Without further a ... 'do

First, I'm aware that a self portrait is always awkward.

Second, I'm still not sure about this darker 'do, but it is growing on me.

Third, I'm not keen on the (LAYERED!) haircut. I feel like I should join Ace of Base and sport a pager.

Fourth, I've realized the best haircut is losing 20 pounds.

Fifth, your honest comments are welcome. (Hint. Hint.)

The color of Tang

Let this be a lesson to you to NEVER dye your hair yourself, especially with a box from the store.

(I know, I know, my years as a pretend hair stylist taught me better!)

After two trips to a salon and waaaay more money than I should have spent, my hair color is basically normal and actually sporting a cuter cut, though I don't have pics to document that yet.

I make these mistakes so you can learn, people.

You can thank me later.

Or now.

With candy.

HTT - Hair Edition

Let's spare no feelings here and get down to a nitty-gritty Hot Topic.

No, it's not abortion or euthanasia. It's more serious.

Which is better, long hair or short hair?

'Cause I have to be honest, long hair almost always looks prettier to me, but I'm a short hair gal at heart.

When I'm fat, however, I have a hard time sporting short locks as they accentuate my chipmunk cheeks, also known as "Do you have marshmallows in there?"

But when I'm decently average, I can't help but have a bob, though I've sported everything from a pixie to shag - not always by choice.

Now I face the dilemma of having a bob whilst pregnant. And since I'm still loaded up with cysts, I'm looking about FIVE months pregnant at only 14 weeks. So I'm trying to decide if I should maintain my shorter 'do or grow it out to spare my face.

What are your thoughts on hair? 'Cause I know some people blatantly refuse to even try out short hair, which I either interpret as a sign of conceitedness or fear. And then there is the fact that so many "older" women insist on having short hair when they would probably look just as good or better with a shoulder-length 'do.

Where do you stand on this crucial issue?

Is your hair short or long?

And why?

Go.

Travel-locks

Do you like analogies?

I do. In fact, I like to drag them out so far that they go beyond ridiculously cheesy to positively inspiring. Seriously. If you start with a little comparison between life and sports, for example, by the fourth reference to your “game face” or “keeping score”, people will start to gag. But if you keep at it for ten or more references and end with something like “because it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game” … you’ll bring tears to the eyes of grown women. (Which is way more impressive than grown men because they actually like sports.)

And that is why I am going to tell you about my recent trip to Utah and Arizona, using haircutting jargon to cover all my bases … er, roots. (See, what I mean?) By the end, you’ll either be penning a sweet letter to your stylist or making an appointment. Whatever the case may be, you’ll be blown away. (Get it? Blown? Like a blowout?)

HIGHLIGHTS
* Seeing family and friends in two states I’ve called home. Catching up and hanging out was extraordinarily fun. And it didn’t hurt that there were always extra hands and hugs for Miss Dub, giving me some much needed respite from mommying. The days flew by, which made the trip fun but way too fast.
* Meeting my nephew, lil’ Gee, for the first time since his March debut. For the record, he’s really, really, ridiculously cute - so full of smiles and personality already. Although it was hard to get used to his slender build after hefting my hearty Miss Dub around. (For the record, I like her a little chubby!)
* Watching my bro and his new wife dance down the aisle in their custom Converse to the tune of “Happy Together” by The Turtles. She looked so gorgeous, and he wasn’t too shabby himself. Though he’ll always be a toddler obsessed with dinosaurs in my mind. Deal with it, Bogey.
* Lunching with an old mission companion, who I sadly hadn’t seen in a couple years. Did I mention that she looks like Barbie? Minus the plastic features, horrible cowlick and effeminate boyfriend. Oh, and she’s way nicer. All my Barbies had attitudes.
* Swimming with Miss Dub, Mrs. Jay and the extended Gourmet Girls clan. Mrs. Jay even went so far as to overnight matching swimsuits for Miss Dub and lil’ Gee to match her fam. Thankfully, Miss Dub loved the pool, which is good since I’ve been daydreaming about her Olympic swimming career for decades. I really didn’t want to settle for gymnastics.
* Not blogging or reading blogs for more than a week. No offense, but it was nice. Blogs can be computer crack for me sometimes so it was nice to go cold turkey. (Though the shakes were rough.)
* Eating way too much.

