I have been distracted by “important” subjects. Don’t blame me. Blame the world.
Between the bizarre American election (not to mention our home-grown comic book nominee) and the strange tale of Britain’s Brexit … and a variety of home-grown mini crises? Well, there’s just been a lot of serious distraction leaving little room for my own, entirely insignificant (internationally speaking) private crises.
Today, however, I rise to the surface to talk about a subject near and dear to me … my hair.
Over the years, my hair — once my pride and joy — has become closer to my “fear factor.” Of all the possible futures I imagined, none of them included a shiny domed bald self.
Each time (usually after some illness or other), my hair has grown back. After many medical near-calamities, it’s become fragile, as fine as cobwebs, and white (mostly). At last, it is one length all around. It looked good for a while, but then my granddaughter abandoned hair dressing for other pastures and my hair has been getting more shapeless every day since. This was actually not a problem until this most recent heat wave.
How come, if you start off with a perfectly even blunt cut, it grows in all different lengths? Shouldn’t it grow at the same rate and stay even?
Why, no matter what, if you go to a hairdresser, he or she will tell you he or she must chop off at least half an inch. Since hair grows an average of 1/4 inch each month, at that rate, you can’t ever grow your hair longer. And I need my hair longer so I can get it out of my way. I have to tie it up.
It’s on my neck, in my eyes. In my food. All over my clothing. I am a giant, shaggy dog story.
I bought a pair of sharp hair shears. When a lock of hair protrudes from its crowd of fellow travelers, I lop it off. Tidily. But off.
We are having a very hot (and humid) summer. I hate hair hanging on my neck. It’s sweaty. It feels like an itchy blanket. But it isn’t quite long enough to put up. Undaunted, I put it up anyway, sort of, wrapping it in one of the scrungy elastic and fabric thingies. Having tied it up, when I take it down, it looks horrible. Bent and strangely twisted. Flat and oil-slicked.
So I can I can choose to have it hanging around me and getting into everything, or I can tie it up and know it’s going to look like crap.
The world will go on and its problems will never end, but in this, at least, I am an optimist. Surely I can do something about my hair. Life needs to be about “the possible.” The rest of the world will have to take care of itself for a while. I need to fix my hair.
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Categories: #gallery, Humor, Personal
DARK DEEDS IN A SMALL TOWN KITCHEN 
SHARING THE WORLD IN MAY 2017 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Ah so you’re the one that got the ball rolling to write about hair. Love this. I saw Sreejit’s and Karuna’s post and you were the one who initially inspired this which I am gathering old photos to write about hair too. By the way the only way I ever managed to have my hair long is to NOT cut it. I see the hairdresser once every 8 to 9 months…like having a baby:) And hair does grow unevenly. My was a hairdresser and I spent many hours in front of the mirror in her beauty parlor wondering what I could change.
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Your hair is beautiful. My hair is the same white as yours and has been since I was 35 ish. I do love it. However finding the right hairdresser that knows your hair is vitally important. Peter has cut my hair for over 30 years. I get it cut every 5-6 weeks just to keep it tidy. I wash, leave, brush my hands through it and it is done. So easy to manage when it is short. I now put a little bit of temporary colour in and I get a lot of admiration. Find the right hairdresser.
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I haven’t found a hairdresser I trust since we moved out of Boston 16 years ago. I find one, and he or she moves on by the next haircut. So I do my own little trimming unless my granddaughter is available. My hair looks better in pictures than it does in person, but thank you. I do actually LIKE the color, or lack of color. I started graying very young, but it went white quite suddenly about 10 years ago. Better than the grey/brown mix.
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OK, I wrote the first post, dedicated to YOU! I know what you mean about heat. It is only 87 but one of my docs says my thermostat is so screwed up that could feel like 97 or more to my body. Yikes. Hope you enjoy what I wrote. (Hmm. Do I put a link here? Not sure. Oh well, here it is)
https://chosenperspectives.wordpress.com/2016/08/13/hair-for-marilyn-surface-my-a_-_/
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I wrote my response on your site. Great post and I thank you. No one has suggested I dye my hair in years, not since it stopped being kind of grey with hints of brown and became more or less completely white. I’ve notice that white hair has gotten quite trendy in the aging Hollywood actress set, probably because keeping white hair dyed is ridiculous. Two weeks after you dye it, you look like a skunk with a white stripe down the middle. I think your hair looks GREAT.
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Oh Marilyn, I woke up this morning writing a Post dedicated to you but it was NOT about HAIR. Now I have to write two of them.
I love your hair. And I relate to most of what you have said….and now I must go to my own site and WRITE! (a struggle for me on a really good day!)
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I’m flattered 🙂 I write every day, though lately I’m doing mostly shorter pieces. Part of that is the heat — it is so sticky and hot here, it drains ones energy. The rest is this godawful election year. I think it’s the reason I have a constant headache!
