Gone

I had my hair cut yesterday, chopping off almost 3 inches— 4 in some parts, because I got layers. Normally I hate getting haircuts because I find that even the best stylists tend to screw up the simplest instructions: you tell them to take an inch off, they lop off 2 and a half; you tell them you don’t want bangs, they give you wisps that keep falling into your eyes; you tell them you want to look like Rachel from Friends, they make you look like Kramer from Seinfeld. And anyone who has ever had a bad haircut knows there is nothing worse than showing up to class or work the following day and have everyone going, “Patay na ba yung gumupit ng buhok mo?”

Yesterday though, sitting there watching the stylist snip merrily away, instead of the usual gripping dread, I felt an odd calm (and to think the stylist was new and had never cut my hair before). Even when he asked if he could hack off a few more centimeters, I just nodded placidly, letting him do his thing. Amazingly enough, it turned out better than I expected. Shorter than I expected, true, but not horrible at all. It’s going to be a challenge to tame the layers every morning, yes, but no one really cares what I look like at the office (unlike some delightful students who used to greet me in the halls when I had just arrived at school, cheerfully pointing out that I looked sabog :p).

Unfortunately, hair wasn’t the only thing I lost yesterday. My precious Palm Tungsten T5 conked out on me and wouldn’t switch on. All my attempts to reset and recharge were futile. In my panic I texted my trusty tech support pal Fara, and though her suggestions didn’t work either, and she just ended up advising me to bring the unit to a service center to have it fixed, I felt better knowing this advice was coming from Fara. At one point though she threw me into a renewed state of panic when she asked if the warranty was still valid, and I realized I didn’t know where I had put the receipt. When I told her that, she almost had a heart attack— Fara, the most OC person I know (who keeps her important documents in Ziploc bags), thinks a careless act like that completely unconscionable, and good thing I unearthed the receipt from the pile of junk on my desk, or she might have lectured me about it for the rest of our natural lives.

Today I’m sending my Tungsten T5 to be repaired. They might send back a new unit to replace the busted one, or figure out a way to fix the unit, but not without wiping out all my stored data. Sigh. Don’t you just hate it when you lose something? At least hair grows back…