Remind me not to get my hair cut. . .

By Mir
January 30, 2007

… any time I have to, say, do anything else. At all. Ever.

Listen, I hadn’t had my hair cut since NOVEMBER. I waited as long as I could, because after the relative freedom of cutting all of my hair off a while ago I immediately turned into Goldilocks and was all “I want it SHORTER. No! Wait! That’s TOO short! Now a bit longer. That’s good. A little more. No! SHORTER!” After a while of this, I settled on A Plan to grow it out to something still short, but longer than it had been, and as this involves growing out umpteen layers, I have been TRYING to stretch out the time inbetween appointments.

Because it sort of sucks to pay real money just to have a quarter inch of hair trimmed off back there on my neck.

Anyway, as I said, I waited as long as I could. Then the inevitable day came—as I knew it would—when I looked into the mirror and realized that I had achieved the impossible. Somehow, I was sporting both an afro AND a mullet! (I mean, as frightening as it was, you still sort of have to admire that kind of ingenuity from the follicles.) As soon as I got over the trauma of what I’d seen, I called to make an appointment with my stylist.

My stylist, by the way, always used to be able to squeeze me in within the week. That’s one of the perks of going to the same person for years and years. But now she’s only working half-time, and when I called for an appointment, they were happy to give me one… in three weeks.

I waited. And waited. And applied handfuls of product to my unruly mop and tried to tame it while we waited. And then today the day finally arrived!

The haircut itself was uneventful; we discussed the problem areas (“Seriously? I mean, ALL OF IT!”), the goal (“Something less stupid-looking, I think”), and how I really need to come in to have my color touched up (“Just cut my damn hair, woman”). I’m maybe one or two cuts away from what will hopefully be a legitimate hairstyle and not just some waystation between here and there, but she did a nice job shaping it up for me.

No, the interesting part was how my stylist dried my hair. She, like most stylists, seems to take great joy in arranging my hair in some massive poofy configuration that I would never in a million years voluntarily sport. When I commented on how HUGE it seemed like she was making it, she pretended not hear me over the hairdryer. Finally, with a giggle, she said, “Oh, you’re moving to GEORGIA? I thought you said TEXAS!”

As soon as she removed the cape, I sort of patted it down all around to ensure that I could fit through the doorway on my way out. I paid and went on my way.

Of course, taking the time out for my haircut meant that I had plenty of work to do once I got home, and I was mired in it when the school called and requested the honor of my presence. I ended up running out to deal with the latest crisis (so much fun! remind me to tell you about it when I’m sober again, which at the current pace of life should be… 2015!) and completely forgetting about my hair.

In fact, I forgot that when the stylist uses twelve kinds of goop and fluffs me up into a giant mushroom and I run my hands through it to smush it back down, it’s rather like punching down a nice fluffy pillow; a few minutes later, it’s all huge again. Hours after we’d returned from school, I glimpsed my hair in the mirror.

My gigantic, fluffed-up hair.

I had taken this hair down to my children’s school and sat in a miniature chair and had a serious discussion with the vice principal, and the whole time she was probably thinking, “Well no WONDER her kids can’t behave. Clearly she spends every waking minute teasing her hair within an inch of its life rather than putting any effort into raising these hellions.”

Tomorrow my hair will be normal again. But my children will still require reform school.

Wait, what was my point here, again?

33 Comments

  1. crazedparent

    what, all that and NO PICTURES? i want to see Texas hairstyle from hell!

  2. Judy

    I’m with crazedparent, Mir. It’s not fair to give us this wonderful rant and then deny us the visuals. Shame, shame.
    (I’ll talk to some of my friends in Atlanta and find out the name of a good hairdresser for you… lol)

  3. Mom2One

    You’re just a big ol’ tease, Girlfriend!! Like they say, PICTURES!!

  4. Deb

    Oh Gawd *mops up keyboard and monitor* I have got to remember not to read me some Mir until I have finished my coffee…You do this to me every.darn.time.

    There’s got to be a ribbon or something we can wear against this type of behavior..a sort of “just say no – don’t go ‘fro” or something because as short as MY hair is the sylist STILL makes me look like I’m sporting a football duct taped to my head.

    I’ve taken to telling them NOT to dry it all the way and then I blatantly stand in front of the mirror and use my own hands to finish laying the result in it’s proper place. I have yet to use the same stylist more than ONCE because I haven’t found one that won’t coif me to the moon. When I do find one…I’m kidnapping him or her…

    And I agree on the snaps – PICS BABY!!!

  5. Barb

    My stylist and I finally had a conversation about how short people (like her) often like a little “height” to their hair, but whopping old giants (like 5’10” me) don’t really require the same amount of “visual lift” – quotes indicated her words, not mine! Now she cuts my hair, lets me style it, occasionally suggests a new product, and I no longer leave her shop looking like a escapee from an ’80s rock band!

  6. Sara

    What is it with those stylists and the helmet-head poof?! Don’t get me wrong. I love my stylist and have followed her around for 7 years and 5 salons, but c’mon!! Enough with the poofiness already!

  7. chris

    I can’t stop laughing.

    I got my hair done yesterday too! ANd I don’t quite understand how “DO it exactly the same way as last time.” translates into, “Do something totally different.”

  8. Nancy

    I can totally sympathize! I have hair like yours and had to stop going to the stylist; what is it with the poof? I haven’t let a stylist touch my hair in 10 years. I just learned how to cut it myself.

  9. Melanie

    I need to see that hair – maybe you’ll make me feel better about mine (probably not)… I hear in reform school they don’t even call you in for conferences, so you can do whatever you want with your hair. They just lock the kids in the pokey like in Matilda. It works, you know, except that there are bandages to contend with later and all that. But no one sees your hair!

