I promise not to let my personal tragedy interfere with my ability to do good hair

I attended a writers' workshop at Duke a year ago under the instruction of an immensely talented local writer named Bridget Lacey. During the class, she related a story of a phone call she made to her mother when she was a young, struggling writer.

She told her mother that she had no money and had to choose between paying the heating bill and getting her hair done. Her mother replied, "If you keep your hair done, you can find some heat."

How could I not relate to that? My Sainted Southern Mother grew up in the days when women had their hair set a couple of times a week, rarely washed it for fear of losing the style, and slept in rollers wrapped with toilet paper. Of all the graces she instilled in me, the importance of hair care stands out: I would skip meals for a week to save up to get my roots done if I had no other choice.

So I present to you pictures from a lifetime in hair. Snarky and compassionate comments are welcomed.

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I pioneered the faux-hawk.


Ages 1-4, the "boy cut." My mother was young, but she was smart: My haircut was easy for her to manage and allowed her plenty of time to work on hers.


Ages 5-12, the "long and parted 70s girl," complete with home-cut bangs.



Age 13 saw the passing of the torch from a small-town mother to daughter; I got my first perm.


Age 15, I went with my aunt to a stylist at Wrightsville Beach and got my first pink highlights. I came home swelling with the rebellion of an adolescent girl, waiting for my mother's reaction. She said, "Well, you're the one who has to walk around this town looking like that." I was undaunted for a couple of days, until the most outrageous rocker girl at our school -- a senior -- asked me to introduce her at the assembly when she was running for student body president. I strode out confidently and started speaking before the mocking laughter of the 600 gathered small-town, mid-80s kids drowned out my thoughts. I didn't cry, though I did go home and beg my mother to take me to the beauty parlor.

In order to cut out my color, we segued into Ultimate Girl Mullet, then I went on my first trip to New York with my aunt.

After that, I grew my hair out and got a perm.


And that perm got bigger...


And bigger...


Until I went away to the University of London for the first semester of my sophomore year at college. I was extremely stingy with my weekly food stipend -- my only income as I hadn't done a good job working the summer before to save up -- but I walked into a salon by our underground stop in Queensway and asked the woman who could take me to just trim my hair and dye it burgundy.

She, thankfully, ignored me outright. She cut 7 inches of grown-out perm off, then bleached my hair to a pale ash. When she spun me around to the mirror to show me, I was at once horrified that she'd made me look just like her and delighted that she did. And I didn't mind my two future weeks of soup and ale for dinner. Oh, no, we never skipped our nights at the pub. Food, however, was an afterthought.




We came back to the states, back to being underage again, and finished college. I moved to Raleigh, got a really crappy job in publishing and started wearing my hair long and blonde, as I, for whatever reason (my family certainly didn't put it on me), thought it was time to find a husband. So I wore it this way for years:


And the years flew by. Suddenly, I was 30, living alone and working in a national advertising agency that had no dress code. So I started making the most of my favorite accessory. And life became good.

I give you:

The drama club kids pose with the principal and his wife.


I am a sunflower:


Why settle for one hair color when you could have three?


I don't have kids, so I didn't understand why small children shouted "Lava Girl!" at me around the time I first met and fell for Mr. Sweetypants.


Six months later, we got engaged.


Another six months later, we were married. I chose "deadly nightshade" for my hair and for my girls' dresses.



And now, two years later, my darling Mr. Sweetypants still puts up with me on a daily basis.


Bless his heart.

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Anna at Studio 180 is the artist; I am the canvas.

I can't read

I've blogged before about my inability to read for pleasure after all these years as paid-for copy editor.

So my friend Laura, when I asked for advice for a salacious, easy read for this year's beach week, recommended "The Other Boleyn Sister." "I can't read modern fiction, much less boring, historical fiction," I replied. "Trust me," she said, "It's dirty and a page-turner."

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Steve left the fabulous beach house, with its pool, hot tub, putting green, pool table, ice machine, elevator and four refrigerators on Monday evening to finish up our business getting his green card with the Department of Homeland Security.



