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An online space for queer, questioning, lesbian, bi, trans and everything else in between women at Yale

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The eternal hair struggle

In my time honored tradition of posting about fairly meaningless questions that are simultaneously very troubling to me, I bring you today's topic: My hair. My hair has always been trouble for me. For most of my life my hair and I have held a tenuous peace. My general philosphy has always been, "you do your thing, I'll do my thing and we'll see how things work out." It's led to some interesting looks for me. Here is a complete list of haircuts I have rocked over the years:
1. the "your mother gave you a french braid for elementary school"
2. the "you can do your own ponytails now. sort of"
3. the "cute shorter hair in 6th grade"
4. the "stupid french man gave you an asymmetrical bob in 7th grade"
5. the "I've been so traumatized i'm never cutting my hair again"
6. the "I have to look at least marginally hygenic for highschool"
7. the "ok it can a little bit shorter, as long as it still fits in a ponytail"

This brings us back to the present. I have worn my hair essentially the same for about 17 of my total 20 years. the first thing I do every morning is put my hair into a ponytail. It's a reflex, like some people put on their glasses. My hair tie sleeps on my desk next to me. I don't leave my room without one, even if I'm going somewhere fancy and it's one of the rare instances where I decided to wear my hair down. And here's my problem: I want a change.

I love my ponytail, but I'm tired of it. My mother, who is almost always right about everything in my life, told me the other day that she thinks I should get, "the rachel maddow", and while I don't exactly agree, I think she's right in principal. I think it's time for me to get gay hair. Which isn't to say that my "she's just athletic" ponytail doesn't come with some pretty gay subtext, but I think I'm finally at the point when I can no longer deny my need for blatantly gay, obvious to a mormon grandmother, short hair. I'm not talking a mohawk (although that would be awesome). I think I just need to start inching it up shorter than a ponytail and find something that works. I don't think I'll go straight to a lesbian fohawk, just something impish and messy. I don't have an exact idea yet, it's a work in progress, but I'll keep on looking at pictures of (mostly male) movie starts until I find someone whose hair is as thick as mine, and then we're in business.

Sapphicly yours

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

let us know what you did!!

Anonymous said...

if you get "the rachel maddow" you better get the glasses to go with it. and the bartending skills.

Anonymous said...

DO IT!!!!

Unknown said...

I think a lot about hair.

I have extraordinarily thick hair.

I have hairdresser anxiety.

I love my current hairdresser.

If you're willing to schlep down to Brooklyn and shell out $90 for haircuts, go see Sasha (Alekseyeva) down at Woodley & Bunny. She's the only hairdresser I've ever had that I feel good having conversations with. She is magic. She is... a hair sculptor.

While you might not feel comfortable or vain enough to expend $90+tip on maintaining a cut every six or so weeks, I think that it's important to go to someone who knows their shit when you take the plunge and do something different--in your case "impish and messy." Once the basic restructuration has taken place, and someone magical (like Sasha) has taken your hair to new places, then you can start looking around (after taking multiple photographs of your new cut from different angles and distances) to find someone cheaper and local to do the maintenance.