7/17/08 Haircut

So if you looked at yesterday's picture of me and the cattos playing Guitar Hero, you may have noticed that I've cut my hair. (Of course, I'm not sure why any of you would notice, seeing me only sporadically like you do, and in photos at that. As opposed to say, my coworkers, who see me every day yet have failed to make so much as a murmur about my new coif. Unless of course they HAVE noticed but they hate it, and are therefore pretending that they haven't noticed so that they can avoid having to lie and say that they like it. Hmmmm. Hadn't thought of that. Mental note to schedule time to be self-conscious about hair later).

ANYWHO. The hair has been in desperate need of a trim for oh, the past eight months, but I've been ignoring it under the guise of trying to decide on a new style. I had been wearing it cut short in a lovely wedge bob kind of deal, but it turns out that that hairstyle is for people with wonderfully straight hair, and I have mind-of-its-own curly hair, so my lovely wedge bob spent more time resembling a not-so-lovely Little Orphan Annie meets Don King frizzy fro. (And that was AFTER 30 minutes with the flat iron and the shine serum). The moral of this story is that no matter how good that style looked in the hair style book in the waiting area, your hair's stubbornness will outstrip your own, and frizzy fro will be your punishment.

The good news is that my hair grows crazy fast, so a wedge bob/frizzy fro from eight months ago has turned into manageably wavy hair slightly below the shoulders (albeit with some weird leftover layers). I had learned my lesson with the bob, so I knew better than to try to cut it short again, but I've been woefully indecisive about what to actually DO with it. So I made an appointment on Monday for a hair specialist at the local Ross the Boss, and threw myself on the mercy of the trained hair professionals. One who likes a challenge.

My normal girl wasn't available, so I got a new woman that I hadn't had before. She took one look at my leftover layers and the first thing she did was ask me how long it had been since I'd gotten my hair cut. (She so used the same tone that the dentist uses when she asks me how often I floss. There must be formal training for that tone). But then she took pity on me, and settled down for some hard-core snipping and combing and sectioning and all that magical stuff they do while they're forcing you to keep your chin to your chest. And suddenly the layers made sense again, and the split ends were gone, and I was slow motion bouncing out the door like a shampoo commercial model. Cue the slow motion spin here.

I LOVE getting my hair cut. It makes me feel so fresh and new and bouncy. Like making a change, but without the scariness of something permanent. She put new layers in to take some of the weight out of my hair, and she cut it so it would be curly but not too curly, and she angled it on either side of my face so it would hang in ringlets but without making my look like the stereotypical Jewish Rabbi. And it's still long enough to fit in a ponytail when I don't want to mess with it, which is mucho importante.

So now I'm on a hair cut high. It's curlier, but it's controlled curl, so it seems that the hair has forgiven me for the frizzy fro debacle, and we're back to being friends again.

All we needed was a professional.