I played with our friends that night, then retired to our room and the jacuzzi tub to start reading my book. And I stayed up way later than I normally would because I couldn't put it down. Oh, those lusty Tudors.

The next morning, I joined the kids for breakfast, then left them to their own ways: Some were playing Wii bowling, some played Scrabble and some retreated for their rooms for naps. I put my bathing suit on, wrapped my midsection with a beach towel and settled into a chair under the umbrella by the pool to continue reading.

Mr. Sweetypants drove up in Judy Jetta not long afterward. He pulled around Dee Are's parked, year-old Prius and jumped out of the car, beaming at me and saying "Hello, baby!" He went to get his stuff out of the back seat without realizing Judy was rolling backward.

Imagine the following in sloooooow motion: I yelled, "parrrrrrrrkkkinnnng brrrrraaake," then leapt from my chaise longue and ran toward the gate, shedding my towel as I ran. I looked over at Mr. Sweetypants as he jumped behind Judy, trying to stop her on her way down the driveway.

That stupid gate was magnetic, with no clasp for opening, and I kept screaming "parking brake" as I fumbled to open it. Just as I figured it out, I heard the thud behind me. I rushed out the gate, the thought of discovering my husband squished between two cars making my heart nearly explode.

Mr. Sweetypants was safe and sound. Judy and the Prius, unfortunately, had experienced a violent kiss. Judy was only scraped, but the Prius's bumper was completely caved in.

As Mr. Sweetypants stood in the driveway calling Geico, I had to go knock on the napping Dee Are's door. "There's been an accident," I told her. And she was totally cool. She even offered to settle the cost between friends so our premium wouldn't increase, but we'd already reported it. And, bless her, for all our apologies, she kept assuring us, "Nobody got hurt, it was an accident."

It was only after we'd spoken to the insurance agents and been granted our friend's forgiveness that we were able to celebrate Mr. Sweetypants' wonderful news:

His green card was approved!

Then he smiled at me

And my August ennui went away. Pah-rumpa-bum-bum.

Today was just another random Tuesday in icky August. One of my two best girls at the place that pays me was out, so my other best girl, Laura, and I had our lunch in a conference room as per standard operating procedure without her. I went outside to smoke my dessert and noticed a gaggle of RPD officers hanging out in front of our building (including the Segway cops, whose job I have never understood as I've only ever seen them answering questions about the Segways). The street was being blocked off.

Then I heard someone say, "Obama's coming."

"Excuse me," I said to the two Segway cops closest to me, "but is Barack Obama coming here?" "I didn't say that," one responded. "You said it, not us," the other smirked. "So it would be totally cool for me to just hang out here on the street looking around?," I asked. "Sure," cop one answered with a smile (we're terribly polite here in the South), "You can stand here looking at this lovely planter as long as you want."

It was then that I saw the dark sedans bearing men in black being escorted through the barricade. I raced back to the 14th floor and yelled, "Obama's coming here!," and dragged Laura back outside with me. The two of us stood in the sun for half an hour as the police force increased and the bomb-sniffing dog inspected the parked cars. "I want to pet the puppy," I said. "That puppy is not meant for petting," Laura replied.

We hung around in the gathering crowd for close to an hour, standing behind the nearly naked hot dog hottie, who, strangely, was wearing capri pants today. We were hot and getting tired and the sodas on the hot dog cart were looking really good, but we couldn't bring ourselves to purchase anything from her.

The "Jesus Saves" tee-shirt guy realized the crowd in front of the Sheraton was bigger than his usual audience in front of the courthouse, so he came to our block to scream. I saw another street preacher I know from standing outside making his way toward us. I warned Laura, "He's going to ask us if we've accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. Just say 'yes' and he'll keep going." He did, we said "yes" and he initially walked away, then came back and mumbled something, but we just ignored him.

"I can't take the heat anymore," Laura said. "I'm going to stay here for one more minute," I told her. As soon as she left, our friend Matt came out and joined me. Then the police put up tape and told the crowd to stand behind it. Matt and I got a spot right in the front. We stood there patiently making small talk for 20 minutes or so, then I heard my name being called from behind me. It was my darling Laura passing me a bottle of water.

