recently i've been unhappy with my hair. i've always had really curly hair. and it's not round little ringlets, it's more like uncontrollable spirals of death. i didn't realize how evil the curls were until, at the tender age of 5, my mom decided to cut my hair. on her own. without a licensed professional near by. of course, curly hair looks much longer wet because when it dries, the curls bounce up and you have about 1/3 the hair you had wet. yeah, so i had a boy cut, and everyone kept telling my mom what a lovely little boy she had. maybe this explains my sci-fi and early nintendo tendencies.
ever since i could hold a hair dryer, i've been blow drying my hair straight. ok, at first it wasn't straight. wielding multiple brushes, hair serum, and blow dryer, it started out as frizzy straight. i didn't quite get the whole "wrapping it around a brush and pulling" type of thing. plus, in those days, when it was 95% humidity outside, my hair never quite dried fully. but if it was "almost straight," i could do stuff with it without looking like i had stuck my finger in an electrical socket, and this gave way to what is now more commonly known as the onion 'do. there were two versions, i think. one, where i pulled the sides up to the back crown of my head and tied it with an elastic. the other was pulling ALL of my hair up into a high pony tail. definitely loved looking like an onion for 5 years. there was also the triangle hair look, made fashionable by the stuck-in-the-early-80's bleach blonde stylist. if i wore my hair semi-straight, it looked ok, but if it was curly, the curls would take on the shape of a christmas tree and my awful claire's earrings became the ornaments. so not cool. and there was no star on top of my head, either.
the late high school years actually went by ok, even with all the hair gel and bun wearing. although, putting semi-curly hair into a bun proved impossible, since i always had fizzies and little curls that had minds of their own. and most other girls in my class had long, stick-straight hair and attracted all of the boys, so i wanted to at least blend in. at this lovely college prep school full of peer pressure and pine, curly hair was never applauded.
college, though, gave me some of the best hair days of my life: the weather was dry, and if it snowed, i had an excuse to wear a beanie or parka. moving to san francisco, i had to initially battle fog, and this totally ruined any potential good hair day. really. i didn't want to frizz or curl, but i wanted to be able to go a day without washing my hair, so out came the trusy beanie, which lives in or near my purse and can be whipped out at a moment's notice to deflect any chance of liquid action. and lately, if it rains, maybe i want to just go curly for a day or two. with the right cut, it's possible. but for 4 years, i was having trouble finding a stylist who could give me a decent cut for both curly and straight hair. for instance, the 2nd to last sytlist i saw was anthony, an androgenous looking stylist (originally female, but refers to self as a he), and i thought "this is good. if he/she can possibily go both ways, so can my hair." but no. i got bangs. short bangs. evil, son of the devil, not even 1 inch bangs. and when they curled, they were 1/4 inch bangs. eek! so finally, i went to pitch salon, where i got a great, basic layered cut. phew. but i still can't let myself go curly for more than a day. and i'm trying to figure out why. what is my real, deep down issue with curly hair? is it because it's uncontrollable? is it because of the frizz? is it because it reminds me of my dad, whom i don't speak to anymore? is it because straight hair lets me blend in and not bring attention to the fact that i'm different? i think it's yes to all of that. but i'm ok with it all. really. now where's my flat iron?
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