In Which Miss Jill Becomes Co-workers With the Sword Swallower

September 2005: San Pedro Sula, Honduras
As I am half Mexican, my co-worker invited me to a special Independence Day celebration at the Mexican consulate. We had special dresses made and when the big day came, we decided to get our hair done at a salon. However, it was also Honduran Independence Day that week and most of the nicer salons were closed. We found a rather humble one that was open and asked if they could help us. 90% of what happens in Honduran salons involves blow drying hair straight, which is not a vital task when you are Scandinavian and your scalp is host to like three straight blond hairs. We even got a gift certificate for a blowout from my school for a holiday and I felt disenfranchised.

The woman glanced at me with disgust and declared, “You have the hair of a baby. What exactly do you want me to do with it? It’s impossible.” After several minutes of emotional pleas, she agreed to give it a try. To this day, I don’t know how they got the word out, but for the next hour every single neighbor they had ever had dropped by to “ask for coffee” of to “drop something off.” I had been a carney one summer, but even after myriad trips abroad I had never had aspirations to seek work as an albino sideshow freak until that day.

This is my friend Kate and me on my first day of work at the Coney Island Freak Show:



Don’t worry, she and my friend Pamy have agreed to stop torturing me and grow out their hair.