3955 Hair

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

I took this photo back in late May.  I don't think I posted it here yet.

Growing it out again.  It took a long time because it was so short on top, but I kept trimming the bottom and and growing the top through all those painful yuck periods, and it's finally getting there.

I hated my hair short.  I got it cut because some influential people told me I'd look better with it short.  I hate hate hated it short.  I've had longish hair all my life, and I just don't feel like me with it short.  Even bangs.  I don't like bangs on me.  When it gets long enough on the sides I'll probably usually tie it back, but at least I know it's ME!  Never short again, no matter how "mature" I get.

I think people were trying to make me look more sophisticated.  Surprise -- I make no pretension to sophistication, ever.  Get used to it. 
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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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3520 Hair

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Barbara Kingsolver's character Adah in The Poisonwood Bible points out that God created vermin and microbes as well as humans, and "He's not necessarily rooting for just the humans."

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Hair cut:
Week 1 - much too short
Week 2 - too short
Week 3 - too short
Week 4 - a little too short
Week 5 - almost right
Week 6 - PERFECT!
Week 7 - too long, unruly, can't do a thing with it, aaaaggghh!
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3378 Bits

October 28, 2011

Next to great joy, no state of mind is so frolicsome as great distress.
-- Henry James, A Most Extraordinary Case --

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From Criggo.com:

Sigh. I've seen this suggestion (left) many times before, elsewhere. I always wonder if the person is serious, if people are really this stupid, or if it's just a lame joke.

On the other hand, I've heard people say it, in all seriousness, regarding the deer crossing on route 199 west of Milan.

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I hate my latest hair trim. It goes straight across the forehead and makes me look a lot like Linda Hunt, especially as my face gets thinner. Don't get me wrong - I adore her - but I'm used to a different me in the mirror .

What's worse is that she and I are about the same height. The first time someone asks me for an autograph....

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The folks diagonally to the right across the street (the fire chief) have moved. I twice saw a large rental truck in the driveway, but I never saw them putting anything in it.

They also took the storage shed that used to be at the end of the driveway. I had suspected that the shed contained the source of that mechanical tree frog sound that had slowly been driving me crazy, either that or some kind of pump on the next street over. I haven't heard the sound since they moved, so I'm hoping that was it.

I am sleeping a bit better since they left.

Now I'm curious. What was making the sound? Maybe a freezer? Is it reasonable that a freezer would run at night in the winter when the temperature is well below freezing, but not during the day?

Now that the sound is gone, the curiosity is taking over the crazy-making duties.

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I got a cute birthday card from the Nugget. She had addressed the envelope herself (but they had to take the pen away from her when she started eating it). The card (one corner had been chewed) wished me a happy fourth birthday. I wondered about that for a moment, but the inside said that Gramma was so wise and knew so much she must obviously be old.

To six months, four is old.
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3316 I am my own person

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The essence of charity ... [is] not deciding what others needed and giving
it to them, but giving them what they wanted.
-- Jane Smiley, Moo --

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The biggest disadvantage of having skimpy eyebrows is that sweat runs straight down into my eyes, carrying sunscreen with it. That means red burning eyes, blurred vision, and no makeup. Heat itself doesn't bother me much, I'm otherwise perfectly willing to go out when it's hitting 100 and above. But my eyes, my eyes! The only thing anything near a solution is no sunscreen above my cheeks, and a hat.

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Got my hair trimmed last Friday. I may go back and get the back trimmed a bit closer in a week or two. They always leave the back too long and it wants to stick out.

The hairdresser was very jealous that I didn't want blowing out or mousse - "I'll just scrunch it with my hands until it dries." She said she envied my hair's body and wave. I said it was just a good cut. She raved about my color, "and it's entirely natural!" Hmmm. I'd been seriously contemplating a temporary light blonde coloring.

The main problem is that I don't know what color it is. When it was long I could pull it in front and look at it, and when I trimmed it I had some length to look at. But back then I was coloring it. Now it's natural, and the old dye is all grown out, but I can't see it.

No, mirrors don't reflect true color. And when I look at the bits of trimming on the salon floor, they look dull gray to me. When I ask people, they wrinkle their noses and say "No, not white. Not gray. Sorta blondish, I guess. But not really." Main trouble is that I think it's different colors in different light.

I think maybe in natural light, sunlight, it's a pale platinum blonde. In artificial light I suspect it's a yellowed gray, like an old linen tablecloth.

I think I'll color it.

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I've been thinking about what I said in an earlier post about women changing their names when they marry, that it's like there's been a change of ownership, changing the title so to speak.

I have come down strongly and firmly on the side of NOT changing names. I see no reason whatsoever for a woman to change her last name. When I was married to Jay I didn't change my name because I owned so much in my own name and both he and I could see no reason to go to all that bother. If anyone got fussy about it, like in the hospitals when they wanted to be sure that I was really his wife before they'd let me stay past visiting hours, I'd just say "My name is [my name], and my social title is Mrs. [his name]. There's a difference." Oddly, they all simply accepted that.

Note that although it is perfectly legal for a man to change to his wife's name on marriage, almost none ever do. Ask a man why not sometime. The answer will be illuminating.

I also think that hyphenating is downright silly. Why bother? Does a woman really have to add his name? No.

As for children, most people don't know this, but you can give a child any surname you want. You don't have to use the parent's last name(s). Just agree on something you like, and that's it. No, it doesn't cause problems. Look at all the blended families, where stepparent and stepchildren don't have the same surname, or a natural mother who changed her name on remarriage and has children of a previous marriage, or step-siblings. No big deal.

