Haircut (posted 3-7-09)

I got my hair cut today (Update: It's been barely three weeks and this haircut has already grown out to look exactly like my old haircut. Berg.) and I didn’t get any guff for cutting my own bangs. Is this because I am so brilliantly good at it she couldn’t tell, or was she sympathetic to DIY haircuttery because of These Tough Economic Times?

I always get nervous about getting my hair cut, not because I’m worried I’ll end up with bad hair, but because there is something about having my body (or its parts) in the hands of a professional authority figure that makes me feel sure I’m going to be criticised.**

There was the check-up I had right before starting middle school, when the doctor asked how much excersise I got. I told him that I liked to swim and play soccer and ride my bike a lot, and he looked me up and down and said “Well, that can’t possibly be true.”

There was the gyno who insisted that I stay on birth control after I told her I was gay (she was the first person I told) because I might “change my mind.”

So, it’s pretty obvious where I got this fear from. But it really, really bothers me that I can’t get over it.

If some one came up to me on the street and said “Your hair sucks!” I could easily respond with “Well, I like it, so the hell with you, sir!” or perhaps “Why yes, it does suck today! Humidity makes fools of us all!”

Yet when a stylist says that I really shouldn’t die my own hair, or trim my own bangs, or wax my own eyebrows, even though I know that most of those comments are financially motivated, I get all tongue-tied and apologetic. Even when I end up hating the cut, which has happened once or twice, I’ve never had the temerity to ask for a refund, or even for it to be fixed, because it feels like my fault for not being, I don’t know, better at having hair.

Today, however, I got none of that cringe inducing “Who dyes your hair/cuts your nags/waxes your eyebrows ?” lead up to a “Well you really shouldn’t!”

I didn’t even get asked what kind of products I used, and therefore endured no speech about why those are the worst ones I could use and I really need to buy these.

I suspect I have the TET (Tough Economic Times) to thank for that. If so, I will be able to tell my children that one good thing came out of the Bush presidency.

*The light in my room is apparently too dim for my computer’s camera (the iSight, Apple’s best-ever use of the “i” prefix), so all my pictures come out weird, and often, with a little editing, weirdly awesome. I like the totally-accidentally-achieved oil painting look on this one.

**The only exception to this rule is the dentist. And that is only because, since I knocked out my two front teeth playing baseball with a bunch of oddly-dressed vampires (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!), I’ve already had my most embarrassing dentist visit ever and they can only go up hill from there.