Well, it took over three hours but I have a new head and I'm very pleased with it. I asked for a student at Sassoon's (they have a school) because I wanted some time and attention and I got it. The student, Melina, was not a beginner. She works in a salon in Montreal and she took a course with Sassoon here in Toronto last year and came back for more. So she was already skilled and high motivated (her boss paid for the course). And the instructor, Paolo, was fantastic: gifted and attentive.

First, they cut off three years of an unwieldy length and I now have two hanks of hair to give to a cancer patient, have to find out where to take them. Then they chose a style; I received The Firefly. It's an interesting cut. Melina was careful and Paolo was meticulous , checking and setting the pattern at every layer she cut. Know what? I look better than the model in the style book, if you don't look at my face. She, of course, is younger and unwrinkled. But my hair has some natural curl to it so even after three years of being dragged down, it popped up into waves. I really do feel light-headed.

Isn't it delightful how something as ordinary as a haircut can lift your spirits and put spring in your walk? I was waiting for spring and now it's here. Aldous Huxley once said that man's hope is his capacity for irrelevance. Woman's, too. What could possibly be more irrelevant than a new arrangement of hair? It works for me.

I am so grateful to Melin and Paolo.