If you read my About Me page on the blog, I alluded to this story. Let me preface it with some context.

On December 3, 2017, my Fall classes — have I mentioned that I’m getting my master’s degree??? — wrapped up and I knew that my final capstone class wasn’t starting until January 29, 2018. Instead of using this nearly two month break to do something productive and beneficial with my life, like I don’t know, work out… I decided I would treat myself, every night, to a minimum of one bottle of wine.

Yes, I’m 26 and I have yet to master the whole “I’m going to have one glass of wine” thing. Sue me.

In all honesty, on most nights in December, I finished two bottles. Work was incredibly stressful. And unfortunately, I cannot say that it led to the best decisions. My bank account was surely sitting around like “What in the actual fuck is she doing?” Oh, and Total Wine cashiers stopped carding me. One lady exclaimed while swatting my ID away, “Honey, you’re here every other day stocking up!” She was not wrong.

For those of you looking for some new wines to try… here are some of my favorite Rieslings that I “collected” in the month of December:

Kung Fu Girl – Riesling – $8.99
Pacific Rim – Sweet Riesling – $9.49
B.Lovely – Late Harvest Riesling – $12.49
B.Lovely – Riesling – $12.99

My favorite has always been, and probably always will be the B.Lovely – Riesling. I’m a sucker for beautiful labels, and this medium-sweet riesling is perfect for those, like me, that do not like a Moscato sweet wine, but also can’t quite enjoy a dry white wine. It’s a Columbia Valley wine (Washington State), and with aromas of ripe peaches, apricots and citrus fruits, it is both crisp and refreshing. I drink year-round. Clearly. I’ve also never gotten hungover off of it – a major feat since my body started shutting down from alcohol consumption the very second I turned 25.

But, back to the story. Not even halfway through my first week of “Wine Therapy”, as I’ve decided to call it, I ended up having the following conversation with my hairdresser. 8:55pm on Wednesday, December 6, 2017:

So let’s back up a little bit.

I had showered [with my wine] and was later attempting to dry my hair, but the ends were splitting on a level that my split ends, had split ends, that had split ends… that had split ends. My hair was out here looking like a damn tree branch. Now for the male readers who have never sported long hair, this means that the hair is difficult to comb/brush. Mine, in particular, was even more difficult because Sara had bleached the fuck out of it to make me blonde again (after I had just gone back to my natural brunette color, because #indecisive).

Much like I was drowning in my bottle of wine, I was drowning my hair in leave-in conditioner, detangler, etc. just trying to get a wide-toothed comb through it, to no avail.

I sat back and realized there was only one solution. I snatched my glass of wine off the vanity and downed it on the way to the kitchen before I had even left my room. I opened the second bottle and filled the glass to the rim… because a bottle of wine is only two glasses if you fill the glass properly. Translation: I’m too lazy to constantly be refilling that shit up. 

While in the kitchen, I also grabbed the scissors. On the way back to my room, I must have sucked down half that glass because I was so frustrated that it had come to this. Yet, with all the confidence in the world, I sat down at my vanity and began snipping away.

Now, in my mind, I was being super strategic about all this. I always try to pay attention to what Sara does when cutting my hair. Like when she is cutting layers, she sections off the hair, combs it upward and outward, and snips all but one little tip of it — I don’t know what this does or how it works, but every hairdresser I’ve had does this. So yeah, I pay attention… and in my head, I could be really great at cutting hair, to include my own.

So, I started with my bangs. Sara always pulls them to the opposite side and cuts at a descending angle. I emulated this. But of course, it didn’t work the way I intended. Instead, I stared in the mirror, squinting skeptically at the stair-like design that was ascending when I flipped them back to the other side of my head. That didn’t go like I thought it would. Gotta fix it.

The next twenty minutes was a continuous cycle of:

SNIP. SIP. SIT. STARE. SIP.
SNIP. SIP. SIT. STARE. SIP.
SNIP. SIP. SIT. STARE. SIP.

… and so on.

At some point, I looked down. It was the obnoxious amount of hair surrounding me that snapped me out of this cycle. Drunk as I may have been, I knew if it continued any longer, I would, as I expressed to Sara via text message, wake up bald. And if you think I’m exaggerating, I am not. I would have continued to try to “fix” it until I had no hair left.

Perhaps the saddest part of this whole story is that Sara asked me if I used kitchen scissors. It was like I had become THAT girl that every hairdresser knows and rolls their eyes at. Like, “I bet you used kitchen scissors too, you mess.” I couldn’t bear the shame. So I sent her a picture of my Revlon cuticle scissors and said that I used those. I’m now confessing my sins. I’m sorry, Sara!

But also, another sin to confess… I woke up the next morning and decided I could try again since I was sober. This didn’t go well, either. Nearly late to work, I didn’t even bother pulling it back to hide the disaster. And wouldn’t you know, that day at work, I had four people compliment my hair. Like, I cut so much that it was noticeable, you guys. Now, why they “liked” it, I’m not sure. Of course, my ego was inflated by these compliments and this was the first form of positive reinforcement that I got for my transgressions the night before.

Thankfully, Sara was able to squeeze me in that Saturday, but those days in between were agony. I stared at my Revlon scissors daily, fighting the urge to try again.

My second form of positive reinforcement came that Saturday when Sara saved my hair life:

Like, come on. She managed to pull that off… why shouldn’t I just keep drinking wine and “trimming” my hair every time the ends are getting a little rough??? Like, Sara will save the day and fix it. Imma do me. Sip-sip my wine. Snip-snip my hair. Lesson learned here: A little “Wine Therapy” never hurt nobody, not even my hair. I highly recommend it! Cheers to the freakin’ weekend!

FEATURED IMAGE BY: THOMAS MARTINSEN

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