BUNK DEBUNKED

Conventional wisdom says...

Don't buy a car from a friend.

and

Don't let your boyfriend's daughter cut your hair.

Yet so far (knock wood) the Civic I brought from JuJu has been fun to drive. It's several steps up from my old ride in that it has a trunk that opens and doors that unlock and an interior light that works and a gearshift that's marked and tires that stay inflated. Apparently it even has air-conditioning. Now that's the future.

And I love the hairstyle that Calendula created for me in her west suburban kitchen. For some reason it didn't take a week to get used to the shock of losing six inches of the stuff. (I've been trying to grow out the grey since 2003, because you can't remove henna and I hate short hair, and it had grown quite long). Perhaps it had something to do with the Seabreeze Dorian force-fed me but Calendula somehow talked me into bangs, saying they're "fun," while the whole time I was thinking, No, I have to teach and go to India and I have deadlines and I'll have to grow them out and there's no room for fun, dammit .



She cut off all the red ratty hennaed dead Medusalike stuff that clung to my neck, and fashioned some diagonal bangs across my face. I immediately felt a million pounds lighter; it must be how the flappers felt when they bobbed their heavy hair in the 1920's.

So I'm no longer a two-tone feral mess -- although Dorian described my playful locks today as "grey with brown highlights." Whatever. I kind of look like someone who's nice, and to whom nice things may happen.

But not one who wears Gap clothes.

Which reminds me -- I saw two back-to-back episodes of the British What Not to Wear on Saturday and would like a £2,000 cheque to blow on a wardrobe to match my new 'do.

I suspect this new look will help me in my brand-new quest to become more charming -- a trait I've always associated with obsequiousness, fakery and pure evil. I tend to flit between brutal honesty and quiet hostility, and considering the lack of career, health insurance, property, etc. it's pretty clear that it hasn't always worked. So I'm trying to be, well, nicer -- and to remember that most (not all) other people are not out to get me.

I tried out some of this charming stuff at Sopranos night last night. I'd set down my salad to get some dressing and the mildly inebriated woman near me screeched, "This is my seat! You can't take my seat!" Instead of getting into it I said, "Hi I'm Caca -- have we met?"

Somehow that diffused the whole thing.

But I didn't return to that table again, did I.