IS IT GROWING OUT YET?

My sister and I have a pact:  We don’t make major changes to our hair without calling the other one first.

A couple of weeks ago I violated this pact.  I didn’t plan to or anything.  I just went in to get a trim on a haircut that I’d actually gotten a few compliments on.  But then, at the salon I saw a picture of (insert angels singing and harps strumming)   The Haircut of My Dreams.

Straight bangs across the forehead and straight bob.  It looked simple yet funky, exactly what a woman going through a mid-life crisis needed.

Now, I’m not stupid.  I mean, I did realize that the woman in the picture was probably a teenager and that her hair was shiny and red, but it was straight and one thing my hair has always been is straight.

The first time I married, I inherited a mother-in-law who owned a beauty parlor — not a salon but an old-fashioned beauty parlor.  Where women sporting pink curlers sat under dryers and came out flourishing bouffant hairdos that challenged gravity.   She considered my baby-fine, straight hair as a personal insult and tried everything in her arsenal.  And yet, week after week, the minute I walked out her door, it all fell into a stringy mess.  The closest she came to any kind of success was the year she put in a perm, had me wait an hour and then put in a second perm.  I rocked that 70’s afro for at least a week.

Now I was sitting in a comfortable chair, in a beautifully appointed hair salon imagining myself walking out the door with the hippest haircut.  I did ask Pamela if she thought I was too old for the cut and being the kind, yet honest person that she is, she said, “You could do it, you just have to OWN it.”

I told her to go for it and closed my eyes, imagining when I opened them, I’d own my hair like this woman.

Owning your look.

It didn’t happen.  Because, evidently – I don’t own my hair.  Well…and also because I’m not twenty…and I have wrinkles…and I don’t walk around wearing bright red lipstick all the time.

In Pamela’s defense, I’d begged for this haircut and, being the professional that she is, she let me come back a week later so she could undo what I couldn’t own. (Free of charge I might add – go see her at Alquemie Salon.)

I tried whining to my sister but she reminded me that, “that’s what a pact is for.”

Will I learn from this embarrassing mistake?  I doubt it.  I was going through some of my mother’s old journals and came across this entry – “Teresa arrived with another of her crazy haircuts.  I couldn’t say anything nice so just kept quiet.”

Hmmm, now that I think about it, everyone has been very quiet around me lately.

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Thanks for coming to Crazie Town.  I appreciate all the tourists who visit and especially all the people who invested in a time share opportunity (i.e. subscribers).

Talk to you next week!