There isn’t anything complicated about my hair. It’s straight. You can describe it in linear units and you’ve pretty much got the picture. It’s been everything from an inch long to three feet long, and gravity writes the rest of the story. Don’t look for the strands to show any initiative or imagination. It’s all just going to hang there to whatever point it’s whacked off.
This means it’s not much help to put in layers so as to give the illusion that I have a normal-shaped head. Most people’s heads are round in the back to accommodate the standard Homo sapiens operating system, but my head is just flat. It’s the size of an ambitious walnut. You cut layers into my hair in the back, they all hang straight. Layer cuts give me all the volume dolphin skin gives a dolphin.
This worked out very well for me at age thirteen when I had long straight hair that didn’t even need ironing, not that I didn’t iron it once or twice. Classmates who soldiered through fitful nights with their hair on soup cans would have killed for my hair, and that was my stock, because until the tits grew in I had nothing else to bank on.
And I’ve never been able to decide what linear dimension my hair should be. The last time it was real long and I cut it off, I thought it needed to be to my shoulders at least so that I could hide my pudding neck. But that doesn’t work. My pudding neck considers itself a Feature and is somehow aware I’m never going to threaten it with surgery, so it just flops out there, shameless. Doesn’t matter what angle you take the picture, my pudding neck photo-bombs my head.
Then I sheared my hair off to a nice stand-up crewcut in case that would volumize my head but that required Product and attention, and even then it was still flat in back. So I let it grow out and hoped at some point I’d know when to say “When.”
And I have! My trusty barber has managed to take the limp shower-curtain look out of my head and it got to just exactly the right length and now I have a Look. Wrap a scarf around the pudding and I’m good to go.I went back today for a trim and asked her if she could cut it without making it shorter. English isn’t her first language so she did not have a large bullshit lexicon to draw from. She just said “No.”
Okay, cut it anyway, I said.
The fact is I would get my hair cut every week if I could. I would pay someone to just fiddle with my hair. Every follicle is attached to its own happiness nerve. Throw in a little electric-razor action at the nape and a light touch in the ear region and I will follow you home and roll over for a belly-rub. I still remember the feeling when Pastor Lange put his hand on my head during my confirmation as a genuine Lutheran. (They try to confirm you when you’re still the age to be weirded out by Death and Eternity but before you get to the point where you’re thinking, Now, hold on just a minute. What is that you want me to believe?) When the good pastor floated his palm over my hair, I would have told him I bought the whole story.
This is how I survived babysitting. I am not a natural babysitter. But girls of a certain age will happily play with long hair for hours as though you are their personal giant Barbie. And I will let them. I will even consider forgoing the 50 cents an hour, but think better of it later.
I’m sure I was meant to have my head patted. I was wired that way. And it’s no trouble for anyone. This is why God made me short. I think that’s what Pastor Lange was trying to convey.
Even though I am a "woman of a certain age", I wear my hair shoulder length (with layers, because I have baby fine hair) because it's easier for me to care for. I, too, have had hair in every length (never could get it past my shoulders, though.) When it was short, I had to wash it every morning and use a gel product. Now that's it's longer, I can wash it every other evening (when it's more convenient for me to shower.) Sleeping on it makes it look better. I DO have to blow dry it, but as my hair is fine and porous, it doesn't take long to do. And to think, the first time I got my hair professionally cut, the stylist told me I couldn't wear layers because I had fine hair. He talked me into a bowl cut à la Toni Tennille. I cried when I got to the car.
First time I got my long hair cut for real, I was in a Vidal Sassoon salon in London with a half-off coupon. I told the man "I don't wanna shag, really," and he said "Well do you want a blow job, then?" and then we stared at each other.
That's London talk for ya.
And don't ever say you 'fell on your fanny' to a Londoner. They'll stare at ya.
I remember that fabulous Vidal Sassoon haircut. Was it as chic and attractive on you as I remember? If you show a picture of it to your current barber/hairstylist, can they reproduce it?
Americans seem to think that 'fanny' means yer bum. It doesn't. Fanny means your lady parts and it is extremely hard to fall ON them.Men don't have fannies. You should more properly say "I fell on me ARSE"
I'm putting a lot of effort into not falling on anything. And Ed–it wasn't that great, only it was different because my hair had been so long for so many years. Actually, it kind of was a shag.
…And if a Londoner says "I'll knock you up tomorrow morning," it just means that they will come round and knock on your door, not that they seek to impregnate you. As George Bernard Shaw said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language."
I have wash and wear hair. No product for me. Curly wash and wear hair.
And I don't like having my head touched by strangers. Getting a hair cut is low on my list of favoured occupations.
Paul has long, curly hair. Just wash and wear. Women everywhere want his hair.
I want my head touched by everybody. Ain't it strange?
I still had hair when I went through Lutheran Confirmation. It was slightly wavy at the time. The pastor was going to fail us all because we were not awesome students. We threatened to go down the street to the Methodist church. Apparently, the loss in the collection plate was enough to deter him. 15 years later my scalp got sunburned. Not sure if these things were related.
You experienced the fire of the Lord, you did.
ROFL!
I have very thick hair (and a round head) so I wore short hair with layers for years. The Dorothy Hamill haircut, modified. Now I have a longer but still above shoulder length style. What is it about the NECK? I hate mine as well. I love the scalp massages at my hair salon; I could stay there forever!
LOVED the Dorothy Hamill. The Wedge. As far as my neck goes, well–I've agreed to not look at it, as much as possible. But I don't care for zoom meetings.
Yep. we were separated at some Lutheran christening, I'm convinced. Soul Sister of the Straight Hair Please Tuck That Wayward Lock Behind My Ear.
One of these years I'm going to visit your bit of the territory. A warning.
Your post brought back a memory I had long forgotten: my grandmother, having me recite my bedtime prayers — a thing I never did at home, but when I slept over at Granny's, I was expected to do; and after I had finished asking blessings for my family, she would lay her hands on my head, and say a prayer like this: "Defend, O Lord, this thy child, that she may daily increase in thy Holy Spirit more and more, until she comes unto thy heavenly kingdom."
And here I am, half a century later, heathen atheist, practically crying remembering the comfort of that touch, those words.
I have always been and always will be, truly envious of anyone whose hair grows longer than 35cm, which is where mine stops. Absolutely refuses to grow a single millimetre more. I guess I'll have to be satisfied that at least my daughters and granddaughters are able to grow long hair if they want to.
Straight, black Am Ind hair that won't quit growing, except in November- when I guess it's celebrating "our" month?