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Earlier this week, I realized I had been in London for three months already. More specifically, I realized that I had been in London for three months already and it was definitely, urgently, unquestionably time for a haircut. My bangs had grown past my eyebrows and then past my eyes weeks ago, and I'd adopted a swept to the side style that I hoped looked deliberate or even just passable, rather than like a feeble attempt to conceal my ill-kept locks. Previously, I'd attempted to trim my own bangs, but it didn't go well. Soon after I'd tried it I was told at a dinner party that I looked a bit like John Bunyan, so I decided not to try it again. Plus, much as I love Tom, I wasn't about to ask him to trim my bangs, so I decided to find a hairdresser.

In most aspects of my life I'm not superstitious or religious, but I am, I suppose, a bit religious about who cuts my hair. I figure that hair is one accessory worth investing in: you wear it every day, and it has the potential to make things look better, rather than worse, so why not? Plus I've been growing out my hair, and I wanted to find someone who'd restore order without chopping off too much length. I'm growing it out in part because I really want to have long hair again, and haven't since I was very young, and in part because my hair is finally longer than Tom's, and I'm not about to give up that hard-won victory just yet. It was cool to have hair shorter than his, and maybe I'll go back to it sometime, but not just yet.

So, I started looking around for a place. Everything in London is expensive to begin with, so I couldn't go straight to the place where Tilda Swinton gets her hair done. Mind you, I was sorely tempted, especially as it's called Tommy Guns. But instead I settled on Hair and Jerome in Spitalfields, in East London. I didn't know anyone who'd been there, but I thought, well, it's worth a try. It's run by ex-Parisians, and the walls are an amazing shade of dark yellow, with contrasting black trim. Everything is perfectly done, and the barber chairs are antiques. When I walked in, I thought, these are all signs of a place that will be too cool for school, not to mention for me. I was wrong, though: it was very unpretentious.

Anyhow, I was reminded of how the experience of going to someone new for a haircut requires complete trust. You have to cede faith to the scissors. It's been a while since I've had to do this, and there were a few moments when I found my heart in my throat, as Ismarie, the lady in question, cut off huge pieces of my hair. I kept thinking, wait, I thought we were going to keep it long, and here there are these four-inch-long pieces falling to the floor. But it turned out very well in the end, and I have to say, I dig it. Ismarie herself was amazing, and could have been right out of a Garance Dore blog post. She had effortless elegance, and was surprisingly hilarious. Telling me about going to a friend's house, but being warned that the friend's mother didn't like French people, she said to me, "I don't understand! It's not like I showed up all like this!" -- and she shoved her hand between the buttons of her shirt, Napoleon-style. Awesome.

The Holidays

In the past, I would not have described myself as particularly gung-ho when it comes to the holidays. I love the small family rituals we have, like putting the fat, old-style colored lights up on the tree, the sort that I'm not sure are even made any more, or eating lots and lots of stollen on Christmas morning, sometimes in combination with pannetone, or battling Dad about whether it's ok to have Mannheim Steamroller providing the soundtrack. I'm a naysayer on the last issue, just for the record. But in general, aside from my enthusiasm about seeing family and friends, and having a generally expansive excuse to eat, drink, and make merry -- plus an occasion to bake new kinds of cookies, like ones you shape in spoons -- I'm not usually holiday-crazy. You'd never find me wearing a headband with reindeer antlers (which I spotted at the airport a few years ago), nor a flashing necklace. I don't carol, and my interest in nativity scenes tends more towards stories about how churches have had to start installing GPS tracking devices in baby Jesus to prevent theft than towards strict scriptural interpretation.

Now, I'm not wearing an appliqued santa sweatshirt while writing this, but I have to say that living in England has made me much more keen about holidays. Usually Thanksgiving passes without too much fuss, but this year, when we had a Thanksgiving here with my parents and Tom's grandmother, one of Tom's brothers, and Kristian, I felt the full onset of holiday enthusiasm. I suppose I associate Thanksgiving and Christmas with the States, and so having a Thanksgiving meal with all the fixings is a way to feel as if I'm not so far from home. Cranberry sauce turns out to be much more important when you're in England: somehow it makes the States seem less far away. I'm not quite to the place of saying, admiringly, like a group of tourists I saw a few weeks ago, "Now that's an American car!" when a gigantic stretch Navigator rolled by -- that doesn't make me feel at home! -- but I am feeling especially keen about the holidays this year. But I'll keep it under control, I promise. And if I cave and get the headband, I'll be sure to wear it while singing carols out of the sunroof of a SUV limo.