I thought I would be hot in Vegas but I'm really just cold. Everywhere I go they blast the a/c to compensate for outside! So I am constantly walking outside to warm up. Today I am avoiding this guy that I've been crushing on because I found out yesterday that he is in a relationship. This makes things a little awkward for me because he's been flirting with me like mad. For example, yesterday he walked in to my work area to tell me that I looked really good. It wasn't but a few minutes later that he was telling me that he had a child with this girl that he's been with for five years. When I left that day he did a construction worker call at me. What a dirt bag!

My job is so Hollywood. Carmen Elecktra bailed out of the show and Pam Anderson stepped in. (I got to help do her hair the other day!) So when David Hasselhoff showed up on Monday it felt like a bay watch reunion. All three have been at the theater now in the past month. How silly is that? I've also seen Bruce Willis, Sugar Ray Leonard, Simon Cowell, Sharon Osborne, and Jerry Springer. Tomorrow we have another photoshoot which I'm excited about. They are my favorite thing to do so far because once we have them ready to go, all we have to do is touch up. I had one a few weeks ago and I was in charge of hair and makeup for 16 dancers. Half of them were boys so I didn't have to do really anything at all to them. The girls however needed constant primping--combing and blotting etc. Once we were done shooting them I helped with the stars of the show which was even more work but it was fun making them look perfect for every shot.

The wig and make up room has been the place where everyone hangs out. They all bring in their lap tops and get on line and chit chat. The best part of today was when the Dutch people started talking about horny emails. One guy mentioned that he had to check his email and everyone kept asking him if they were horny emails. His reply was that he had to write himself horny emails because no one sends those to him. This older woman offered to write him horny emails because she felt bad for him.
The other thing that happened was I was sitting in the back of the room making a list and the next thing I knew all of Hans’ team had filtered in, sat down and they were having a meeting about all of the different illusions they were planning. I wasn’t sure if they wanted me to hear what they were talking about but I had no idea what anything meant so I don’t think they cared. There was talk of doves though which made me very happy because of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OysVaCCUAHA

Monday was my first day. I didn’t have to be in until 11am but I left at about 1015 just to be sure I would be on time. It’s a good thing I did because I was more than a half hour late! I thought I knew where the theater was but due to the construction, I couldn’t see it and I drove down the entire strip. Finally with the help of Ben on map quest, I found the parking garage. I was so frazzled by that point that I couldn’t think clearly. I was driving around looking for a parking space and it was so full. I kept circling around thinking, oh I will just go up to the top level. But the more I drove around, the fuller the lot seemed to be. Finally I realized, Tracy, you are not getting any higher in this parking garage. Sure enough, I looked at what level I was on and realized I had driven around level three about ten times.
When I finally got there it was very chaotic and Karen was in meeting after meeting so there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do. I wandered back stage to comb out a couple of wigs and there was Hans. He was lying in one of his contraptions and I could only see the upper half of his body and it took me a while to figure out where the rest of it was. Everyone back there was Dutch and they were all chattering away in Dutch but sometimes they would throw in an English word or two. This is going to be a crazy show.

It was only three weeks ago that I got a call from Karen Stevens, Production Supervisor for Phantom of the Opera Las Vegas. She left me a message telling me that she had received my resume from Ben and wanted to talk to me about a project she had coming up. I met with her about three days later in Las Vegas. There is a new show coming to town, an illusionist from Holland named Hans Klok is doing "Faster Than Magic" and he’s bringing in Carmen Elektra...to look pretty? Karen offered me a job to do wigs and hair for it. She wants to mentor me along and bring me in to the business. She’s won Emmy Awards and hires for a lot of the theater productions in Vegas. So once the show is up and running I will be working Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. But until then it’s pre-production so I work everyday.

