Haircuts and great literature

It takes a great deal of faith to entrust your life to another person, a person who will snip and cut integral parts of your person, but who will, it is hoped, leave you better off than before. I am speaking here of hair stylists.

I am fortunate to have a stylist who has a lively Irish accent and speaks animatedly about anything, even the weather. Recently we discussed our love of books, and how both our husbands eschewed fiction, which we are fortunately low-brow enough to enjoy.

"But," I confided, "my husband does like Lord of the Rings."

"Oh, I sooo get that," she said. "I LOVE Lord of the Rings."

I asked if she had seen the movie.

She stopped cutting and practically swooned, her hands together in a gesture of reverence. "Ohhhhh, the movie! I adore the movie. So many cute guys!" She sighed. "And each one is better-looking than the last. I can't decide which one I like best!"

I made a tentative comment about the plot.

"Oh, I don't know what the heck is going on in the story," she admitted. "I'm too busy looking at the guys. Several times we've gone to sleep with those cute guys looking at us. My husband's good-natured about it."

This was fortunate, I thought.

I confided that I had watched some of the movie, but found it too violent.

"Yes," she agreed, "it can be hard to watch, what with all those arms and legs flying off" -- here she waved her scissors dangerously close to my right eye, in imitation of the arms and legs -- "especially when they belong to those cute guys, too." She sighed again.

I changed the topic to something less gory. "Do you like Pride and Prejudice?" I asked.

"Ohhh, Pride and Prejudice!" she said, almost swooning again. "I like the Keira Knightley version best," she confided. This was somewhat problematic, she said, because her sister, a Jane Austen purist, despised the Keira Knightley version. "She likes the old one better, with Colin Firth," she said.

"Ohhh, Colin Firth...!" I said, and swooned.

A word to the wise: Some subjects are best discussed when the various parties involved are not holding a pair of scissors.