The Hair Up There

You know how on Top Model, when it comes time for the make-overs, there are always a couple of girls who sob uncontrollably because they find out that if they want to be on top, they have to cut their hair?


Yeah... I'm not impressed.     


I'm usually sitting on my couch rolling my eyes and saying, "Suck it up, you big baby!  It's HAIR!  IT GROWS BACK!"  


Because I?  Am all about whacking off my hair.  


When I was little, I had very long hair.  This was not MY choice... it was my parent's.  (My parents were more attached to my hair than they were to me, I think.)  I spent years of my life with long heavy hair hanging off my head, getting stuck in the zippers on the backs of my dresses (remember when dresses had zippers?), getting caught in the wooden slats on the back of my desk chairs (dear Lord I'm old... listen to that sentence:  "wooden slats on desk chairs"... I'm like friggin' Abraham Lincoln, for God's sake). This was before the coming of the blow dryer and hot rollers, so on Saturday nights or before any special occasion, I would spend hours sitting in a chair while my mother rolled my hair in prickly curlers, then put a plastic cap on my head which was attached to a rubber hose which was attach to her hair dryer.  There I'd stay, for at least two hours, with my scalp itching and burning and the curlers heating up to a thousand degrees, until my hair was dry enough to go to bed.  Then I'd get to try to find a way to sleep comfortably with spikes sticking into my head (not possible, FYI).  In the morning, when my mother would take out the rollers, there was always... ALWAYS... a chunk of hair that didn't dry.  So I'd have beautiful bouncy curls and then one long, lank hunk of hair that would droop down my back.  (This was a very common look among little girls with long hair "back in the day"... because chances are, we'd ALL spent the previous evening sitting under a hair dryer whining, "It's itchinggggggggg meeeeeeeeee!")


I was taught to suffer for beauty at a very early age.  (Thanks, Mom.)


When I was in 8th grade, ice skater Dorothy Hammil twirled into the media spotlight with her darling wedge cut hair.  I begged and pleaded with my mother to let me get my hair cut just like hers.  Finally, after my relentless whining had stomped her last nerve into oblivion, she allowed me to make my appointment and get my hair lopped off.  


It was the best day EVER.


Since that exact moment in time (I love it when I can pin-point life changing events TO THE DAY... I just wish my most eventful life changes weren't usually so shallow and superficial, but whatever) I have been addicted to changing my hair.  In my lifetime, I have cut, shaved, colored, hacked off, whacked off, and tormented my hair.  I have blow-dried, hot rollered, curling ironed, hair sprayed, moussed, gelled, waxed, and cemented every strand on my head at one time or another.  When I'm tired of my hair and no one is available to cut it for me, I will cut it myself.  (This has led to many "Oh shit" moments, when my impulsiveness has been, shall we say, not pretty.  I feel like when that happens, I'm doing a community service by keeping my local stylists in business, because I'm a giver like that.  You're welcome.)  


I have had some pretty drastic screw ups.  Most of them have involved me getting annoyed with something my hair is doing and grabbing a pair of scissors.  What follows goes something like this:  Snip, snip, saw, whack, snip... "Oh CRAP."  Bzzzzzzzzzzz.... "SHIT!!!!!"  Snip, snip, snip... "FUCK!!!!!"  Snip... Snip... Snip... snipsnipsnipsnipsnip... "SonofaBITCH!"  *ringringgggg*  "Hey, it's Dani.  Remember how I told you my hair was getting on my nerves and I should probably make an appointment?  Uh huh... well, yeah... Pretty bad.  Scissors.  And clippers.  I know.  Cool... I'll be there in 10."  


I will then don a hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses, and take myself to a salon and listen to the stylist (9 times out of 10 a friend of mine) tell me how she should let me walk around with hideous hair for a week or so just to teach me a lesson.  


Since moving to New York, I haven't made any stylist (or stylish, for that matter) friends, so my hair has been more or less on it's own.  A few weeks ago, in the dark of night, after a long, hot and humid day during which my hair drove me nuts and I consequently wound up wearing a hat (not my favorite look when it's a million degrees with a gazillion percent humidity), I took my husband's clippers and buzzed my entire head.  


Whoops.


I clipped and trimmed the parts that were sticking out and longer than other parts, so I eventually ended up with a style previous only rocked by Pink and Annie Lennox (and possibly some fever victims back in the 1700 and 1800s).  I'm sure it's hideous but whatever... I'm working my short, ugly hair like it's my job.  


When I see those sniveling teen-agers on Top Model hanging on to clumps of their hair and bawling, I think "Amateurs.  Accidentally dye your hair purple and then shave half of it off in an attempt to fix it.  THEN you can cry."


Not that I ever did that... *cough*