Chop

No, I’m not talking about the effect of my new withholding on my paycheck, although that sure did have me all cranky and pissed off for a few days. (I’m still bitter, I’m just concealing it with liberal amounts of charm.) I had decided shortly after our wedding that, since I’d been growing my hair out, I might as well grow it out a little longer and donate it to a good cause – Locks of Love, Wigs for Kids, Pantene Beautiful Lengths – one of those. So I’ve gotten a couple trims, but have mostly been letting my hair grow, and it’s frickin’ long now. At least, it feels that way.

Then I read that most places can’t accept hair that’s been permanently color-treated. Samanabastich. I had my hair highlighted in a fit of pre-wedding vanity, and because of that, I’ve been walking around looking like Rapunzel, if Rapunzel were a Muppet, for the last few months. So I’ve decided, no more delays, and I set the date, I’m getting my hair chopped off at the end of the month – hurrah!!

Special K is trying really hard to be excited about it. I think a small part of him will hear the sounds of Taps playing gently in the distance as they make the big cut, but he’ll get over it. (And besides, it will grow back eventually.)

I haven’t always embraced short hair, however. I had it long for most of my life, and then started to go shorter when I started college. However, by the end of my freshman year, after I’d put on the Freshman Twenty (I’ve always been an overachiever), I was asked to be a hair model for a salon in Boston – a free haircut at a big, fancy salon! Sign me up!

Except for the part where I didn’t understand that they would decide what would happen to my hair – they wouldn’t do what I asked. I asked for a trim, she cut off three inches and made it shorter than I’d ever had it in my life – right at my jawline. I started crying in the chair, I was so upset. This was because, owing to the aforementioned Freshman Twenty, I had a big, fat face. And now, I had a big, fat face and no hair. I would quite literally hide behind my hair in those days, especially if the bane of teenage existence the world over, acne, was being particularly brutal to me at the time, which it often was. Now I had nothing to hide behind and it was excruciating.

Fark.

A few months later, I was working at my most hateful retail job, a discount clothing store here in the DC area. Most of the people who worked there were nice enough, but the clientele were, on the whole, awful; rude, spoiled, and just plain nasty. My hair was still short, and I hadn’t gotten rid of all my weight yet, and I was standing at the register, checking out a long line of people. I should mention that I was also wearing a comfortable sweater. A sweater that was so generously sized that I now loan it to friends who are pregnant. But I wore it back then just because. Just because I was in the middle of my “wearing men’s jeans and flannel shirts” phase, which was little more, as I’ve said before, than low self-esteem disguised as the grunge look.

So, there I was, standing at the register, hating my job and waiting to go home, when I heard a clear little voice pipe up with the following:

“Are you a boy?”

Oh.

Good.

Lord.

I decided that the best way to minimize the ensuing conversation between me and the little ankle biter who thought my name could have been Pat was to just give a brief answer. So I said “no.”

And she said “Well, you look like one…”

Excellent. Wonderful. Thanks, kid. My 19-year-old self image wasn’t far enough in the toilet, so please go ahead and tell me that I look androgynous.

Note to self: don’t wear men’s jeans and that sweater together ever again.

Fortunately, I made it through the long line of people, and made it through the end of the day.

It took a few years before I became comfortable with the idea of short hair again, but I cut it all off after college, shorter than after the Unfortunate Incident part 2 (part 1 involves my prostitute-blonde highlights in high school), and I really liked it. I think I really only started to grow it out again because I was heading to grad school and decided that short hair required maintenance that I couldn’t afford.

So here I go, once more into the fray. I’ve done my best to convince Special K that he won’t feel like he’s kissing a boy (the notable lack of facial hair should clue him in – among many other features), and I’m kind of excited about changing it. Then I’ll probably grow it long again, get it cut to donate sans permanent color, and start all over again.

But if anyone asks me whether or not I’m a boy, regardless of their age, it won’t be pretty.