Merry Christmas!

I think my co-worker Mike put it best (with a New Zealander's lilt): "At home you usually spend time with the family, but that's not gonna fuckin' happen here, right? So I find it's best to just say 'fuck it' and go bowling." When he's not cracking dirty jokes, and in between gloriously constructed sentences jam-packed with the perennial favorite swear words shit and fuck, Mike usually imparts a nugget of wisdom, and this time he was right on. Taking his words to heart, I hit the KTV for pre-emptive Xmas good times, and tonight on Christmas Eve, after I left work I headed to Butthead Coffee and Tea for some drinks and planned to later see a movie with some friends. Sadly, my friends were too tired to make it to the 12:30 showing of Kung Fu Hustle, a film that I feel would perfectly accompany my "fuck it and go bowling" Christmas. So with the aborted movie plans, I find myself here, wishing you all a Merry Christmas and mulling over my plans for the coming holiday: Killing a turkey, making some mashed potatoes, and treating myself to a bottle of nice wine, a white elephant gift exchange and the adventure to end all "fuck it" X-mas adventures...my first haircut in Taiwan.

Tommorow is the big day. This, given the sheer number of trendy psuedo mullets that folks sport around here, is going to be quite an adventure. Luckily, I'm armed with (as any woman whose come away with a horrible haircut in the past, I've learned that the war metaphor is an appropriate one) a woman who speaks English (who I've explained the process to), a photo of what cut I'd like, and an expensive hairdresser who also speaks English. This I hope will result in a decent cut, but if it doesn't I'm not too worried as I have several options:

• 1) I've always wondered what I'd look like with no hair at all, so if all else fails I could buzz my head.
• 2) This one is the more likely solution: I would just work it.

Plenty of folks have bad hair here, or haircuts so trendy only runways models in Milan sport them, so I'm comforted by the fact that anything they do to my hair will probably be ok. If I have to redesign my wardrobe around slashed clothing and cowboy hats to make it match my 2005 Donatella Spring Collection hair, then so be it. In any event, my hair will grow out by the time anyone from home sees it, so if disaster strikes, I'll be the only one aware of it. :)

So let us learn a holiday lesson from Mike the wise: if you can't have what you want this Christmas say "fuck it" and do something completely random you'd never do on an ordinary Christmas. And if that isn't in your plans, remember me while you're digging into that second helping of pumpkin pie, cross your fingers and hope that that Taiwanese hairdresser's hand (who may never have felt hair like mine, let alone cut it,) is touched by some sort of divine force and manages to give me a good cut!

Merry Christmas everybody!