can you cut black people's hair?
I'm in Arizona and today I cut and colored Deanna's and Liz's hair. We were standing in line at Chipotle, waiting to order our burritos when I heard a man behind me talking to Liz and complimenting her on her haircut. Deanna pointed to me and said, "She did it!" I was surprised to turn around and find a black man standing there. He looked at me astonished and said, "You did??" He complimented her hair a bunch and then he asked, "Can you cut black people's hair?" I said yes (even though I had never cut a black man's hair--only black women's but same thing, right?) and he offered me $20 to cut his. I laughed and said ok but I didn't have time really as I'm leaving tomorrow, I don't live here, and I don't have anything with me. He said we could go to his house as it's only two blocks away and I could use his clippers. I agreed as scary as that sounds and he introduced himself as Jules from New York. He told me that I had better not mess up and accidently cut a hole in his hair cut. I said that if I did I would just shave my name into his head. He liked that idea. He called his brother somewhere between finishing his food and meeting us outside. He handed me the phone and said I had to talk to his brother because he was saying he was crazy for having a white girl cut his hair. (I can't say that I don't agree.) His brother told me that Jules wouldn't pay me and that I should be prepared for that. Having watched Jerry Maguire that day I said, "Oh do I need to have him show me the money?" Everyone was laughing now. His brother then rephrased and said that Jules would pay me but it would be in trade. I asked, "trade for what???" Jules was still laughing and grabbed the phone away saying his brother was crazy. So we followed Jules and his friend Sean over to their condo. Liz stayed in the car and called her friend to tell him where we were at just in case something bad happened. As I was cutting his hair, he couldn't seem to let the idea of me shaving my name in his head go. He kept bringing it up saying that if I did he would have to be my boyfriend. He kept saying stuff about how he is 'real' and it's probably been a long time since I've been with a man that is 'real'. He also kept saying how beautiful he thinks I am and how we met for a reason. I kept saying that I live in Utah so it couldn't work and he finally said, "Have you seen my house? I can fly anywhere I want! See, that's me being real!" He wanted to know how he could see me again and I told him he could find me on my space. ha ha

Well it's official...I am a beauty school graduate! I finished my hours on Monday and signed up for the state board exam for the end of February. So now it's time to go back to the real world where I get to work and make money every day. It's been a nice break but I've missed having an income to waste on the frivolities of life. I'm assisting a girl in making dresses for the runway show at a hair convention in Vegas. I'm hoping this will lead me to some amazing job. This week I've felt anything but pleasant from stressing over my next career move. I'm breaking out in rashes and my skin is horrible. I don't sleep at night sometimes and I've been having dreams about weird stuff--for example I had a dream that No Doubt was playing at a work party and they wanted to audition a new singer. All of my coworkers and I wanted to try but the only songs I knew were Gwen Stefani. Either I've been watching too much of The Office or I am a closet Gwen fan--or maybe both?

So my friend at work told me that she was walking on campus the other day when she heard a girl talking on her phone. The girl said something about Paul Mitchell so my friend listened in. This is what she heard. "Ya get Tracy... I don't know! I don't care what her number is just request her! She did my hair and she's GOOD. You HAVE to get HER... I'm telling you! ...Just call Paul Mitchell and ask for Tracy Green... Yes." After weeks of feeling pretty insecure about my abilities due to a chain of events that I won't go in to, I have to say that makes me feel pretty awesome.

Today was 'ugly Christmas Sweater' day. It was soooo awesome. We all wore the ugliest Christmas sweater that we could find and had to act like it was no big deal when our clients came in. We weren't supposed to let them in on the joke but I couldn't help myself when this ultra chic client of mine came in. I was wearing a red sweatshirt with Christmas teddy bears surrounded in puffy paint. Oh the mutiny! I couldn't bare anyone in the world thinking I would wear such an atrocious beast on purpose. So when she asked if we were having some kind of a Christmas themed day, I let her in on the secret. One of the students actually complimented all of us on our sweaters and said she thought they were all cute and would actually like wearing one. There are just all kinds in the world...

