DT's: Haircut; Song: Rock Yr Body

Today I did what I never thought I'd do. I brought a photograph to my genius stylist, Angela, and said, I want that hair. I meant it literally: lately my own tresses have been breaking and maybe even thinning (stress? hormones? lack of B vitamins? Angela says I'm not going bald because at my age it would happen in a flash, like that) and when I saw this girl on film's curly locks I wanted to be their new person, scalp downward. So I acted the fool dreaded by hairdressers and mocked by comediennes. I held up a fantasy created in perfect light and said, I know that can be me. Thing is, it worked. Genius Angela absorbed the publicity shot and started snipping, and an hour later, her next appointment (my pal Em, as it happened) murmured, "Ann, you look just like [NEVER-TO-BE-NAMED MOVIE STAR HERE]." Angela was so pleased she just kept touching my head. Truthfully, I still looked like me with a neater haircut, but I still felt a bit amazed that this incongruous thing had occurred: my projection of a projection, fraught in the dark, had resulted in some kind of accurate match. I had become mass culture's replicant.

"Rock Your Body": The other day I heard this on the radio and though, man that Justin sounds young. When it was a hit, all the fame filling his pants and his sly salaciousness in the video added a couple notches of depth to his timbre, at least as it hit my ears. Now, as just another new oldie amidst the hits, the song still sounds cute, but also vaguely ridiculous, like a teen's attempt to act just like a man.

Parental moment: Sheer terror. Sunday I took Bebe to Nordstrom to buy new shoes. She'd test them out by running rocketlike through the department store aisles. Wearing her future boots, she bolted just as I turned to exchange some information with the clerk, and when I looked up she was gone. I yelled, ran around: "my kid is missing!" The longest minutes of my life later, a wry older lady said, "Is this your daughter, hiding under the pants rack?" There Bebe was, imp-happy. I said, BEBE YOU SCARED MOMMY! She looked at me, grinned her lion grin, and roared.