Adventure in Hair

Just so you know, this has nothing to do with the kids.  You've been warned.  Bwahaha!

Yes, the evil laugh was necessary.  It's been one of those nights.

So women are always changing their hair in order to be more attractive and to better reflect their personality.  I am personally guilty of this.  Through the years I've had a few hits and a whole lot of misses.

During college, I changed my hair pretty regularly.  I had numerous hair styles - bobs, shags and, of course, long hair.  I was a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.  I had phases of crazy, product-free (translation: super frizzy) hair and phases that required considerable time spent with a hair dryer, curling iron, and arsenal of products before I could walk at the door. 

Post college, my hair has mostly been long and blonde.  There was a brief period while I worked at Toilet in which I had a crazy, spiky short style.  It involved lots of layers and assaulting myself with a can of spray wax each day.  Although "fun", maintaining that 'do was pricey, not-so-eco friendly, and a bit disturbing.  It was a lot of work and coughing (spray wax really hangs in the air!) for what was essentially bed head.

As I've gotten older, my hair has gotten longer and blonder.  The insanely dry winter air here and a lack of time and desire to care for it led to a nasty, frizzy disaster.  I also frequently forget to get my haircut for months on end, which doesn't help the situation.  Over the past couple of years, I've had a few haircuts where I asked the stylist to cut off split ends and dry part.  The result of all those trims was that my hair still looked about the same.

I decided to give my hair a break, and I dyed it light brown just before Christmas.  I decided that was boring, so I dyed my hair chocolate brown after New Year's.  I was really excited.  My hair would be low maintenance (no coloring it every 4 - 6 weeks!  The roots would magically blend in!) and the color would be sexy.  I would be all Angelina Jolie or Megan Fox.

That might've worked if I was tan, actually remembered to put on makeup, and tried a little.  But I'm not and I forgot and I didn't.  So rather than being a goddess, I was more mousy librarian.  And with my hair all dark and brown, I started noticing grays.  Yikes.  Definitely not the look I was going for.

So I'm ready to go blonde again, but my hair is just not in a good place.  After failing to get my rear to a salon for the past few weeks, I finally took the scissors to it one night last week after the kids went to bed.  The plan was for just a little trim.  I would cut off all the nasty, fried layers.  I ended up cutting off six inches in parts.  Oops.  Perhaps it was a bit more than a trim.

But it really doesn't look that bad.  Really.  (Humor me.  I'm tired.  And I really believe it doesn't look THAT bad.)  Perhaps it is an awkward length, it's just past my shoulders, but it will grow.  And I noticed too that it makes me younger, especially since I keep putting it in a ponytail to deal with the strange length.  Not that it is necessarily good younger.  I'd say it's makes me look like a crazed middle school who needs to lay off the booze and get some sleep.  But it may have contributed to what was clearly the best unintentionally funny moment in my world last week.

Most nights I take each of the dogs for a short walk after the kids go to bed.  The walks usually take place between 8:30 and 9:00, and it's definitely dark out then.  It was warm when I walked them on Wednesday, so I just wore a t-shirt and athletic pants, and I had my hair in a ponytail.  I walked Max first, and as I'm walking him, I hear a kid screaming.  I was about to investigate when two boys about 12 or 13 come running out from behind a house.  Apparently they were playing hide-and-seek or something and were just generally taking advantage of the fact that one of the kids' parents wasn't home.  They weren't paying attention and almost crashed into me.  I decided not to be the weird old mom yelling at them to watch where they were going, and I kept on walking.

I took Max home and set back out on the same route with Pru.  The two boys were sitting in the other kids' driveway when I came around the second time.  As I'm walking I hear, "Hey red shirt!" (That would be me since, well, I was wearing a red shirt and I was the only other person out in the dark.)  "How old are you?"  I stop and tell them, "Old."  So they ask, "14?"  and I told them I was a little bit older.  So then they jokingly asked, "27?"  I replied it was something like that and just kept walking.

And when I got home I laughed and laughed as I spent the next 45 minutes trying to wrestle three car seats into the back of the car.  So when all else fails, when the kids are screaming and the dogs are barking and appliances are breaking, at least I know I've still got it.  At least in the eyes of the the junior high crowd.  In the dark.  But maybe I'll keep those details to myself.