I'm sorry my blog has been so boring. I just read back and wow--booooring.
I forgot to write this the other day. MJF came to teach a class the other day for the first time in months. I was sitting in the back near this girl and she leaned over and said, "Hey, don't you think he looks like Michael J Fox?" I froze--had she found my blog? Did she know everything I've written??? Had I written something about her? UH OH. So instead of giving myself up I started to ask her questions, "Have we talked about this before?" etc. After probing and discussing things I too realized as she had, MJF was wearing this one jacket that day and his hair was cut a different way and well, he really looked like Marty Mcfly more than ever. I felt a certain connection to my friend because she was the first person to see what I have seen all along.

Perms, perms, and more perms.
I had to perm this lady's hair the other day--she wanted a really tight curl so we used the white and grey rods for a spiral perm--fun. I was trying really hard to look at her in the eye during the consultation but it was painful because it was full of blood. Ya, ew. I didn't say anything about it but as I put the cape and towel on her she said, oh sorry about my eye, I poked it with a needle the other day. (what?) She wasn't sure how she had done it--she was walking down the hall and just poked herself in the eye. It was so hard to act like it wasn't a big deal and that I had people come in all of the time with bloody eyes from accidentaly poking themselves with needles. Then it was butts up when we went to rinse out her hair--she couldn't handle laying back with her head in the sink so she kneeled on the chair with her back side out in full view for the world...or at least phase two.
The week before I permed this other lady's hair who had dimentia. She repeated herself so many times that I decided to respond differently to each repeat so that I wouldn't feel like groundhogs day...wait that is what Bill Murray did. I really wanted to start saying totally insane things to her because I knew she wouldn't remember but there are other people around that can hear. It was cute because after we put in the perm solution she was so worried about her hair being wet and kept telling me that she couldn't leave with it wet. By the time we were finished, it was as if she had forgotten that her hair was wet and was mesmorized by the curls we had made that day. I really think that she forgot she was getting a perm.

This is my school's attempt in getting us excited about selling product. Sex sells baby.

Oh how I love to be a core mentor. Today I got two five minute mini scalp massages and a scalp treatment from the core students. They had to do it for their worksheets so I had to volunteer to be a model. Poor me. ha ha There is one girl that is particularly boy crazy and feels it necessary to remind us during any given topic. For example when the class was asked to name off positive things, most girls were saying things like laughter and puppies. This girl said really hot boys and sexy underwear. Oh and don't worry, she made sure we knew that she was in fact wearing sexy underwear today. Ordinarily this would be extremely obnoxious and irritating to me but she gave me one of the three scalp massages. For all I care, she can name off every color of bra and underwear she has and who has seen them so long as I get a scalp massage out of it.

Today we all fell apart for some reason or another. I think it has to do with women's cycles moving so that they fall at the same time every month. I've experienced this change many times having had so many different roommates and worked closely with many different women. It could be just me because my hormones get so out of wack, but it seems like everyone at school is extra sensitive and on edge at the same time. I think the big cycle migration is complete.
I walked up to a friend who had just finished doing an 'updo' on a guest and she was pissed. I pulled her aside to talk about it and she was so mad that she started crying. Too bad I did the exact same thing when I talked to a learning leader about something that was frustrating me like an hour before this. Awesome. So she was mad because her guest had dandruff really bad. Dandruff is contagious and we've been told a thousand times to send people requesting services away and to a doctor. The learning leader helping her told her to do this girl's hair anyway. She had to cornrow her hair--nothing will get you closer to a scalp than that. Ew. We're hoping that there won't be a dandruff epidemic at the school. I'll keep you posted.

One of my guests today wanted her hair dyed blonder. She demanded that we use color to do this and not bleach. I asked her if her hair had been colored previously and she said yes. Hmm let's see, how do I explain it so that everyone gets how nearly impossible her request was--She wants to get wet without using water? She wants to climb up stairs without bending her knees? Color can't lift color--at least not the color I was about to use. So I had to give her color class 101 so that she would understand that I had to use bleach to get where she wanted to go. I think she was ok with it. It turned out lovely.

