Coiffure & Coffee.

There a certain certainties in life. Things that give you a sense of well being. That all is right with the world and that the sun will rise on the morrow. Those things may be good or they may be bad. But they are.

Politicians will always screw you. The homeless will always congregate at Woolloomooloo under the overpass near the cop shop. Things that taste bad are good and vice versa. And no matter where you are on the planet there will be more cafes and hairdressers than local population.

Cafes and hairdressers are a yin and yang sort of thing. They are the glue in shopping centres that hold the other establishments in place so they don't slip into black holes or crumble to rubble unsupported by the glue of society. Yet science has a way of being a constant in so many areas that when the rules change and difference stares wryly in the face of the disbelieving, evangelists take up the slack with explanations of the ineffable.

Northbridge is such a vacuum.

On Sunday before I decided to make like a lamb roast, I hied myself to the local shopping plaza with thoughts of breakfast and grooming. I had started to look something like the love child of a hippie and a Cistercian monk, and having previously lived in an area where the mall was large enough to be seen from space, I was unprepared for what awaited me.

Northbridge has one hairdresser and one cafe.

That's right, take a deep breath, relax, sit down before you fall down and read it again.

Northbridge has one hairdresser and one cafe.

A temporal and spatial void hidden in Australia's largest city. I felt as though I had moved to another planet. Then it struck me. Northbridge only has one pub as well. Not so much another planet as another dimension then.

I walked into the hairdresser. (As usual they talked to the moustache. I suppose it's a little like men talking to women's breasts). I am used to hairdressers that say, "Sure, about fifteen minutes". They postulated that July may have an opening. I backed out feeling the shift of time and space around me. I staggered to the cafe. It was full. I waited and finally wedged myself in between two people who seemed to be reading bed sheets with news printed on them. They peered at me with a knowing smile all the time I ate my breakfast.

I was determined to remain undefeated. I got into the car and drove to the Greenwood Plaza in North Sydney, five minutes away. "Surely", I said to myself "they will have hairdressers galore". The whole shopping centre was closed as it apparently is on a Sunday. I resisted the urge to go to the cinema and see if Star Wars had just been released, or to Birchgrove to see if I had been counted a truant from primary school. I didn't seem to be wearing flares so the decade seemed to be the right one.

I almost drove over the bridge into the city to see what I would find, but fear sent me home to do penance in the garden.

Comments

[Shanathalas]

You know what you gotta do? You have to open a cafe that does hairdressing. Like the cyber cafe, it could be the next Thing. You could call it "The Hursute Bean" or something like that. or "JavaCoif". or "I'm Hair for a coffee".

[JtH]

I'm Hair for a coffee is fantastic. Sadly, though I do know how to make coffee, I suck at haircuts.

[Red]

Next time, hike 5 mins up the road to Castlecrag, and you might have better luck...
Or, head down over Alpha Rd to Willoughby Rd, Hair Trends can always fit you in...
Northbridge is small. But it's also v close to everything else :)
Cheers,
A 5-mins-away local.

[JtH]

Yes, I must get to know the area. Or wear more hats.