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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Nora Ephron, Britney Spears, and Me


Perhaps I've just been wistful about Nora Ephron this summer–and how she felt badly about her neck. But I don't think so. I've been particularly neurotic this week about a defining feature of mine. And I suspect a good many of us women share the same affliction from time to time. And since I haven’t blogged in awhile, I thought I’d make my re-entry to the blogosphere with a confession.

It’s about my hair. I feel badly about my hair.

I don’t like it. I can hardly think of anything else lately. And I’m really, really embarrassed to admit how much of my time this consumes me–given the triviality of the subject matter.

I wasn’t blessed with beautiful locks. My mother has made that known to me for as long as I could remember. Mousy texture. Unexceptional in color. And now that I’ve crossed over to the forties, it’s not getting any lovelier despite my recommended dosage of Biotin.

With that said, I have a dear friend who is my hair stylist whom I love to pieces despite her ability to slay me at Words with Friends. She covers my gray so brilliantly, and despite my repeated attempts with Sun-In and Loreal, I can’t compete. I'm usually pleased with how she cuts it, but every once in awhile I get antsy. I just don’t know how I want it. All I know is I yearn for change, but I can’t quite articulate what I want. So, she’ll start snipping away. And she'll work some style magic; I leave the salon with an adorable do. Then I wake up the next morning. After a shower and a hair dry, I'm befuddled. I start working on my hair and suddenly my tresses have become a rubik’s cube. I get frustrated. The cube isn't coming together. So just like the kids who pulled the stickers off the cube to rearrange the colors, I grab a scissors and start snipping strands of hair myself. Yeah, it usually doesn’t work out so well.

Lately, I had been doing quite a bit of chopping at my hair, so I decided to schedule a pedicure and a haircut with a different stylist. Maybe she’d give me a fresh perspective. Well, I must admit, I felt like I was betraying my friend. But in away, I also felt like I was giving my friend a break because I was starting to think that maybe I’m not the easiest customer in the world. Just maybe.

Back in the days when Mom did my hair.
Anyway, as my new stylist cut, cut, cut, my hair, I tried not to widen my eyes, because it seemed…a bit short. Awfully short. But I trusted her—she is so very stylish herself. And then, of course, she styled it adorably–as all those hair people so effortlessly do. So, I left happy; albeit feeling guilty.

Then I awoke the next day. And showered. And dried my hair. And as you can guess, I was faced with another damn rubic's cube.

I took those scissors and started whacking even more. It looks fairly ridiculous now. But there’s not much I can do. My hubby’s going to kill me if he hears another word about my hair. I can’t go back to my faithful friend. Heck, I cheated on her. And the other stylist? I’m too embarrassed to tell her that I was just messing around with some scissors.

I totally get why Britney Spears shaved her head.