Hair of the Spork – 337.5

Don’t get too excited by the downward movement yet. This is still right around the same five pounds that I always lose and gain territory. What happens in the next week should be critical.

Anyway, last weekend was my annual foray into standup comedy with the ward talent show, and I riffed a little bit on attraction. Although I can fall for people without these traits, I do have certain criteria to which I tend to be attracted. Since falling for one specific person, dark hair, light complexion, and blue or green eyes really get my attention. I am very drawn to kind eyes and a good-humored smile. Finally, the two times that I was blindsided by love at first sight, they both happened to be tall and have good hair and well-defined biceps.

It wasn’t something that I had thought about extensively, but one time when I was coming away from an encounter with Cute Cafeteria Guy, and savoring the moment mentally, I realized that the way I was looking up to him was kind of familiar. My prime range appears to be 6’2” to 6’4”. I have no rational explanation for it; it’s just the way things work for me. Maybe it is a matter of opposites attracting, because I am short, have no upper body strength or definition, and my hair is problematic.

My mother has curly hair, but mine is curlier. My brother has coarse hair, but it is fairly straight. My younger sisters have some wave, and their hair is very thick, but it is pretty smooth and silky. My hair is thick, coarse, and so curly as to be more frizzy (seriously, it ties itself into little knots), and quite dry. Also, from my father’s side of the family, the gray started moving in pretty young. It’s a difficult combination, and has led to quite a bit of angst.

The first trauma I remember was when I was about four or five. Our neighbor cut my hair into a pixie shag, and Mom was not crazy about the shag part (I guess because she had to brush it), so she sent me back for a full pixie. Shortly afterwards we were at K-mart, and in those days (at least in Tualatin), you had to wait for a buzzer to go off for the restroom doors to open. As I was waiting for this, a strange woman helpfully moved me over to the door of the men’s room, because clearly I was confused. I was too mortified to correct her, but I was very indignant when I went back to my mother. I had already liked it better when there was still some shag, and now just because I let her have her way, I now looked like a boy! Well, I suppose if there must be gender confusion, it is better to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

Over time I was just never happy with salon haircuts. Now by salon, I mean Supercuts and Great Clips, so you can’t really expect that much, but it was vexing to me that I was paying people to leave me unhappy with my hair when I could do it to myself for free. I understand the pitfalls. First of all, standard procedure is to cut the hair when wet, and to cut all of it the same length. When my hair dries, the individual strands kink up to different lengths, so you just can’t guarantee the result. Generally speaking, the worst thing they were doing was cutting my bangs too short. I hate the way I look with my forehead uncovered. I used to think it was because of the scars (one from a car accident and one from chicken pox), but I think it is actually the shape. The point is, I eventually started cutting my own hair, and I still do.

I am starting to wonder if I could have something better. Yes, I can generally avoid slashing my bangs, but it is really hard to get the back right, and the top is sometimes hard, and I usually stab myself with the scissors at least once.

I am also thinking of letting my hair grow out. I had kept it longer for a while. I was able to amaze people by pulling it straight, because the ponytail would rest right at the bottom of my neck, and then I would stretch it out and it would be in the middle of my back, and my friends enjoyed the optical illusion. It’s just that one time when I was trimming I got carried away, and I justified it because after all, I had it in a ponytail all the time, and what was the point of having the length if I never did anything with it?

It’s still a valid point, but it is nice to have the potential to do something. I have thought this many times, and tried, but the period of growing one’s hair out is really pretty irritating, and I have also caved before getting very far.

Still, I have done it before. I know I have because in a video from my senior year, I have my hair in a banana clip cascading down my back, and yet in junior high I had cut off everything but a rat tail. I remember this clearly because Mom hated the tail, so I braided it and cut it off, but kept it on a bobby pin to reattach. I did not tell my friends about this, and one time when I was at Washington Square with Karen, she started playing with it and I knew what was going to happen but I didn’t tell her, and it came off in her hand and she really freaked out. Also I tried to bleach it by soaking it in peroxide, but it did not work. Good times.

Anyway, here I am trying to grow it out again. As it gets longer and thicker, it is taking me back to the 80’s, but not in a good way. The other day I was thinking I had Billy Hufsy hair, and I never liked him. I guess it will pass.

I have often thought about shaving my head, so that I could just start over, and maybe it would grow back more manageable. There are two things that hold me back. One is that as a stout, capable single woman in her mid-thirties, I cannot afford to look any more butch. It is just not a statement I want to make. Since I have changed job positions and am now rating everyone else’s work, a few coworkers are calling me a nazi, so I guess I could try working the skinhead vibe instead, but it’s not really an improvement and how do you differentiate? Combat boots go either way, and to a lesser extent, so do tattoos.

Regardless, even if I worked out all of these issues, there is my other fear that it would not grow back all the way, and I would be left with bald patches. I know I am trying to move away from fear-based decision-making, but some things are just too scary. I just need to toughen up and power through.

Maybe I should try headbands.