A Day That Will Live in Annoyance

Annoying Piece of News The First: Some asshat smuggled a camera into a screening of "Cloverfield" and posted it on the Internet. No, I won't give you the link. Yes, I'm pretty sure Bad Robot is on the case.

Did I turn 63 over night or are people attaining all new levels of assholish behavior?

This isn't like pirating "Cloverfield" to sell black market DVDs. Although obviously illegal, at least there's a rational incentive: profit.

And it's not like torrenting "Cloverfield," which has a time/irritation threshold that would drive almost anyone to the theater and/or DVD store. (Full disclosure: I torrented the first two seasons of "Dr. Who," but only because I could not wait the 9 or more months until the Sci Fi Channel acquired and aired the BBC series. I subsequently bought both seasons on DVD, and watched season three when it aired, just a few weeks after it had finished running on the BBC.)

But to put up an hour and thirteen minutes of a pirated movie on a click-and-play website? That's just bald I-broke-the-law-and-no-one-can-stop-me vandalism. And it makes me want to punch someone.

Annoying Piece of News the Second: My beloved Kerastase Elasto-Curl Rinse Out Conditioner ($31 for 6.8 oz) has been discontinued. Near as I can figure, it has been replaced with another product that costs $58 and does not even have the word "curl" in the name.

This is grievous news indeed.

You may judge me harshly for spending $31 on a 6.8 oz tube of conditioner. But the curly-headed individual lives in a wretched no man's land of very few grooming choices. Many, many, many women with curly hair will actually blow dry it straight rather than bother with the hassle. (Every time you see a photo of Sarah Jessica Parker, hair hanging pin-straight down her back -- that's a professionally administered blow out.)

I think it's a giant waste of time. The one time I let someone do it, the resulting hair was disturbingly unKatelike, as if I had traded hair with Barbie's brown-haired best friend Midge. Alas, I am in the minority. The purchase and maintenance of blow-outs in sundry high end salons is a frequent topic in every glossy ladies magazine, and there is seemingly always some new tool or trick to discuss, like ionic hair dryers or ceramic flat-irons.

Getting back to my original point: Having curly hair is like having profound lactose intolerance of the scalp. You are constantly ignoring or inverting conventional wisdom. For example: I haven't brushed my hair since 1989. I don't even own a brush. (My last brush was awesome, with an olive wood handle that smelled fantastic. But from my 13th birthday onwards, every time I used it, the result was, ah, horrific.)

I don't own a comb either, but I get a thorough combing every time I get my haircut. Oddly, there are never any world-class snarls or tangles, although as a child, I used to acquire both on an almost hourly basis.

If I could get away with it, I would wash my hair once a week. It never looks worse than when it's perfectly clean. But even though every shampoo-less day makes my hair curlier and curlier, eventually it gets to be more than I can handle, with crazy spirally tufts sticking out in all directions. And that's when I have to show my hair who's boss, usually three days after my last shampoo.

Anyway, the point is, I am okay with spending $31 on conditioner, because at the rate I use it, a tube can last me almost a year. And because I only do three things to my hair (wash it, condition it, and fingercomb some goop through it), I need each of those things to work EXTREMELY WELL.

There are no second chances with curly hair. If it all goes to hell, I am utterly boned. I can't comb it out, I can't blow dry it straight. I can't even wash it again and start over, because washing my hair twice in one day makes it frizzy and ridiculous, no matter how much conditioner I use.

Finally, after years of searching, I had the trifecta: a shampoo, a conditioner and a goop that all worked perfectly. Then Kerastase goes and discontinues the lynch pin of my whole system. Bastards.

Oh, God. Just the thought of wandering out into the wilds of various salons and Walgreens, looking for a replacement for my Elasto-Curl weighs on me... scrutinizing the label, trying to decide if this stuff has too much silicone or not enough, worrying that I'll hate the smell, wondering if it's worth the price. It's like my hair is about to be audited by the IRS.