I just strongly object to the assumption (or male insistence) that a woman has to take her husband's surname. It's too much like changing title on property. (It's also unique to western Europe. Most eastern countries don't have that custom.)

The custom makes it nearly impossible to locate old female friends from high school and college. I have to know who their new owners are.
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3290 Hair, final version!

Friday, June 24, 2011

"My admiration for you has found new limits."
-- Trevanian, The Eiger Sanction --

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When the new woman cut my hair on Monday, just sitting there in the chair I was pleased with what she was doing. I've been happy with it since.

Yesterday, arriving at the old house, I went into the master bath and looked at me in the huge three-way mirror. Sitting next to the mirror was a wig stand, holding the wig I had purchased last summer for my mannikin Peggy Sue, and had worn a few times myself. Everyone liked the wig on me, they thought I looked amazing, but I wore it only a few times because it slipped and itched. But it was that wig that convinced me that maybe going short might be ok.

The first cutting, I showed the original hairdresser the photo of me in the wig, and told her that's what I wanted. That's not what I got, then or in the next two trims. I was discouraged. Maybe I didn't have enough hair for the same effect.

Well, yesterday I looked back and forth between the wig and the mirror. It's exactly the same! I finally got what I'd wanted all along.

My hair is almost white. The wig is a medium blond. Hmmmmm.............
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3224 Hair

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Nobody notices what I do until I don’t do it.

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I got my hair cut Thursday evening. I've had my hair professionally cut three times in my life, professionally highlighted once, and professionally styled once, and all five times I cried for weeks afterward. So this was a VERY big deal.

Daughter and I went together.

Every time in the past, the main problem with cuts has been that they teased, gelled, blew dry over rollers, tweaked, flipped, and sprayed, and when they were done it looked ok, but I just don't DO that! So naturally, the next day, or after the first washing, it looked like Hell.

And every single time I had told them right from the beginning, "I don't tease, blow dry, use 'product', or spray. I want to let it air dry with some scrunching with my fingers, and that's all. So it's imperative that you take my natural curl into consideration."

Every hairdresser in the world insists on cutting the hair sopping wet, and I've never understood how you can judge the natural tendencies when going from long to short, if the hair is wet. How can you tell which way it wants to curl, and how much?

Well, again, I said several times, "I don't want to have to fuss with it. Wash, fluff with fingers, and that's it."

I got a bad feeling when she cut it sopping wet.

A worse feeling when she put gobs of gel in it.

Much worse when she blew it dry pulling it over a round brush, then tweaked and placed and sprayed it solid.

By the end, I was thinking that apparently natural tendencies don't matter. We'll just force it to go the way we want it to go. Oh well. I guess I can shave my head and let it grow out....

When I got home, it was a solid mass, and I had trouble sleeping because it smelled so strong. I washed it yesterday morning and let it air dry with a little finger scrunching.

This is what it looks like this morning - straight from the bed, no brushing or combing, no nothing, its own natural shape:
I think maybe I like it. Those tendrils right behind my ears,and maybe across the back, need to be a little shorter, but the rest is ok. I think. The lady said I could come in to get it shorter anytime in the next two weeks without charge.

It will very quickly get too long, but I think we have a good base cut to work from.
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3207 Wandering around the interwebs

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

“It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.”
-- Roman poet Juvenal --

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The above green quote was true a few thousand years ago, and it's true today. We like to think that anyone with ambition and drive can succeed, but it's not necessarily true. You need luck, too. When you start out with responsibilities (aging or ill parents, dependent siblings --- they don't have to be "your choice or fault") you often have to take the one, two, or three concurrent jobs that pay enough to support them. And those jobs don't usually allow time for luxuries like education, training, interviews, or time to develop your own business, and don't pay enough to do anything but those jobs. Sometimes the materials to succeed are luxuries.

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This is funny: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2010/12/star-wars-next-generation.html. The cakes are ho-hum, but the writeup, a synopsis of the story, is hilarious. The last line before "The End" cracked me up. (Do not skip ahead.)

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This is another that developed in a fascinating way, and the last line cracked me up. http://artoftrolling.memebase.com/2010/12/13/text-troll-i-am-but-a-man/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AOT+%28Art+of+Trolling%29&utm_content=Google+Reader. Again, do not skip ahead.

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A court in Montana couldn't find anyone to sit on a jury for a criminal trial involving possession of a few ounces of non-medical marijuana. Not only was no one impartial, they all said they wouldn't convict, period. Wall Street Journal law blog story ("On the Great Montana Marijuana Mutiny") at http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/12/22/on-the-great-montana-marijuana-mutiny/....

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I have been so cold here that I have decided to get my hair cut so that I can wear warm knit or wool hats. Pixiesh. The kind of thing where when I take the hat off I can just fluff it with my fingers. Having made the decision, now I have to work up the courage to go do it.

I've had my hair cut professionally only three times in my life, and all three left me in tears for months afterward. I'm hoping I'm over that kind of reaction now. (Or that hairdressers have gotten better.)

This is sort of what I want, including the longish front, and I think my hair can do it:
My hair is fine and thin (now - in my youth it was thick and curly), and I think maybe it'll work.

The Man won't be happy, but hey, it's not his hair. Besides, he shaves his head. And if Piper says anything at all, I'll smack him.
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