Alert: Severe Navelgazing Ahead

So if you're bothered by a little narcissism, stop reading now.

Eh-hem.

I need a haircut. It's driving me nuts. I think it's been, oh, six months or maybe thirty-nine. Now it's going all roadkill on me and combine that with hormone-wackness and it's really getting on my nerves. I find myself wearing a bandanna on my head every day.

I don't generally like my hair even under the best of circumstances. (Nathan says I should just be thankful for what God's given me. I know. But sorry, honey, wrong answer. Isn't the correct response to my ravings: "Here, have some chocolate.") When I was a kid (until I turned 17), I refused to have it cut, and it was long and scraggly as ever. As a teenager it was always in a clip because it bugged me. A dear Mexican lady told me once that I shouldn't wear my hair up because it made me look bitter. She was right.

I saw the error of my ways and have kept it between ear and shoulder level ever since. I even learned to wear it down, and liked it. But here it is ranging down my back again, heading ever southward and becoming more savage.

So why don't I quit my pontificating and go get involved with the nearest weed-wacker, you ask? Because. I have issues.

I've always been annoyed by people who are too picky. I try not to be. But I am that way about my hair. I means, sheesh, I only want a small miracle, for Pete's sake. I've long been on a quest for the thaumaturge who can give my flat, baby-fine hair a little natural body. Just a little.

And I've had so many bad haircuts, it isn't even funny. One gave me an absolute mullet because she didn't carry the layers all the way out to the ends. "I don't like thin bottoms" she said. Another said, "Oh, here, I'll layer it all out and it'll just take a few minutes each morning with a flat iron and..." and I'm all, Are you smoking something, lady? A flat-iron? And sure enough when she got done with the flat-iron, it looked worse than ever. "Er... maybe you really need a curling iron..." she said. And that's fine for her, but I am curling-iron inept, and don't have a will to change. I've tried. I've just never been able to figure out how to reach the rear-left of my head.

And then last spring, my Hallelujah-moment. I went to a girl, fresh out of school, who gave me a fantastic hair cut. And when I called a few months later for another appointment, she had moved on to greener pastures in the city. (hmm... pastures in the city... uh, nevermind.) So I had the older lady she had worked with cut my hair, and hated the results. Back to square one.

And I begin to think, maybe it isn't them... maybe my hair really is hopeless.

But I think if I can hold out until I go West, my good friend L. claims to know a miracle-worker who actually reads minds and knows what you want even when you don't know what you want. I have hope.