Thursday, June 28, 2007

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Imagine someone who’s blind in one eye and has a cataract in the other, with one of those prosthetic hooks on one hand (the result of an unfortunate encounter with a wood chipper), and their other hand is gnarled with arthritis. Now imagine them cutting my hair. That’s truly the best way for me to describe what’s going on with my hair right now.

I’ve kept my hair fairly short for quite a few years now. However, after I had Gwen I found it very difficult #1 to get to the hair salon, with two kids, and #2 to imagine cutting my hair into a style that would require time to style.

However, with the temperature and humidity rising to the level of unbearability, I decided to just chop it all off. Now I’ve never been able to find a quality beautician that could cut my hair properly, or if she did cut it properly, did not decide to move to Pakistan the next day, or continually overcharge me and pressure me to do a $60 color treatment every time I saw her. Therefore, as sad as it may be, I often end up at Great Clips, spinning the roulette wheel of shitty stylists. Last Sunday was not my lucky day.

So I tell the gal that I want to keep it at the jawline but that I want the layers to be really close to my head because if not then the sheer thickness of my hair and its natural curl cause it to look like a big bubble. She cuts, very tediously, and what seems like 2 hours later, I am wearing a large hair fishbowl. So I say to the gal, “see how it looks like a big bubble here – can you thin it out or do something with the layers to avoid that?” So she thins it a little bit on the sides and it looks no better. Now I don’t have much patience or to be truthful, enough guts to really be all that persistent, plus by this time Aaron has come over to see me enough times that his feet are beginning to resemble tiny, hairy hobbit feet. So I just leave.

I’ve had bad haircuts before, actually many times before. I think I’ve really only had 2 good haircuts in my entire lifetime so this is nothing new to me, but I’d had it. I deserved better! It was like 20 years of crappy haircuts were all ganging up on me emotionally that day and I wasn’t going to take it anymore. Damnit, I was going to flip off those haircuts and insult their Mommas – that’s what I was going to do. So I called my friend to come over and I handed her the scissors.

Not such a good idea. I should have been wary when she didn’t want to wet it down and how she was just seemingly grabbing chunks and snipping them, but I figured if I could trust this woman with my children if Matt and I ever kicked the bucket then certainly I could trust her with my hair. It actually wasn’t all that bad and I probably should have just left well enough alone – but I didn’t.

Later that night I wet it down and started cutting it myself. I knew what I wanted, I knew I could do it. I cut Matt and Aaron’s hair all the time – it’s not that difficult. Well, it is that difficult – at least when it’s your own head. I’m still convinced that if I could have taken my head off my shoulders and put it in front of me, it would have turned out beautifully. Instead it turned out like this.


(Now in my defense this picture was taken at about 6 in the morning. I have no makeup on, just got out of the shower and am barely awake, which might explain why my glasses or crooked, or maybe they're always crooked? Anyway, I do usually look slightly better than this, but I wanted you to witness the harsh reality that is this awful haircut. Besdies, if I really wanted to portray myself in the most flattering light, I wouldn’t be writing this blog would I – but I’m keeping it real brother!)


My only styling option is to leave it wet and put a headband in it. Straightening it makes me look like Moe from the 3 stooges. Poor Matt was silent through most of this ordeal. He’s witnessed bad haircuts for years now so he knows that his best bet is just to say “honey, I think it looks good” and then step back and not interfere.

So in retrospect I should have just left the bubble. Now I’ve got to wait about 2-3 weeks for it to grow a little bit and then I’ll go somewhere to have them even it up because it’s hopelessly lopsided and chunky. Then I’ll just let it grow until I can’t stand it any longer and the cycle will continue.

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