LOWLIGHTS
* The fact that my dear friend, Mrs. R, had to cancel her baby shower, which was the point of the Utah leg of my journey. You might be familiar with her plight, which you can read about here and hear about here and here. But sufficeth to say that bureaucracy and D.C. are synonymous for a reason. She and her little boy are separated from her husband for the unforeseen future because a signature and a piece of paper can’t seem to make a connection. So sad! (But in a lil’ highlight, I was able to sneak into her pad and leave some gifts, some signs and some lemon-fresh cleanliness!)
* Not seeing Mr. Dub for an entire week. Ouch. That was the sound of my heart breaking remembering our separation. Some people like the occasional reprieve from their other half, but we’re best as a team. (Shoot! I should have used a sports analogy.)
* Leaving my cell phone in Utah. Having my mother-in-law send it to me in Arizona, only to have it never arrive. Not being able to call my friend and congratulate her on the birth of her newest son. (Congrats!) Not being able to call Mrs. R and check up on her adoption proceedings. (How goes it?) Checking my messages and realizing that only three people tried to call me since I left it behind. And two of them are related to me.
* Finding out in the SLC airport that my sole suitcase was six pounds overweight. Being informed that I would have to transfer said six pounds to my already overflowing diaper bag. Ditching a huge load of diapers in a restroom instead.

* Eating way too much.

All in all, the entire journey was shear joy and a cut above all other trips. It took my straight life and turned it into an adventurous updo. It was a brush with greatness. My life was the splits and it acted as a hot oil treatment.

-- OK, so maybe some analogies are just too trite to use.

But in the end, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.

Or something like that.

Fashion police

So I did it.

I chopped a good six inches off my hair on Saturday and added a few extra highlights for fun.

So, “Why no picture, Mrs. Break-Your-Promise-Head?”

Because, while I like it, I don’t loooove it. It’s good, but I think it could better.

The problem is I don’t think my hairdresser thought I was cool enough for some of the cuts that I had cut out of mags. So rather than go to town with her razor, she just did a few routine strokes through my hair … which made it cute, but not cutting edge.

So it’s a nice change, but it’s left me wanting. Which is why I’ll spend the rest of today standing in front of the mirror and/or making a pro/con list of whether I should go back to the salon for additional snipping.

Pro: It doesn’t make me look fat.
Con: It definitely says “bob.”

But the sad reality is people just don’t consider me to be worthy of anything edgy or fashion-forward these days. No matter how cute and eclectic I dress to fool my stylist.

I had my heyday.

Back in middle school, I was the frequent victim of fashion taunting, although for some reason I managed to be cool regardless. (Probably because my partner in crime and I were too loud and wacky to be pegged as losers.)

There was the time that we discovered a bag of plastic barrettes on sales at the dollar store and began to clip several randomly in our hair. Not a year later, those barrettes were popular prom hair wear … and a total precursor to the bobby-pin hair craze still sweeping the nation.

We wore vintage on a daily basis. We sported flip-flops when most people still wore Flojos. We practically created the "other people's vacations" T-shirt phenomenon.

In college, I went a little more mainstream in terms of my clothing sources – suddenly the Gap wasn’t so bourgeoisie– but continued to stay ahead of trends by layering before it was cool and predicting the cowboy craze a good two years in advance.

Then, I went a mission for my church ... and I got a little behind, seeing as third-world countries aren't a hotbed of haute couture.

And while I managed to catch up some upon my return, I promptly got married and fat, which I don’t recommend if you’re considering doing it – getting fat, not married, of course. Because when you’re fat, not only can you not find hip clothes in your size, but you are reluctant to shop or draw any extra attention to your body.