The word-of-mouth-relying, downtown crowd had swelled to a couple hundred people with camera phones at the ready. I had been outside in direct sunlight for more than an hour at this point, a good 40 minutes more than I spend in direct sunlight per quarter. Suddenly, people standing with us on Fayetteville Street started running toward the door to the BB&T building, which connects to the Sheraton and shares a lobby on Salisbury Street, where the main entrance to the hotel sits.

Matt and I were reticent to give up our awesome spot next to the police tape, so Laura went to scope out the scene. When she leaned out the door and waved us in that direction, we took off running. Laura and I totally lost Matt in our haste to get downstairs to the main lobby, where people were already starting to scream as Obama entered the building.

He was a total rock star in his sunglasses and tailored suit. He's unbelievably handsome in real life -- and so tall. Thank goodness he's tall. I'm 5'6 and saw something like this behind the crowd as he whizzed through:



Laura is 5'7 and saw this:



Our friend Capricia is only 5'2, but she was on the staircase, stood on her tippy-toes and raised the camera all the way up over her head and snapped blindly, capturing this:


It happened really fast and we went back to work feeling giddy. My work day was slow anyway, so I just stared out my window at the Sheraton, just in case his room was on my side and he decided to look contemplatively out of his window as he talked to Michelle about his day so far. After two hours, I looked down and saw that all the government cars and SUVs had parked on our side of the still-blocked-off Fayetteville Street, so I yelled at Laura and our friend Holly to meet me in the conference room where we'd have a better view.

The three of us, Laura and I complaining that we probably didn't smell very good after being in the sun for so long, watched out the window in the conference room as the Raleigh cops and Secret Service put up yellow tape and cleared the way again. "I'm going back down!," I announced, running for the elevator, which took its time coming.

I went back down and, after standing in the sweet spot in front of our building directly across the street from the doors to the hotel, was told to move to end of the street (which, fortunately, is only about 40 feet from the back entrance to the Sheraton). I stood there for about 20 minutes before the Secret Service agents hustled him out into one of the two identical SUVs parked in the front.

He had changed into workout clothes (we later learned he'd gone to Peak Fitness before his speech at the fairgrounds). The SUV pulled forward a little and paused before turning. I was standing pretty much by myself and began screaming and jumping up and down, waving my arms over my head like he was a member of Duran Duran and it was 1984.

Dunno what it is about me that people notice. Must be my beaming smile. Or my big boobs. But Barack Obama looked right at me, smiled and waved. He could very well have been telling the Secret Service agents to keep an eye on the hysterical, pink-haired girl for all I know, but we definitely looked right at each other for at least a brief moment in time on a random Tuesday in icky August, and it made my heart soar.

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Laura and I were leaving the building on our way to our standing Tuesday board meeting at a nearby bar and she was telling me how she told Holly that the street preacher told us, "Your mama won't get you into heaven," and Holly replied, "Leigh Ann's mama is sure trying."

"Laura!," I shrieked, "He said 'Obama won't get you into heaven!'"

And we laughed and laughed. Today was a good day.

UPDATE: Laura and I were just a few feet away from appearing on my beloved Gawker!

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh

I am suffering from August ennui. Seriously, and it hasn't even been that hot here in Raleigh compared to other summers. For whatever reason, I get seasonal affective disorder every August and, apparently, everybody else here does, too. It's always the illest (in the Southern irritated sense, not the Beastie Boys' slang of the past) time of the year at the place that pays me, so I've been in a foul mood and completely unmotivated to blog.

Mr. Sweetypants and I went to my parents' house in Shallotte over the weekend to help my Sainted Mama clean out their attic. My parents have been in the same house for 34 years and during that time, my mother has never thrown anything away.

