I went for a haircut on Monday, I could have had my haircut in the village salon but being the skinflint that I am I chose to have my hair cut at training centre in Coventry city centre. The problem with convention salons is – well in my experience is that if it goes belly up due to an in experienced stylist well it’s just tough, scarves and hats will soon become your accessories du jour. Also your average stylist (average age 21) will be fairly unaware about TS, before I accepted my tricotillomania problem the stylist would look at the tuft at the top of my head and say “oh dear, it looks like you’ve got a bit of breakage there” and/or “can you keep still” and of course it’s a business, times means money. The advantage of using a training facility, there’s loads around if you’re short of cash, off the top of my head there’s at least three in Coventry. So basically it works like this, you are assigned a trainee, she/he will talk with you about what you want and assess your hair, the head tutor at this particular place like me because I have other issues that I throw up to see if the trainee takes on board. So I’m assigned a bubbly, chatty girl from Nuneaton, who decides that she like to be assessed and use clippers on the back of my hair. Another tutor walks past and says “Hello Catherine, how are you?” I answer, I wonder to myself how she knows me, and I don’t recall meeting her before, the trainee tells me she has a very good memory for people. Unlike some people with TS I really enjoy having my haircut, I find it very relaxing and the motion of having my hair washed by somebody else starts to calm the tics down. Like going to the dentist, whoever is cutting my hair has to have a similar approach, to be able to give me frequent little breaks to tic, also as well the tutor is frequently checking up on the trainees and sometimes uses the clients to demonstrate new techniques. The main advantage of using such a place is that you’re very unlikely to across Jill Tyrell (Nighty Night) guardian.co.uk/culture/2011...
Going back to the hairdressing tutor that I didn’t remember, yet somehow remembered me, she wasn’t the only person to seem to know me. I went also to see my letting agents, Pete, however deals with the lady who deals with maintenance, I’ve never met her, nor spoken to her, Pete always seems to have more gripes with the landlord than me. As soon as I walked into the office she knew me (?????) I haven’t even spoken to her on the phone! Very strange, even stranger still is the guy in the Post Office, not the village one where everybody knows the postmistress’s son, and he knows everybody this was Coventry city centre, hundreds of customers pass through there every day, and to reiterate, I don’t go there very often. I reach the end of the queue and get served, the guy serving me greets me as though he knows me and asks me how my job-hunting is going…..strange, very strange. Now it’s not as though I’ve been recently featured in a documentary o BBC3 like my good friend Ruth, bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018cqgl , or I don a spangly jumpsuit and cape and save the world one tic at a time like another friend Jess aka Tourette’s Hero touretteshero.com/ I’m pretty anonymous and try and go about my business quietly, but I have come to realize that having Tourette’s syndrome complete with coprolalia does kind of make you memorable, (ah, so that’s why the staff at Coventry station are surprised when I buy a ticket for somewhere other than Birmingham) it would be quite interesting to find out what people think of me, have I acquired local celebrity status like Llanelli’s renowned John Radio (don’t you know who John Radio is???!!) John Radio is one of those eccentrics you find in small towns, he’s an elderly gentleman who wanders around Llanelli town centre holding a small transistor radio to his ear; he’s been doing this for many years, well since I was a kid. He’s almost as famous as Imogen Thomas (Big Brother) and Huw Edwards (news reader). I think that having TS does toughen you up somewhat, it can get really tedious after the 375465836th person has asked you about your TS and difficult to smile and be pleasant particularly when you’re suffering from either PMT or *UMS as otherwise you fall into the cartoon stereotype that equates disability with nasty, mean, grumpy horrible rather than charming, eloquent, articulate and a whole load of other adjectives you would like to be used to describe you.
Random is an adjective that is often used to describe me, so here’s some rather good music that’s completely irrelevant. youtube.com/watch?v=rrltM8n...