Now that I’ve lost 33 pounds, I’m starting to get back into shopping.

But can I ever recapture my style radar?

Will I ever be ahead of fashion or doomed to follow it like a lovesick fool?

And will I ever, ever convince someone that I’m worthy of a crazy haircut?

Or is this all just a part of getting old?

What about you? Are your more or less fashionable now than you were when you were younger? Do you shop at stores you never would have considered, or are you pickier now?

Do tell.

Bad hair days

I so, so, so, so want to go back and talk some more about yesterday’s Hot Topic.

But I can’t.

And I won’t.

No matter how much blood, sweat and tears have been lost over whether or not HTT is a good thing or a bad thing. (Or just plain stupid.)

Because there are way more important things to talk about – like my hair.

FYE (which is an acronym for For Your Edification, FYE): I made my appointment with destiny for Saturday morning.

And I’m going to do it.

I think.

I mean, I really, really want to.

But my track record with hair isn’t so hot.

Sure, I’ve been sporting mid- to long-lengthed locks for several years now. And I’ve been pretty consistently blonde to caramel-highlighted for the same timeframe. But I have a sordid salon past, filled with short hair, home dye jobs and lots of Beige Neige.

The latter is the color that I used to dye my own hair from 14 to 18, at which point it was discontinued and my life was thrown into utter chaos. But before that, it turned my hair the loveliest shade of baby blonde. It was so pale but not platinum. Combined with my career as a semi-professional lifeguard, it turned my hair into a bed of super shiny blonde locks, which were often mistaken for a wig. Seriously.

Every now and then I’d feel a little crazy and go red or brown, which always turned green and required an emergency trip to the salon, only to return to my blonde roots. (Although my real roots are a bland light brown these days.) I just don’t feel like me without a little lightness around the face, but I seem to forget this every two years.

So when I headed to college, I decided my flaxen bob needed to be traded for a short, brown ‘do. Off I went, picture in hand, to my stylist … who turned out to be sick and had his son stand in for him. (Mistake #1.) Unfortunately, the picture I brought featured a girl with super-short bangs, which were all the rage, and a layered cut tucked behind her ears. (Mistake #2.) He apparently thought the hair was cut around her ears and preceded to do the same to mine. So my potentially cute ‘do became a bowl cut.

Hoping that a color change would help fix the dastardly ‘do, I rushed home and dyed it brown. (Mistake #3.) Well, not even two days into my college career, I decided that brown was so not my style. I then rushed out to the beauty supply and found a sad substitute for Beige Neige, which was accidentally an ash-toned blonde. (Mistake #4.)

Remember the part where I had just dyed my hair brown? And the part where I referenced my job as a lifeguard and swim teacher – you know, someone who spends an enormous amount of time in chlorinated pool water? Well, if you’re still not following, let me do the math for you:

Damaged hair + Too much dying + 4 mistakes =

Large clumps of hair falling out all around me while I helplessly try to stick them back on my scalp.

Yes, my hair fell out. Well, it more fell off.

So what does a girl do at 6 p.m. on a Saturday with no car and no local stylist? She grabs her roommate and starts walking from the dorms to the mall.

Luckily, my dear friend’s future husband and his friend stopped to give us a ride. We made it in time to the mall where I had all the dying hair put to rest at the hands of a recent beauty school grad who probably got bad grades.

Here’s a hint of how short it was: The first guy I saw after “fixing” my hair asked, “Did you shave your head? That’s hot.”

So it was short but apparently dead sexy if you dig White Supremacists.

And that’s just one of my many sad tales from the salon. Life just isn’t long enough to tell you them all.

Yet, I’m about to take my hair into my hands … er, my stylist’s hands … again.

I guess that proves that if we don’t learn from the past, we’re doomed to repeat it.

Just promise me that this hair story has a happy ending, or at least some Beige Neige.


…. So what’s your worst hairdo drama?