Also...

I got a haircut.  I always wait til times when I'm home to cut my hair because a. getting haircuts causes me significant anxiety and b. I can usually avoid paying for them when I'm home.  I hadn't messed with my hair for actually almost an entire year though, and it was really long (which actually looked kind of nice sometimes, but was starting to get really ridiculous).

Me before my haircut! 

After deciding my hair situation had finally gone too far, I went to this Fantastic Sam's-like place in a strip mall in Virginia (I housesat for the Morans this weekend, so I was hanging out on that side of town).  As soon as I walked in and sat down at a chair, I realized I'd made a huge mistake.  The only people getting their haircut were a 12 year old boy, a middle aged man, and two elderly women who were actually balding.  

Immediately, I start to panic.  The woman who's cutting my hair asks if I speak Spanish, and then proceeds to sternly chide me for the next 30 minutes about how I'm such a pretty girl and I obviously don't put any effort into my personal upkeep.  I show her the length that I want in the back, but she tells me that my hair grows so fast, so she'll cut more. Great.  She starts cutting, and in my panic I realize that I'm starting to look like Victor from Smoke Signals right after he gets enraged and cuts his hair off with a knife. I feel like I'm going to vom. I start frantically planning where I'm going to go after this ordeal is over to have them fix my hair, imagining then that they too mess up my hair, and after going to four or five hair salons, I just end up with a buzz cut.  Or worse yet...

After about 45 minutes of agonized cutting, blow-drying, and crying, the woman announces she's done.  I open my eyes.  I look pretty much the same, except with shorter hair.  I thank her and pay (but don't tip too generously because I'm still feeling kind of nauseous from the whole ordeal), and leave.