Wolverine Fawcett-van Beethoven has left the building, but my hair still has multiple personality disorder

In the ongoing attempts to grow out my hair, I headed to the hair salon today. The Wolverine Fawcett-van Beethoven was getting way out of control. My bangs were long enough to get tangled in my lower eyelashes (really irritating, to say the least), the crown was just flopping around in a "no mousse or wax or spray gel will move me" sort of bird's nest, and the bottoms were winging out all crazy. Even more worrying, the back seems to've grown at a faster rate than the sides and front, and was beginning to look suspiciously mullet-esque. Egads! I may be from Jersey, but I will *not* walk around with a mullet, or even a faux-mullet. So, off to the salon I went, clutching the latest batch of "oh I'd love my hair to look like this" pictures I'd printed off the 'net and with half a mind to just chop it all off again. The thing is, it's getting soooo close to being out of the heinous, growing-out stage that I wanted to stay strong and not cave in to the chop-it-all-off-again impulse.

I didn't cave in, as it turns out. My willpower was strong, along with some help from the stylist, who was quite encouraging and proclaimed that my hair could be as long as her between chin-length and shoulder-length bob by October, especially if I take Vitamin D supplements, which make hair grow, dontcha know. I'll get right on that... Anyhow, she told me she'd bring the back up a bit so that it lost the appearance of a faux-mullet and would "clean up" the rest and trim my bangs. Sounded like a plan, so off we went.

Now, being as ridiculously nearsighted as I am, I couldn't see a thing as she was cutting my hair, since I had to remove my specs and had them safely secured under the cape. It felt like she was cutting a lot, and I could see bits of hair falling past my face and into my lap. She blitzed through a styling monologue as she squirted and sprayed various products into my hair, including "root booster" and "volumizer" (my blood pressure spiked at that, 'cause dagnabit, I don't NEED any extra volume, hello, I was trying to exorcise Wolverine Fawcett van-Beethoven after all!) and different "styling spritzes" as she aimed a hair dryer set to "jet engine" at my skull. She kept repeating "and then you just finger dry it and make it piece-y" as she worked, and, being unable to see anything and going by feel as I was, I just nodded along.

When she pronounced me finished, I whipped out my glasses and stuck them back on. True enough, W F-van B was gone. Alas, my hair now seemed like it was trying to be Rue McClanahan, circa the Golden Girls. EEEK!



I had a feeling that once I got home and washed all the root booster, styling spritzers and that godforsaken volumizer out, it would not be nearly so bad. Stylists always seem to want to go ka-razy with my hair, no matter the length. It's like I'm one of those giant Barbie make-up heads come to life in their chair or something. Usually I can de-overstyle it with a wash or comb-through, so I wasn't too concerned. Out in the car, I tried to bring it down a bit on top and de-piece it a bit, and when I got home, I hopped in the shower. (The picture above actually was post-me-messing with it in the car and pre-shampooing, for proper chronological identification.)

I'd just finished combing my now de-producted hair when the kiddo needed my assistance. I headed off with a wet head and it was mostly dry all of its own accord, with nary a styling aid, when I made it back upstairs to see what I could do. Imagine my shock when I realized that my hair was no longer channeling Blanche Devereaux, but instead had morphed into this:



Anton Chigurh? Dorothy Hamill on a particularly bad hair day? A wannabe member of Beatlemania? Buster Brown? Hmmmm. The stylist did say that my hair was close to "being able to style into a bob" so perhaps this is what she meant.

I wet it down and started anew, with a few styling aids and the dryer. It seems that this:



is what my hair wants to do right now. A modified Carol Brady (I can't manage to photograph the back of my head on my own, but I've got the Carol Brady flippy-curl up thing going on pretty solidly) but definitely better than the Wolverine Fawcett-van Beethoven or the Anton Chigurh. I think.

Stay tuned for continuing lengths of the saga, friendos............................