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My hair is thick and grows fast. If I don’t get it cut every 6-8 weeks it starts to be really uncomfortable. It used to be that after a trim my hair would regain its natural curl and would look good but as I’m getting older the curl seems to have gone out of it, it’s more like some limp waves now. However comfort is the important thing to me so it’s short hair in hot weather so my head doesn’t get hot while in winter I’m happy to wear it a bit longer.
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First things first. Take care of your hair, and the world will take care of itself. Or continue falling to bits. One or the other. But there’s nothing we can do about that, so take care of your hair!
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Only 1/4 of an inch a month? I hate getting my hair cut, so I only go under the scissors about every 3 or 4 months, by which time I feel like a shaggy dog with 3 or 4 inches of extra stuff hanging all over. Maybe mine grows faster because there’s more fertilizer inside of my head…
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An inch of growth is quite a bit, especially because although it ought to be even, it isn’t, so some parts will be longer, others shorter. Add into that breakage and natural hair loss, and by three or four months past your last haircut, you ARE shaggy, especially if your hair was short to begin with. If you hair was long to begin with, it’s not so much. It’s all relative.
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Bald looks good on Garry. Why not you? My wife keeps saying she wants to cut hers all off. I keep telling her to do it. I’d love to see her try to look like me! 🙂
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Thank you for you input. Garry says that if we hit the lottery, he wants his hair back. I do not favor skull for my personal style, but perhaps when I am very very old. VERY VERY old.
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Tell Garry he looks good the way he is now. As for the skull look on you? I’d have to see it before I definitely rule it out!
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It’s the stuff of horror movies. With me as the star.
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Hair is a big deal. A little over three years ago I made a big move, about 2000 miles away from the best hair stylist in the world. I had the perfect cut for me. And I struggled for three years to find anyone who could help me approximate it. Finally, I saw a stranger at a store who had the perfect hair cut for me. Fortunately she didn’t think I was insane when I asked about her stylist. Well, maybe she did, but she shared anyway. And now I have at last been reunited with the perfect hair for me. Have faith. Good can come. Not from the election. But from your hair struggles, I have no doubt.
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I live in hope, but good cutters are few and far between. Until I find “the one”, I’m cutting my own. No blade shall go near what’s left of my locks!!
Your story gives me hope in a world full of fear and heartache 🙂
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I have a lot of hair, I mean a lot. It grows fast, too fast. Now I am growing it long. And the longer it gets the curlier it gets. With long hair I can have it down, keeping me warm in the winter, and then tie it up in the summer of my neck. The best of both worlds. It only gets cut when I have money, which isn’t very often these days.
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That was how I had it until my granddaughter talked me into cutting it. It looked really good, until she gave up cutting hair. Now, we both look like something the cat dragged in. I’m waiting for mine to grow back, though it is finally all one length. That’s something, at least.
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Ah, the hair issue I most definitely understand… Me and my hair have always had a very uneasy relationship – my mum has always had unruly, thick curly hair and my dad has always had fine, thin straggly hair – I’ve inheritied a kind of genetic mis-match of fine-but-frizzy straggly unpredictable hair with an unruly does-its-own-thing tendency to kink in all the wrong places and shed everywhere like a balding yak. I hate going to the hairdresser (too many bad experiences) so have been cutting my own hair for years in between the occasional stressful visit to a stylist when it all gets too unmanageably out of control! 🙂
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You could be describing MY hair. It’s that weird kinking in odd places that’s particularly obnoxious, in addition to the shedding. Everywhere. Now that we don’t have a long haired dog, it’s really obvious whose hair that is. Everywhere. Absolutely EVERYWHERE. You’d think I’d be bald by now.
I was surprised at how many famous and rich people cut their own hair. It isn’t about the money. It’s really about not letting one of Those People near me with a scissors.
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Yes – hair -. I went to the hairdressers once (a long time ago) and she did such an awful job I came home and went at it with my own scissors. To my surprise I liked it better that way. It used to be long but now it’s short. I cut it once a week when I wash my hair. I only cut the straggles. I’ve always cut Peter’s hair myself and I used to do all the children too. (Lots of practice)
Leslie
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Over all, cutting my own hair is a better experience that having someone else do awful things to it. At least, if I make a mistake, I didn’t have to pay for it too!
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Good point! (my sentiments too)
Leslie
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Hair is the choice of the person it belongs to. your hair looks good and I admire your bravery of letting it grow. I gave up a few years ago. I also do not have the thick locks of curls that the others seem to have, but the fine straight hair. Now and again I make an endeavour to let it grow, trimming it now and again. Even my hairdresser suggested leaving it a little longer in the middle. I tried, but it annoyed me and now it is short, short, short. I like it that way. Just put the shower over it in the morning and let it dry – no problem. I do not even have a hair dryer – but as I said it is a personal choice and I am too lazy to do anything else.
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If I can’t get it to grow and look acceptable, short is the next stop. It just took me so many years to finally get it all to one length, I hate the idea of giving up at this late date.
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I seem to remember a whole Broadway show devoted to this very topic.., uh “hair” that is…
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Yes, but that was when we all had some.
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Hair today….
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Gone tomorrow. Ouch.
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