New 'Do

Not me, but strikingly similar to what I looked like 24 hours ago

I've been overdue for a new 'do.

With the arctic weather and some work deadlines and a compulsion to wait as long as possible before calling my hairdresser in a panic, my hair had gotten just a little...bad. 

This, by the way, is the way I approach a cut and color every single time.

"Oh, I can wait just a day or two more, because I really want to get my money's worth out of that last cut, and seriously it doesn't look that...EEEEK!"

One of the reasons I am so averse to making hair appointments on a timely basis is because I know that with every cut I will have to reintroduce myself to my hair. Each cut has its own personality: One is aggressive, the next one innocuous and lank, the one after that just what I was hoping for, followed by "when did I get so gray?" and so on and so forth.

Also not me, but I empathize with the hair

The one thing all of my haircuts have in common is my instructions to my fabulous barber: "Just like last time." And just like every time, I always leave her shop looking something like the photo at left, except without the drug use and early death and bright red lipstick and wearing a shirt under my jacket. Oh, and the hair is shorter.

But it feels JUST LIKE THIS. Too blond, and too froufrou, and too much look. If you are your hairstyle, I'm one hit away from being in the Country Music Top 100.

So usually I leave the beauty shop* and immediately go home to brush brush brush brush until my head is my own again. Last night I had to go straight from the whatever-you-call-it-place-where-there's-a-sink-and-a-hairdryer to a meeting. To my amazement, the other women there were complimentary.

"Oh! Your hair looks so cuuuute!"

"I've never seen your hair like this, and I love it!"

And so on.

Huh. Either those lovely ladies were lying, or you can hand me a guitar--I think my destiny is calling.


*(Does anyone still call it a beauty shop? What's the right word for a chair in a friend's back room? Salon? Barbershop? Gossip aggregator?)