My step-mom, Nichole, was a high school teacher for many years, and I remember that she liked to give her students a quirky writing assignment on the first day of school: “Give me the history of your hair,” she’d say. “Can we draw pictures?” they all wanted to know. “Sure, but the main thing is an essay.”
Nichole said the boys, especially the boys, always got into it. They had mohawks and buzz cuts and sideburns. They had slicked back Hollywood hair and spiky rock star hair and ponytails. And most notable of all, they had “product.”
“Boys care about their hair?” I asked her, my voice full of disbelief.
“Oh, you just wait, honey, until you have boys.”
Tall and Short care about their hair as much as I care about lima beans, which is to say: not much. They both entered the world bald, but those tender naked heads soon grew coverings of soft fluff, like stray pieces of cotton blown in from a field.
I washed that delicate hair with the special baby shampoo and inhaled its baby perfection scent. As the hair filled in, longer and thicker, there I was with the camera to chronicle every haircut and every style change (bangs brushed straight down, or bangs brushed back). For a long time, I was a huge fan of the “surfer/ skateboarder” haircut so popular in California: long on top, short in the back. This is the basic cut my fairly compliant elementary-school-aged sons still sport.
My own diary of hair is not much different: straight long blond with bangs, straight long blond without bangs, a brief dalliance with red, chop off all the damage from the red, grow it out, straight long blond with bangs again. My hair is my defining feature, the signature of my appearance. People see me from a distance and know that it’s me: “There’s MOV,” “Are you sure it’s her?” “Of course—look at the hair.”
Hairdressers try to persuade me to go for a chic bob, but I always resist. “This is my look,” I say, as if hair were a non-negotiable. I walk out of the salon looking the exact same way as when I went in: straight long blond hair with bangs.
A friend stops me in the parking lot. “MOV, your hair looks great! Is something different?”
No, nothing’s changed. I just paid $75 to look like me.
MOV
MOV - I'm a straight long blond with/without bangs also. The last time I had a cut I was happy with it until, shaking out the apron, the hairdresser said, 'You can't go past a bob' I wanted to whack her and say 'No - I can't get past a damn bob'
ReplyDeleteYou and I need to spend the day together modeling crazy wigs-- get it all out of our systems-- and then go back to blond and boring. I call the curly red wig, à la Nicole Kidman in "Dead Calm." She is Me.
DeleteI have bad white-girl hair. It is very straight and very fine and there's not much of it. Which is the reason that when I turned 48 I chopped it all off. I now look like Ellen Degeneris or Jane Lynch or any other famous lesbian.
ReplyDeleteI like your hair. And I think you are brave. I would most likely be brushing my (imaginary) hair, saying, "I refuse to chop it off-- I look just like Christie Brinkley!" (See-- even my role models/ idols are OLD.)
DeleteYes, it's me Nichole. The 9th grade boys loved the assignment. I learned that Dippity Do and Aqua Net hairspray was the favorite because it was cheap. Now, of course there are dozens of fabulous products out there. The essays were accompanied by all those school pictures from 2nd grade on. I am still learning about boys and there are still surprises.
ReplyDeleteHi Nichole! Excited to see you at the book party!
DeleteI'm the same way about my hair. Long blonde no-bangs. I even avoid salons so I don't have to listen to anyone try to convince me to be adventurous.
ReplyDeleteDo we go to the same salon? what is it about hairdressers feeling the need to tell you to be adventurous?! if I want to be adventurous, I will go sky-diving, but in the meantime get your damn scissors away from my hair!
DeleteMy son went from one day not caring a whit about his hair, to the next day needing "product" and fiddling with it for as long as girls do. I never saw it coming.
ReplyDeleteack! this is what I have to look forward to (X 2)....
DeleteI've had a few different hair styles. Some were certainly better than others. I remember going to London for a summer in college and I found this awesome hair wax. It was cheap but it could make my hair defy gravity! I currently have an inverted bob -- at least I think that's what it's called. Long in the front and angles back to very short. It's not my "natural" color either. Heck, I'm not even sure I remember what that is.
ReplyDeleteI spent a summer in London for an exchange program too! I wonder if we were there at the same time (do not answer that, I want to bask in the illusion that I am 20 years younger than everyone else, ha ha). If you look at a photo of me in London from way back then and compare it to me now, I was skinnier and had a younger face, but the hair? exactly the same.
DeleteMy hair has a more adventurous life than I do. Unfortunately, as ready to party as it is, the rest of me doesn't agree.
ReplyDeleteMy son did not care about hair, including that it be even CLEAN, until eighth grade. Something happened. Some troll switched sons with me, and I suddenly had this boy who primped, slicked, preened even. And his hair changed as often as my daughter's, just more cheaply (but barely), thank GOODNESS.
ReplyDeleteI change how I wear my hair about every three years or so. I keep trying on gray, but nope. I may NEVER keep it as my look!