Free haircut + The Invention of Lying + Richness

I am in a much better mood than I've been for a while, and it's because I just got a free cut and colour from Toni & Guy. Haircuts in NYC are really pricey, and considering that I got used to paying $70 or so for a haircut in Singapore, to find something of equivalent value would mean paying a much higher price. I went for TiGi's model call on Friday a week ago, and was called to come back in today. During the model call, basically I just give them contact information and they snap a picture of me, and tell me to wait for a call.

I got the call, and she said, "Wear heels, and put on something cute. Look trendy." Hah.

I arrived at 8:30 am, and had to wait two hours before my hair was worked on. There were pastries, orange juice and coffee for us. As I browsed through a hairstyling magazine, I realised that Berry, the colourist who was working on my hair was interviewed in one of the articles. She fixed my botched bleached streak very well. The guy who cut my hair, James, had an English accent - so I'm assuming he was shipped over from the headquarters of Toni & Guy. ANOTHER hairstylist who worked on another hair model was also interviewed in the magazine. I was awestruck. I was expecting a quality haircut, but not by the best of the best, you know. While my hair was being did, I sat in front of a class of aspiring hairstylists who were all Caucasian (I'm just extremely sensitive to race now, sorry) and all had uber stylish hair. When my hair was done, they were invited to come touch my hair/take pictures of me.

The male hairstylists all wore shirts and waistcoats and Oxford wingtips. They also had sleeve tattoos. I like to look at metrosexuals, but I don't necessarily want to date one, you know what I mean? They were also all very loud and funny - very natural performers.

My haircut is called an undercut. I don't feel like posting pictures of my face here, so.

I also got three types of hair products for free.

And the subway ride there was free too, because I borrowed my brother-in-law's monthly subway pass.

FREE STUFF FTW!

Of course, if you're unadventurous/looking for a specific haircut, being a hair model might not yield ideal results, but I adore the Toni & Guy aesthetic and as of now I'm too pissed off with the male sex to have long hair just to please them, so everything works out great for me. I'm receptive, they give me an amazing cut, everyone's happy.

****

I also watched The Invention of Lying. I was very enthralled by the concept - if you don't already know, I'm a sucker for movies that portray an alternate reality but don't veer entirely into the realm of fantasy: think The Truman Show, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Click, 50 First Dates - whatever. Okay, so, the movie is about a world where no one can lie except for this one guy who does. I personally think that a community based on honesty cannot exist, or at least a modern community as we know it. Whatever known life we have now is all based on pretense. Just about everything is a social ritual. In the movie, people go on fancy dinner dates and wear nice clothes. But if lying didn't exist, people wouldn't even think of trying to impress other people.

Which just goes to show that life is built on lies. Pfft.

The protagonist does good things with his newly-found talent: he reassures his dying mother that the afterlife will be good, and he encourages his suicidal neighbour by telling him that his life will change soon. These people, not knowing the concept of a lie, believes him and feels happy.

Which makes you wonder how much of the nice things that people say are genuine and how much are said just to sugarcoat things. Pfft. You could defend white lies by saying that a white liar is still a nice person, because he cares for the other person's welfare enough to want to avoid hurting him, but knowing that it's just a farce does take the glow off things a little, doesn't it? Urgh at the human condition!

I think a society that is completely honest would be one that harks back to the age of Adam & Eve, where they were naked and clueless. There was an interesting idea presented in one of my classes, where eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge might have brought pain unto mankind, but it gave us knowledge. It's contradictory how gaining knowledge also brings about the concealment of said knowledge. But a very interesting concept nonetheless.

I would quite prefer a world without lying, but a world without lying also means that socially inferior people would be on the losing end. People will be open about rejecting them, and they would have no clue how to pretend to be better than they really are, and will eventually just get marginalised by society. So I would only prefer to live in a world without lying if I were on the top of the food chain.

****

On Thursday night, a friend procured a BMW and asked me if I wanted to take a ride. We drove around the city and got lost a couple of times but eventually made it back. It was fun. I miss sitting in a luxury car.

On Friday night, I had sushi with a bunch of people and went to a party after. The music was really good. I'm slightly sick of commercial R&B/pop stuff that gets played in clubs all the time, so it was really refreshing.

On both of those nights, I hung out with people who are most definitely what the average person would consider rich. I strongly think that having a good time out is correlated to having money. It's not that I insist upon spending money every time I go out - in fact I get a kick out of having fun while doing something low-cost - there are just less restrictions when you have more money, and consequently your options for fun stuff will open up too.