Here’s how my haircuts usually go. Things look spiffy when I leave the barber shop (“Seniors $15”). After that I look spiffy if I take the time to blow-dry my hair before I go to bed and use Product, which I might do for a day or two. By Day 3 I am washing my hair before I go to bed and permitting my pillow to do all the styling, and any Product used came out of my face. Results are random and sometimes startling to others, but not me because the last thing I do in the morning is put on my glasses and then I don’t look in the mirror, for the same reason I don’t check the rear-view if I thump over something in my car.
Then there is one day, one glorious day, when my hair is exactly the right length. And the very next day it’s gone over the edge and I need a haircut, bad. That day was a month ago. My barber shop is closed. Fortunately, like everyone else, I can now shrug helplessly and say “COVID-19” and point to my head and everyone understands. No one ever mentions my hair always looks this weird because–deep down–nobody cares. That’s just something girls worry about for no reason.
This would be one of your lesser impacts of a world-wide plague.
Also too, the Easter Bunny didn’t come to our house this year for the first time in over forty years. The governor put the kibosh on it and besides there was a problem in the supply chain. The Easter Bunny and I go way back. At first He brought enormous quantities of chocolate and hid it around the house. There’d be a chocolate bunny and a few good truffles and then mounds and mounds of M&Ms like rainbow rodent poop everywhere. In the middle years the Buns stepped up the quality and lowered the quantity, upping the truffle-to-crap ratio. And then, after consulting his investments and noting the earnest and hopeful gleam in Pootie’s eye-buttons, he just started hauling in the good chocolate by the buttload. This year, nothing.
So that’s more concerning. Impact-wise.
Others face more pressing obstacles. To get a flavor of this, it’s always good to take a cruise on the NextDoor site. This is an online community of your immediate neighbors, through which you can take heart in the goodness of others, and also you can find out exactly who is leaving rhetorical bags of flaming poop on your porch, because they up and tell you.
Last night’s thread began with one woman’s measured request we observe physical distancing whilst walking by neighbors who might be gardening near the sidewalk–to pay attention and veer away to the degree possible. And it ended up with two or three missives from the Division of the Grammatically Impaired to stay the fuck in your basement if you’re so fucking scared and people have the right to walk wherever they want. Followed by a suggestion to just fucking die already.
Which is a timely reminder that yes, we old people should be prepared to check out at any time, in general, and allow young people to eventually grow into mature and considerate adults with broader perspectives. It’s only fair.
And the most helpful advice of all came from a Dear Abby column I shall reproduce in bullet points:
- Love conquers all
- Every day may not be good, but there is good in every day
- Don’t count the days–make the days count
- When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and:
- Laughter is the best medicine!
All righty then! I can only add:
- It takes more muscles to frown than to smile, so bulk up.
- Think of your NextDoor neighbor as an ass that is both half empty and half-cocked.
- Dance like nobody’s watching because they’re inside drinking heavily and binge-watching Night Court. And:
- When life gives you weird hair, make excuses.
I'm glad that I decided to let my hair grow long a while back. I can go months now without a trim and no one would be the wiser. Paul also has long hair, so yeah… we're minimal consumers of stylists. Product, however, is another matter entirely. At least now, we're finally using up the old stuff that was tucked away in the back to make way for the new, improved stuff.
As an addendum to your bullet points, let me add one:
When life hands you lemons, make grape juice, and let everyone wonder how you did it.
I could use more lemons, frankly.
I have been follically challenged for 40+ years now, so I learned years ago that it is just hair. I don't care much about mine or anyone else's. Binge watching Night Court sounds like a great idea! Something to do while I swill beer!
There are so many ways to multitask with beer.
Got my hair cut in late January (I think) and it looked just fine until I read this column. But, who looks at a 70 plus year-old-woman. I live isolated on my 4 acre woods because I generally do not like people who take every request as an insult.
Invisibility is the old woman's superpower.
