Women Think About These Things

I occasionally read over old journal entries, just to see what I was thinking about a year ago, or to mine them for bits of funny I can use in short stories or what-have-you. Some days, as it turns out, I'm thinking about some pretty stupid stuff. Here's an entry from last October:

It's all about hair today. Lame and girly, I know, but it's all about hair.

So three weeks ago I got my hair cut, as it was way overdue. Ixie asked me, "What are we doing this time?" I said, "More of the same, I guess." I don't think about it much.

I asked her what was going on in the world of hair, as I always do. I like to be INformed, whether or not I CONform. She tells me the eighties are back, which I already knew from the sudden horrifying reappearance of such "have we learned nothing?" styles as trucker hats and sundress-plus-pants.

Suddenly, post-shampoo, I just kind of said, "What would you do if you had my head?" The answer was "collar-bone length, some layers, flip it out a little." Sounded easy enough, so I said okay.

"Really?"

"Sure. Why not?"

And before I knew it, there was my hair, on the floor, in little four-inch pieces. Didn't think much of it, to be honest; I'm not too freaked about these things. Ixie knows what she's doing, and for the price I pay her to cut my hair at the chichi salon (featured in "Legally Blonde," thank you very much, which may be why they raised their prices), it's even kind of nice to feel like she had to do more work. It was cute enough when she was done.

But then it was my turn.

Turns out, short hair is a lot more work than long hair. This defies human logic, and yet it is so. Like the Trinity.

So now, every morning, I struggle with the styling spray. The hair dryer. The round brush. And for what? Now that we have reached the Santa Ana time of year, no cosmetic wrestling match and no amount of product will save me from the agony of flyaway, static-charged, volume-free, straighter-and-flatter-than-Olive-Oyl hair. And the more I play with it to try to fix it, to get it out of my face, to get it to *do* something for the love of all that is holy, the oilier and flatter it becomes.

On top of that, today I have a spontaneous cowlick that defies even a get-it-wet-and-fix-it-again attempt. Odd. Spiritual warfare, I tell you.

Perhaps a wig is the solution. I'll shave my head and wear bad wigs and tell people it's from the chemo. This will bring sympathy, at least. "The poor dear. The bad hair isn't her fault. Let's give her a hug and buy her lunch."