  10. Mary

    I get that, too. I usually go to the salon in the evening, so she’s doing my hair all fancy, and then I go…home to bed. I don’t know why she puts all the work into it.

    Although I do wake up with some interestingly shaped hair after sleeping on all that product.

  11. Karen Rani

    I don’t get the same stylist every time I go – so they get great pleasure out of me saying to any of them: “Do whatever you want.” I get bored easily and it always looks pretty good every time. Oh wait, you saw it. Fabulous, ain’t it?
    Also, you crack me up – every single entry.

  12. Aimee

    *snort* Now, I know this is Louisiana and not Georgia, but it made me think of Dolly Parton’s line in Steel Magnolias: “Well, I usually wrap my entire head in toilet paper before I go to sleep, so it’s gets pretty smushed down in that process.”

  13. Lesley

    Oh me. That was funny.

  14. Woman with Kids

    I agree, pictures are needed, before and after. How can we admire the stylistic genius that is both an afro and mullet without proper representation?

  15. Liise

    My stylist does the same damned thing. Fluffs it up beyond all recognition. I say to her “Why?” she says “Because I know it will be completely stick straight and flat in 10 minutes”. I say “so it is a challenge for you?” She says “130.00 please”.

  16. Cele

    You do have the option of not letting her style your hair after you get it cut…speaking from the position of former stylist. I often say I have a$4100 hair cut. When I find a stylist I like she moves, retires, or dies. I can’t have the death of young people on my consciencous and a bad cut on my head so I too cut my own hair.

    When you get to Atlanta watch the women around you. When you find someone with hair like yours AND a cut you like, stop them and ask who their stylist is. It’s window shopping for the right haircut.

  17. bad penguin

    Mullet and afro at the same time is quite an accomplishment. And a very fun visual, at least in my head. My stylist has curly hair like me, so she generally spares me the crazy fluffy hair.

  18. Melanie Marie

    An afro AND a mullet? That is some talented hair!

  19. Heidi

    Yup, Cele is right about having the option to not have your hair styled after a cut. I figured, why pay extra money to have someone make me look perfectly ridiculous (you have SO MUCH WAVE in your hair!) only to go straight home and re-wash it? It’s no longer an issue, however. When I sas told my hair would look weird if I grew my bangs out, I fired her little stylist ass. And grew my hair out, dammit. Back to the ’70’s for me.

  20. Her Bad Mother

    So would that be a Frullet? Or a MullFro?

  21. ishouldbeworking

    Frullet has a better ring to it!

  22. Mara

    OK, as a born-and-bred TEXAN, I have to speak out! We do not all have big hair. We don’t, we don’t, we don’t. I am from “Dallas”, which is Texan for “island of metropolitan style in the midst of Texan wilderness.” Yes, outside the city limits, big hair can be seen, sometimes even within the city… it’s like the coyotes. But some of us are sleek, blow-dried, and styled… with no bangs, no curls, and no bigness to be seen.

    (Not that I’m sleek, heh. But some of my friends back home are.)

  23. InterstellarLass

    Hey! Not everyone in Texas has big hair…not since the 80’s at least. I’m growing mine out too. Lots of layers. I’m more than 2 haircuts away from something decent.

  24. Kim

    Another Texan with anti-big hair, here. :) (My hair? It is smooth and sleek. No bangs. No curls.)

    Gotta say, though, putting up this post without visuals? Not zesty! We really deserve a photo of the Frullet “before” and the “GA Big Hair” after. :D

    Sending lots of {{{{hugs}}}} ~ and hoping that Monkey remembered his lunch bags today. :)

  25. dorothy

    Um, my hair is so fine it’s like that commercial where the lady stuffs toilet paper in her hair to try to get some volume, then the guys she’s kissing is all, “You stuff your HAIR?” So giant and fluffed-up would be a welcome respite.

    It’s all relative, ya’ll.

  26. Daisy

    I had a moment like that — all dressed up as Mrs. Frisby from the Secret of NIMH, complete with mouse ears, and reaming out a student for misbehavior in my class. I didn’t think ’till later of the picture I must have made!

  27. Brigitte

    Sober in 2015? C’mon, Monkey will just be getting into his teen stride (and Chickadee’s will be full-blown) at that point!

  28. Christina

    Good grief! I haven’t seen big hair in Texas in at least a few months…it’s usually the smaller towns. I just think to myself….the 80’s called and they want the hairstyle & wardrobe back. I once had a conference with lipstick smeared up the side of my face, lovely, just lovely, I tell you. I am sure the teacher was thinking ‘acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree’.

    Oh and you have just barely begun the fun of parenting, just hook up an IV of your favorite booze….woo hoo! :0)

  29. Muirnait

    So I think a consensus has been reached – show me the … well, not money, so hairdo, I guess!

  30. Ruth

    Oh for hair that would even make a Frullet attempt! My hair is so smooth and sleek by nature that it won’t do otherwise, not with heat, chemicals, vicious threats, bribes of expensive products…

    Maybe the kids would like some great parties with their friends/family, autograph books, photo shoots, etc. I feel for them; I moved a lot as a kid. They’ve probably inherited your penchant for “anticipatory grief”. :) If I were in their shoes I’d like to take a break from the depression for special memories to hold onto later.

  31. CharlestonGirl

    PICTURES! Please….:)

  32. Carmi

    This is what I love about living in a northern climate: I keep a French beret on my head all winter. Tres chic.

    Why is it we fret about our hair, yet we dread the day we lose it?

    Unanswered questions of the universe, I guess.

  33. carson

    I was sure there would be a picture.

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