Yesterday in our make up class, Kevin(gay instructor) made an announcement that we were having a make up artist from Ultimate Face come to teach a make up class on Thursday. Kevin rarely talks about his sexual orientation. He never says anything about anyone he's dating and he almost never talks about boys he's attracted to that come in to the salon. He might as well be straight--except that he runs around and dances and acts like a cheerleader most of the time. So when he does say something about boys it's almost shocking but then it's not. It's hard to describe. So we're sitting in class, about 30 of us girls, and he was talking about the guest artist and said,"I heard he is cute and single..." and then he paused for minute and looked at all of us giggling because he knew we were all thinking oh good then hook it up because a man in the beauty industry has a 80% chance of being gay. So he added in an irritated tone,"...and he plays for you guy's team...so good for you."

My cousin couldn't have said it better:

http://thedailykirk.blogs.com/the_daily_kirk/2006/09/luman_walker_gr.html

So I pretty much hate Wednesdays. We're in class ALL DAY long and it's really suffocating. Today during the first hour we had a 'guest speaker'. I say it in quotes because sometimes they actually are a guest speaker and other times they are solicitors: pepper spray vendors, people from banks, magazine clubs, gym membership people, etc. Then on the flip side we've had people share relevant information--I won't go too in to it. Today this guy came in to show us some massage techniques. He pulled out these wands with pokey round things on them that he would roll up and down your back and neck and legs. Some girls chuckled in the corner because it just really looked like, well not a massage toy I mean tool. As he continued on with his presentation I felt like I had been thrown in to the movie Pete's Dragon.

But after he started telling jokes about threesomes and pointing out the kinky nature of the massage tools he was using, I realized that this class was no longer a Disney movie in any way.

FIGHT! We had our first fight at school on Friday!!! And I was right there in the middle of it all! How fantastic is that??? So I'm sitting in class and we were all grouped around these tables. The new Madonna albumn was blairing from the speakers and everyone was talking as each table was deciding what block color to put on their doll head. There were two girls at the end of the table talking about something and they each started slamming their hands down on the table. It was really quite loud and I jumped the first time they did it. The girl next to me is pregnant so she yells hey! stop doing that, you're making the baby kick me in the crotch! One of the girls said Oh I'm sorry! and the other girl said, I'm not. So the pregnant girl looked at her and sneered, what did you say? The other came back at her, Don't talk to me! From there is just got worse. The pregnant girl kept murmuring things to her and the other girl kept saying things like, 'don't talk to me' , 'stop talking to me', or 'you always have to have the last word!' but the 'don't talk to me's' kept getting louder and louder to the point that she was yelling and screaming at the top of her lungs with a crazed look in her eye, 'DON'T TALK TO ME!!!!!!!!' The two girls were starting to stand up out of their chairs and get in to each other's faces when the teacher came over and kicked them out of the class. The rest of us that had been watching the exchange, had just sat there and watched, I think dumbfounded that this was actually happening. The last time I remember seeing a fight in class was in my 7th grade art class. So I guess you have to expect this kind of thing when you let girls leave highschool early.

Today this old lady came in and wanted her hair carrot top orange. I didn't have the pleasure of doing this but this 17 year old girl did. She applied the color and washed it out. Her roots ended up bright orange and her ends a yellow gold. She absolutely loved it. Somewhere in the service she told the student working on her, that if the student didn't wear lipstick, she would never get married. The wounded non lipstick wearing student crawled to the back of the clinic floor while the woman was under a dryer and told a couple of the instructors the tragic news that she would now need to wear lipstick. So they ran back and grabbed the school make up kit and this girl and one of the instructors put on bright nasty red and pink lipstick in defiance. Maybe you had to be there but it was pretty funny to watch them go back over to the client in all seriousness and finish out the service without cracking a smile.