Smiling. And peering through my increasingly salt rather than salt and pepper mop. When we have the return of the hairdresser the mop will shrink but the colour will remain the same.
I wonder what color I would dye my hair if I got the notion. So many possibilities.
Try fluoro pink, it looks great on my daughter who is 47 now.
9 weeks since my last haircut. It usually requires attention every 5-6 weeks. I don’t care what it looks like but it has become annoying. I don’t look in mirrors. The only product I use is water.
Shaved heads are nice. Although then it would be even more obvious how tiny my braincase is.
I thought you might have gotten a Dave-haircut, either 'like Dave's' or 'by Dave' – either one would have been highly entertaining!
It's easy to tell those who have all along gotten their hair cut at home, by themselves or by their significant others. They don't have the shocking growth the rest of us do. It's also interesting to see politicians and TV personalities as their hair grows.
Your neighbourhood scares me a little.
Neighborhoods without a "u" are all a little scary.
Today I bought headbands like I wore when I was eight. My hair is currently fading blue (would otherwise be 95% silver)
Oh! The stretchy kind or the hard plastic with teeth?
After a lifetime of armed hand-to-hair combat with my thick, coarse, straight mop, I swore that the *moment* I saw a woman at the mall with a shaved head I was going to shear my hair off. That moment came in 1999. My daughter-in-law took the clippers to my head and cut my hair to 1/4" long stubble. I've never looked back. In our culture shorn hair signifies mourning the death of your husband, if anyone asks I just say I'm mourning the pain of Mother Earth, and I look all sacrificial and shi*. Truth is I am beside myself about the environmental damage we're doing, it just never occurred to me to cut my hair off as a protest.
I have either heard of women shaving their heads in protest against mountaintop removal or I wrote it in a novel. I can't remember which.
I've seen hair much worse than yours and yours looks okay from behind at least. Just run a comb through it and put in a pretty clip or something.
The Easter bunny has been passing my house for years now.
…or don't leave the house…
seems like a great time for the ol bowl cut to make a come-back. We could even dot it with little bright tassels to look like the virus…I think I'll suggest that to the county commissioners for their next set of requirements (which I tend to fully support)…and then tell NextDoor it was your idea or something…
I concur w. River that the back of your hair looks pretty darn good, just needs a teeny trim around the face (you can do this your own self, ya know, it's the part you can see). I have cut my own hair for most of my life, it being curly & very forgiving, though now it's way straighter, I've cut it down to 2" after sitting near what looked to be a hallucinogenic former nun who was so animated and so w/o vanity I was inspired to let go of what had been a very time-consuming pesky tidying-up-as-you-go messy, long, but gorgeous mop. Everyone said so, and was sorry to see it go, but not me. I'd had quite enough of the bother. I do now look like my mother/auntie, but that was in the cards, but the freedom ! Oh, the freedom to let wind/etc run riot thru my hair…And the upside is always in the back of my mind: this is a pre-chemo haircut. Just in case.
Cut my own hair last week and colored it pink. Very rough cut. Very. Rough. Then I hacked at it again to removed the pieces that stuck out. Bed head here and now is frightening.
In our previous Subdivision Hell 'Planned' Community they had a Next Door site and it was always good for a Laugh as you'd think all the Neighbors were Mean 12 Year Olds rather than affluent Grown Ass Adults! The Grandson and I would laugh at the petty snarky squabbles that broke out and they felt the Need to air in Public Forum, mostly Anonymously tho', Cowards that most Snark filled vitriol comes from. I'm so relieved to be back in my Old Community that actually has a deeper sense of Community and a social conscience towards their Neighbors. They already look out for us and we've only lived here since February, during times like these it is especially important to be One Together. As for the Hair situation, so glad I have Dreadlocks!
We have the same glasses!
Many a year ago, I used to have shoulder length hair. I sincerely hope this crisis doesn't go on long enough for that to happen again. (Though it was fun while it lasted. And it taught me that taking care of long hair was a lot of effort.)
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