Confessions of a Leftist Elitist, Part MCVIII

Next time I get my hair cut, I'm going to ask my stylist, "Do they teach you how to cut hair for developmentally challenged girls who can, at best, comb their hair in various directions after they wash it? Because if they did, give me that."

I have had, like, thirty years to learn how to work a hair dryer and I still cannot seem to wield one in a way that makes my hair look better after I use it than before. Part of the problem is my hair, which is full of cowlicks and half-full of curls. It won't do curly well, and it won't for the life of me do straight. However, most of the problem may be my impatience. Even though my hair is so fine it can dry before I get the hair dryer plugged in, I often lose interest before I get halfway done.

Last week, I scrunched some mousse in my hair, got sidetracked by something shiny, didn't even so much as comb it before I picked out my outfit, slathered on my half-bottle of lotion, got dressed, and picked up my towel and dog-walking clothes before remembering my hair was as I left it, crumpled like a bad essay on the Peloponnesian War. I tried to save it, but it was too late. I went through the rest of the day like that. The sad part was, it was so close to my usual hair disaster that nobody said, "What the hell is that on your head?"

This morning, I was tippy-toeing around in the bathroom, trying not to wake up The Captain, asleep after a long night at the fire station, wondering whether to attempt hair dryer success today after the 10,950th failures that came before. Then I laughed and walked out.

Mortified: Hair Edition

I heard a podcasted essay today about someone's experiences in a dance team in high school - an experience she now looks back upon with some mortification.

I pretty much had it all together in high school (as long as you don't look too closely at the photographs where I'm wearing my favorite fire-engine-red jumpsuit, and my senior picture which looks as if I am trying to get some shut-eye), but it was a different story in junior high.

Yes, in junior high, I was not the doyenne of taste you know and love today (today's fashion tip: dig my new pants made entirely out of teddy bear pelts). I was flailing - socially, physical-educationally, and coiffurely - and made some unfortunate fashion and hair choices.

One that springs to mind is a hairstyle I sported for a few months when I was maybe 12 or 13 - it was like a wedge haircut, only with the wedge part all curled up. It was a style that started at Dorothy Hamill and took a startling turn into Bozo. I, however, thought I looked hot, hot, hot.

I remember walking with my best friend, Sally, down the shoulder of an out-of-town road one summer during vacation and counting the number of honks we got from passing cars. At the time, we thought we were turning some major man-heads with our Lolita-style beauty, but looking back, we might have just been causing fits of hysteria, which in turn caused hands to slap uncontrollably on their horns.

And no, I do not believe there is any photographic evidence of this hairstyle. My parents, wisely, focused the lens on other things until I came to my senses.

My mind is on hair today because a week after getting another expensive hair cut, my hair is back to its natural, 70's hair band ways, and I'm this close to getting my pixie back on.

Pixie to the people, bitches.