I also have congenitally and incorrigibly straight hair, so I can relate to your desire to have curls and waves - even once in a while, even for a little while, but the only thing that you could really do is curl it with chemicals, which would be just as bad, maybe even worse, for it than bleaching it.
I remember the day of my junior prom, spending twelve hours, yes, twelve hours! in a salon, where the entire staff tried everything they could think of to make my dream of those godawful sausage-curled updos that were unfortunately popular back in that particular paleolithic era come true, and finally ended up essentially sculpting them out of about a half ton of Dipity-Do (the preferred styling gel of Ancient Man) and Aqua-Net Laquer - not just the spray, mind you, Laquer, all on top of an infrastructure of old school hairpins laid in about every quarter inch all over my head - and even with all that, the whole tragi-comic study in experimental architecture began to derail before the goo on the "going out the door" Polaroids was dry.
The good news is that today, thanks to the magic of extensions, you CAN have curls - and without wearing a wig, which was the only real choice for a long time.
And even more good news - the demographic shift in the US means that more salons will have people who are familiar with the limitations and sad realities of all the various and glorious flavors of what the mainstream calls "ethnic hair," and are therefore much less likely to essentially shut down shop and spend an entire day gang-torturing a teenage girl - even one who is foolish and ignorant enough to think that her waist-length horse-mane textured stick straight hair will curl - and vain enough to submit to a day of hell learning that it won't - not even for prom!
Ohhh Shimma, you crack me up!
i curled my hair yesterday night with the GHD and i didn't even use any hairspray. the curls seem to LAST FOREVER! well, until the next shower that is 