3537 Hair! The solution!

Friday, May 25, 2012

The underwire in a woman’s bra deflected a bullet. It also lifted, separated, defined and supported.  Her terrified thong tried to hide and was almost impossible to remove from the scene.

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Hair saga:   When my hair was long, it was easy.  I just trimmed the ends, and for bangs I'd grab a hank, hold it straight up and make one cut, automatic taper.  Done.  I'd been doing that all my life, because when my mother was in charge of my hair, I'd never had a salon cut that didn't leave me crying.

Eighteen months ago I decided to go short.  I tried salons again, thinking that hey, I'm adult, I'm in charge now.  They pretty much did what they wanted to do, not what I wanted, no matter what I said, and I wasn't happy. 

I tried cutting it myself, and it took forever, with much twisting and swearing.  The top and sides were ok, but I simply can't wield scissors with my left hand while looking at the back of my head in the mirror.  I tried using clippers on the back, but blending where it meets the upper back was hit or miss, and it's too difficult to get it the right length anyway.

I'd finally get it sort of right over a period of several days or weeks, snipping hither and yon, constantly with itchy bits of hair all over me, the bathroom sinks, and the floors.  And then when it finally looked good, within a week it was too long again and time to do it all over again.  It was choppy from my hacking, so to go to a salon and say "cut it just like this, but shorter" would be asking for trouble.  They'd try to "fix it" and guess wrong.

I've been moaning over it.  It was now about a half inch too long to be manageable.  Sigh.  Here we go again.

I went to the country house (I'm not calling them the old and the new house any more; they are now officially "the country house" and "the city house") this past week and found the solution to all my hair problems in the back of the coat closet.

In about the mid-'90s, we had tried a haircutting thingy for Jay's hair that attaches to the vacuum cleaner.  It sucks the hair into a tube where there's rotating blades, and the clippings go into the vacuum cleaner.  (There are three versions on the internet.  I won't recommend any particular one because they all have advantages and disadvantages, but I will say that the RoboCut and clones is infinitely adjustable for various lengths, where the Flowbee and clones has multiple set lengths, which is important to know if you want a smooth taper.)  It didn't really work on Jay's hair because he had strange thin spots on the back of his head where the hair had to be cut slightly longer to cover them, so it got packed up and stored in the closet. (My hair was very long then, so I wasn't cutting mine.)

I brought it down to the city house, and this evening I tried it.  It works!  I LOVE my cut!  It's perfect!  It took less than 10 minutes, there's no itchy bits on me or on the floor, and it's done.  Done done done.  And so what if it needs another trim in a week or two?  It took less than 10 minutes!  I can give myself a quick trim before going out for dinner.

I had to sketch out the lengths I wanted.  I measured the hair all over my head and made a chart marking the length all over.  Like a sketch from the front and the side, with the hair sticking out light-socket-wise.  I decided to play it safe and take off only a half inch all over.  It's always easier to go shorter if that's not enough.  I started at the top, set the tube to to 3.5 inches, then graduated to 3.0 upper back, 2.0 from the top of my ear around to the other ear, and taper down to 1.5 below that.  If you scrub the tube up and down a bit, it blends nicely.

And believe it or not, both sides of my head are now the same length!  I've never been able to do that by hand.

My only sadness now is that I was afraid to do it before The Man visited.  I cut it about six hours after he'd left.  Too bad.  But at least I can easily maintain this.
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