I'm kicking around my next N&O column based on some of the things we found, but I've got three weeks to churn out that story. It will be based on the letter, handwritten on the back of a mimeographed office memo, I wrote my parents from camp when I was nine:

Dear mama and daddy:

I hate it here. Please come get me. The canteen only has 5 snacks. They only let you use the phone in case of emergency. We played three games of kickball today. I didn't have any paper so Mrs. Sabiston gave me this. We had to take a swimming test and I got a red ribbon so I can't go over 5 feet. Do you think Jill would like a patch? Come get me.

Love Leigh Ann

The camp was only for a week and I beat the letter home. I remained bitter throughout fourth grade until I begged to go to camp again the next summer.

People who need People

Yesterday, I woke up, dashed out of bed and logged on to people.com for my first glimpse of the blessed two (as I type that, I hear Steve saying, "Stop calling them that," in my mind).

I left the house an hour later with a mission: Must buy People magazine. I had two newspaper checks in my purse, so my plan was to cash them and buy the mag before work, as Bank of America is next to the place that pays me downtown. But I had a cake carrier to return to a co-worker, who made me the most delicious sour-cream pound cake with cream cheese-pecan frosting for my birthday, and I figured it would not be good at all to enter the bank carrying a large, suspicious piece of Tupperware.

So I went to my secured office on the 14th floor of my building, checked my e-mail and approved a couple of proofs. Then I zoomed out the door to the bank. The line was long, so I cashed my checks through the ATM's new, improved deposit function that saves approximately 6 seconds from the old envelope system and went straight to the sundries shop in the Sheraton across the street. The sign in the lobby advertises "Snacks, newspapers and magazines," but that was a lie. They had no magazines. The nice clerk offered to sell me a USA Today, but that was not on my agenda. "Must. See. Brangelina. Babies."

Crestfallen, I went back to the office and admitted to my two best girls, contract designers, that I had been running around trying to find People magazine. My friend Melissa, the rock star, perked up. Seems an album she'd done session work on got a great review in the new issue. "If you go back out and find it, will you pick up a copy for me?," she asked. "No," I replied, "but you're welcome to go back out with me in the 100 degree heat at lunch to keep looking."

So we ventured out into the heat. We first headed a block south to the brand-spanking-new Marriott that just opened last weekend. Their sundries shop carried "Elle," "Southern Living" and the standard national newspapers. After that, we stopped back at the bank so Mel could get some cash and I checked out the high-rise's tiny convenience store, with no luck.

Downtown Raleigh has no newsstands, so after much debate, we set off to the scary drugstore four blocks north. I smoke and don't deal well with heat even though I've lived in the South my whole life, so entering that air-conditioned, stinky drugstore past the security station was like Nirvana for me. We made a beeline to the magazine section and I began pawing through the selection, thinking -- praying -- the new People was buried behind other rags.

"I'm gonna go ask about it," Melissa said, marching to the front to stand in line with the sketchy people as I continued to frantically search, knowing for sure I would find it.

"Hasn't been delivered," the manager told Mel. It was at that moment that I had an epiphany. I didn't suddenly realize that I am a grown woman with a good job and education who should be above celebrity worship. It was that I've worked in the words-on-paper industry for 16 years and know that the printing-binding-fulfillment-shipping process takes time.

We stopped for take-out, then headed back to the office. We had no choice but to walk through the gauntlet of crazy people, evangelists and vendors in front of the courthouse, Raleigh's own speaker's corner. We know the drill, walk fast, face forward and don't make eye contact.

The person downtown workers know most to avoid is the guy in the "Jesus Saves" tee shirt who screams brimstone and damnation vitriol and hands out the scary "everybody's going to hell" religious tracts. Melissa and I, a cute, butch rocker girl and heavily panting, pink-haired chick, made particular haste to rush past him, when he called out, "Hey, was that you in the paper?" *

"That was me," I replied as we kept walking. "Great job!" he replied. I thanked him and kept moving.

"Guess what?!!!," Melissa announced to our friends in the creative studio when we got back upstairs. "Crazy preacher guy knows Leigh Ann!"

What can I say? A fan's a fan, and we take praise where we can get it.

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* My head shot runs in the print version.