Word of the Day, vol. XIX

Word of the Day: HAIR

There is much photographic evidence of my mother cutting my hair when I was younger.

One day, when I was probably 10, I decided I wanted to cut my own hair, so my bangs would look like Kelly Taylor’s.



I, of course, kept cutting and cutting until my bangs were um…very, very short. So, then, I, of course, had to go to the salon to have them salvage some sort of hairdo out of the mess I’d created.

I’m such a cliché.

Then, I hit my hair-dyeing phase. I started with auburn in about 6th grade. It was the compromise I reached with my mother because she wouldn’t let me wear makeup to class.

That meant I couldn’t wear the brown matte lipstick, black lipliner trend that was going around in 1994.

Poor me.

My hair color became experimental. I went from auburn, in my final years of middle school, to blonder, during my first year in California. I figured I had to try to fit in SOMEHOW.

Tips became hot pink when I was 16. Oh yeah. I was such a bad-ass. And I’m pretty sure it WAS Manic Panic.

You can see them mostly faded here.



I chopped my hair into a bob. Which seemed to suit me at the time. Although, I have a mad cowlick near my right temple that confounds hairstylists. And I never styled my hair at all, I let it air dry, so the bob often became just a big sweep to one side.

The hairstyle I chose for my junior prom was three spiky ponytails, one on top of the other.

Senior prom, I had curly hair for the first time in my life. Back in a half ponytail. It was pretty exciting.

I also wore a black satin gown with a crisscross back and no bra. I felt like Angelina Jolie.

Then, right before our senior photos, I decided I wanted Meg Ryan’s short spiky ‘do.



Of course, this style takes a lot of work. Which I never did, and so my hair is mildly mulletesque in my senior photo.

I let my hair grow out pretty naturally in college and in the years after. It became the longest it had ever been in years and years, when I got the best haircut of my entire life at a salon in Park Slope. Long layers, sweepy bangs, easy to manage.

One day, the guy who regularly did my hair there suggested I get a glaze, “to cover the grays.”

I politely refused and, in fact, didn’t dye my hair for most of the years I lived in New York after college, even though gray became more prominent than I would have liked.

Now, I’m on a new quest, for the chestnut brown hair I’ve always wanted.

I’ve decided I’m too young to have gray hair but too old to be quite as brassy a redhead as I was for the beginning of this year.

It’s kind of like when I realized I can’t wear dresses without a bra anymore, last summer.

No more feeling like Angelina Jolie.

Come to think of it, Angelina probably can’t do that either anymore. She’s had too many babies…although I bet she doesn’t breastfeed them.

So maybe she can still wear dresses with no bra.

I bet she does dye her hair, though.