to raise the blinds on the only window in our bathroom. A window where we always keep the blinds closed and, therefore, a window with a view that I never think about, especially because it faces the far side of our backyard that I never see.
You know how there are things about your house or your yard that seem normal to you because they’re in your yard and you just don’t think about it?
Yeah.
Well Debbi immediately found herself looking at Caroline’s old Radio Flyer red wagon that happens to be filled to the brim with all manner of antlers and various old animal bones that she and P have found at the ranch. It looks like something out of a horror movie.
Debbi screamed, “What is happening in your backyard? Are those body parts? What is going on?”
Just about the time I got her calmed down with an explanation of the antlers, we both looked out again only to see something with a large tail scurry into the wood pile next to the wagon. Debbi shrieked, jumped into my bathtub and asked, “Am I in a horror movie? What is happening?”
And I wanted to answer her but I couldn’t because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I mean what are the odds that someone is going to come to your house, open your blinds, see a wagon full of bones and a rat in your woodpile?
Probably about the same odds that you’ll have a friend who asks you to video them while they fix their hair.
By this time Caroline had run into the bathroom to see what we were screaming about and all three of us ended up standing in the bathtub and looking out the window just in time to see the rat dart behind a tree and then back under the woodpile where it appears he met a friend because all of a sudden there were two sets of eyes peering out at us. This was about the same time Debbi began to dry heave.
I’m not going to lie. We’re probably going to have to burn the house to the ground.
Fortunately, much like Annelle from Steel Magnolias, I did not let my personal tragedy interfere with my ability to do good hair. And so the show went on.
But here are a few things you should know. The lighting continued to be terrible, which really concerns me because I may look worse in real life than I do in my bathroom mirror. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to upload the entire video to my computer so this is in two parts. It’s all very professional.
And, finally, I totally lost it at the end of the first clip because Debbi was mimicking Ross Gellar yelling, “PIVOT” every time I said “Pin it”. I could have edited that out but that would have taken time that I don’t have because I need to go to Home Depot and buy some rat traps.
Hair from Big Mama on Vimeo.
Hair 2 from Big Mama on Vimeo.
So there you have it. I’m sure there are better, more professional ways to both record a video and make a side bun, but apparently I don’t know either of them. I’m also concerned about how violently I throw around my hair brush.
It’s like I’m Eminem dropping a mic at the end of a show.
