“With enough courage you can do without a reputation.” That is one of my favorite lines from ‘Gone with the Wind’ and it doesn’t hurt that Rhett Butler delivered it.

I thought about that line when I was thinking of chopping off my locks.  For anyone that knows me well, I am pretty vain about my hair.  I get it done regularly; it’s the one thing a person wears every day.  So why not take good care of it?  Kind of like your teeth in that sense.

Speaking of teeth, I had the most ridiculous toothache of my life this week.  I mean; I wanted to go Tom Hanks from Castaway on it.  I live on the 14^th floor and let me tell you, that long night, I devised many plans.  The pain was that bad.

The first time I visited the dentist, after much poking and prodding, she couldn’t find anything wrong with it.  Not helpful.  So I went to Hong Kong the next day, loaded on pain meds, and visited a hair salon.  I had made the appointment the previous day, and just thought I would get a color because mine was looking bad.

As I sat in the chair, I thought about that Rhett Butler line and realized I have wanted to cut my hair for over a year.  I didn’t do it originally because I was looking for a job internationally and just didn’t want to change too much.

In the movie, Scarlet replies something to the extent of, ‘Oh Rhett, you do talk scandalous.”  But I don’t think it was so scandalous. I think that Rhett was telling Scarlet to be true to herself and simply not worry what others thought as she danced in her mourning attire. Don’t we all need a Rhett in our lives at some point or another?

And then I thought about how much I used to experiment with my hair. I’ve never done anything crazy, but I mixed it up a lot and I wondered, what happened to that girl?  She needs to come back. So I spoke with the guy and as he made the first cut and as about 3 inches feel to the floor, I felt a huge sense of relief. It was great.

However, after that day, my tooth would simply not stop throbbing. I couldn’t sit comfortably without shooting pain so I called the dentist and scheduled another appointment.  It turns out; it was something to do with my nerve endings.  Ugh. Again, Tom Hanks comes to mind.  However, she did this thing and it’s very difficult to explain.  Essentially, after the appropriate amount of numbing, she used a tiny, needle like instrument and poked into the nerve endings of my tooth to clean them out.  A couple of times, she even said, “This will cause pain.”  Just like that.  There was no sugar coating it.  Welcome to China. She cleaned it out and now I feel no pain.  The birds are singing… oh wait, too much smog, but you get the idea.