splitting hairs

It feels weird to “introduce” myself when for months now some of you have already been reading about my life. When Brian asked me to start writing for his blog I jumped at the chance, if for no other reason then, now I get to talk about some of his more embarrassing moments (I kid, I kid!)

Really I’m very excited to write for B’s blog! I’m currently writing a blog for my company Fierce, Inc. and, as a young writer, I always love the chance to write more!

The men in my life have always been fascinated with my hair. Their obsession baffles me as its always been my biggest pain in the ass. It’s thick, curly or wavy and usually is copping major attitude. It can be tamed, but it involves copious amounts of liquid and heat and is a laborious process.

I often talked about cutting it really short, but Brian always through a fit. This fit usually included begging and tears, so I just left it long. Six months before we got married I decided enough was enough, and after the wedding, I was chopping it off. When I told B he laughed in my face. Brian should know better than to ever dare me, but he couldn't help himself, and he called my bluff. It was on! It was on like Donkey Kong.

Please don’t get confused, I didn't want to cut my hair just to piss him off. However, if he was going to be glib I wasn't going to endear myself to his point of view.

So two years ago, one week after our wedding, I walked to the salon across the street from my house and had them take the scissors to my long curly mane. The stylist, afraid of some impending freak out due to shock, wouldn't go pixie short and instead left me with a Kate Plus 8 type haircut. It was horrible. I hated it instantly, but he talked me into going home for the night, and if I still didn't like it the next day to come back and he would ‘go all the way.’

To my surprise B liked it. This was further proof to me that I hated it. After an embarrassing trip to Target, that included me pulling my hood over my head the whole time and Brian getting very pissed off at me, I knew that I would be making a trip back to the salon the next day.

I didn't tell B about my decision, and so when he came home to find his wife with shorter hair than his, his reaction was to be a total asshole.

He continued to be an asshole for weeks after, until a combination of my tears and stern looks from his parents forced him to apologize. His point was clear though; he hated my hair and so I began to hate my hair. I immediately began to grow it back out.This process totally blows (btw), but after two years I finally grew it down to my shoulders. B was so happy, the liquid and heat had returned and hours of my time was now being consumed by my hair.

A very complex part of a relationship is the area concerning looks. I’m at the point in my life where I’m trying to determine; just how much what I look like has to do with my identity. Add in the extra layer that I want another person to want to have sex with me on a regular basis, and I do feel an obligation to stay attractive for my spouse. This thought process is how you end up with the cluster-fuck that is happening inside my head.

Brian likes long, curly, beautiful Cosmopolitan magazine type hair, I don’t want that to be my identity. It recently became clear to me that I needed to give the pixie hair cut another chance.This was news I wasn't looking forward to breaking to Brian again.

Nobody can fully prepare you for the crazy shit that happens in a relationship. If someone had told me that being married would involve deep conversations about hair, I would have thought marriage was bullshit, because you can’t just do something without taking the other persons feelings into account. Brian did not disappoint me though, he totally manned up and came through. Maybe it is bullshit that Brian cares so much about my hair or that I care so much about what he thinks, but nonetheless he put his feelings aside and took one for the team. He even went so far as to help me pick a style of pixie cut he thought was somewhat sexy.

I’m excited for the new me, which feels a lot like the old me--just with less liquid, heat and more time on my hands!

posted by: jaime navarro

let's get engaged

let's get engaged....sure.

Jaime and I have talked endlessly about how best to tell the story of our engagement and subsequent marriage.  This included an ill fated performance at IO West theater in Los Angeles.  Much of the following blogs involving the year of our engagement are drawn from that performance and our discussions.

As if our first year in a new city wasn’t hard enough; as if money wasn’t tight enough, as if everyday life wasn’t taking enough out of us, Jaime and I decided to make our like even harder by getting engaged.

How did this whole thing begin?  As best as I can remember it was the middle of April on a beautiful warm day.  Both Jaime and I were off work early and we had an afternoon to burn, without much money we decided to stay in and...well do what you sometimes do when you’re at home and have no money.  Afterwards we found ourselves laying in bed together, I can remember looking out the window and watching the bird fly up and land on the roof.  Somehow and even now I cannot fully remember Jaime brought up the topic of marriage.

The previous October we attended my brothers wedding and when people 

would turn to us and ask when we would be getting married we laughed.  

Half jokingly we told them that when all our friends were divorced we 

would get married.

Truth be told I only entered this conversation with Jaime because I could sense that to attempt to blow off marriage talk would only instigate a fight and I was far too exposed and relaxed for a fight.  I humored her, we talked about who we would invite, family and close friends only, where we would do it, at my mom’s house with a pot luck dinner.  We decided when, mid May of 2009 perhaps the 16th.

I imagine that this is where female readers will close their eyes and slowly shake their head from side to side wondering exactly how men can be so oblivious.  I understood that we were getting married but what I took away from the conversation was that this would happen somewhere in the future like buying a new car or going to Europe.  That date we set was loose and not set in stone.

We went the rest of the night without discussing the wedding and Jaime did not rush to tell anyone, the following morning was the same and I was almost able to forget about the entire thing.  On her way home from work that evening I learned how wrong I was, she had spent the entire morning looking at engagement rings and had told everyone at work that she was engaged.

“Look,” I said “I don’t want every conversation to be about weddings now.”  As soon as I said it I wished that I could take it back.  

An argument ensued and it nearly ended in a break up.  We discussed things further that evening and I began to understand that our conversation the afternoon before had not been a bunch of loose ideas and dreams, it was for real and I was acting like a total asshole.  We talked not about wedding plans but rather about why it was that I didn’t want to get married.

I didn’t have a good answer, the best I could come up with was that I wanted to wait until I had the money to throw a big lavish wedding.  I didn’t really want that, I believed that expensive weddings were a waste of money.  Sure you had memories and memories are important but it is just a day and with the money saved you could do so much more.  What I think my real fear was, was telling my parents.  In our situation and at a time when everyone was warning of a second depression it did not seem to make much sense to be getting married and I really didn’t want to have to justify our decision.

I had some time to think about what I wanted to do, by the next day it was clear to me that I had no reason not to marry Jaime.  I loved her, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her and that was reason enough.  I called her that afternoon and told her that when she picked me up from work that we would head out to the Glendale Mall and go to Zales to buy her engagement ring.

Through out the entire process of getting engaged and eventually married we did very little conventionally.  Picking out the ring was far from conventional, she’d seen it on their website and loved it.  Unable to afford anything expensive it was to our benefit that technically this was a promise ring and priced at less than $120.  Jaime pointed it out to me in the case, she tried it on and then I insisted that she leave while I purchased it.  I didn’t let her wear it out of the store, it went into the box and sat in my dresser drawer.

We were technically engaged, preparing and planning for a mid May wedding.  There were dresses to buy, invitations to send out, parents to tell.  I was also holding onto a ring and I knew that at some point I would need to get down on one knee and ask her to marry me.  I didn’t know when or where or how I was going to do it but I did know that I was going to make her sweat about it a little.