Hair Shouldn't Be A Spontaneous Decision

I needed a haircut.  I'm really bad about having regular haircuts.  I usually go 6 months...or more.  Gross? Maybe.  I am low maintenance especially with hair.  The part of my every-day routine that comes to doing something with my rat brown hair gags me.  I dread doing my hair every day.  After I'm finished, I always think how that was such a waste of my time.  And my hair rarely takes over 10 minutes total.  I can't imagine those women who have long hair that gets round brush dried for an over half an hour every day.  I couldn't stand that.  I'm sure for a lot of people, it's fun to style your hair and you feel nice and pretty.  Usually the rare occasions I fix my hair, which for me means something other than a ponytail, I regret "fixing" it because it's down and in my face and bothering me.  Thus Sundays, the hair goes right back up in a ponytail after church.

So this is my hair history.  Lived in slicked buns for a few years, then transferred to daily pony tails.  Twice in my adult life I cut it to just below my chin, still long enough for a half ponytail or at least pig tails.

So last night.  My mom and I were together getting our hair cut.  As I was waiting my turn, I was flipping through the magazine and saw this photo. 

I thought it was so cute.  The next magazine I looked through had it again.  Between getting blond highlights and maybe the chemicals intoxicating my better judgement, I told her to hack off all the rat to make it look like the photo. 

I left and knew it was a mistake.  First of all, it didn't look like the photo.  I don't know if it's the cut or my hair, or what.  We got in the car and my mom could tell I hated it.  She said: "Jess, are you going to cry?" That made me laugh.  Cry? Over hair?  "I think I cried over a haircut when I was 12 mom, but this is just hair.  It will grow back and I looked pretty crappy all the time before.  So now I'll look pretty crappy with short hair.  Not that big of a difference probably."

We got home.  Here are the reactions.

my dad, Scott:

I turned the corner: "I do NOT like that.  Do you know who you look like?  That lesbian in the movie John Q that is girlfriends with Ellen Degeneres."  We all laughed and my mom said: "Scott. She does not."  I turned around to walk out of the room.  Scott added: "And the back looks like a dog butt."  More laughing from everyone, including me.

my husband, Rhett.

He was upstairs studying.  I knocked on the door and said: "You want to see my new haircut?  It's pretty dramatic."

Rhett: "Dramatic?  Why didn't you ask me what I thought before you did something serious."

Me: "I didn't think you'd care, you never have cared before when I cut my hair."
Rhett: "Well I do when it's dramatic."

I opened the door.

Rhett: turns head to one side deciding how to say....."I....am. . . not a fan."

I'd always been so lame with my hair my whole life, I'd never really had anything risky done.  I was 21 before I ever put any color on it, and then it was highlights that were barely noticable. 

So this was out of control for my hair history.  I just hope I can figure it out to make it cute or at least a step up from:

"DOG-BUTT LESBIAN HAIR MASSACRE"

As we were chatting later in the night, I was telling Rhett all the positive things about the haircut.

-only 2 minutes to wash and condition

- only a few minutes to blow dry

-so nice to not have hair in my face ever

-nice not to have hair long enough to get yanked and pulled anymore

-nice to have no hair on my neck for summer, cool

-nice to be able to get it ready really quick,

Rhett interupted: "so you can just wake up and it will look the same as when you fix it fresh"

ME: exactly.  Bed head all the time and loving it.

-won't have to mess with elastics or bobby pins or any of that crap

Rhett:  So do you think all these pros that have to do with low maintentance make up for all the cons dealing with how bad it looks?

Me:  Hmmm.  For other people probably not worth it.  But for me, I think I'll end up liking the dog butt.

So I'm glad I was raised to not care about appearance.  There's definitely a balance, you should try to look nice and present yourself well, and I could use more of this motivation and talent.  But on the other side, you can care too much about how you look and how other people think you look.  A bad haircut ruining your life?  Not that big of a deal.  This was actually really funny, all night everyone kept coming up with great hair jokes, but too many to keep writing them.  But it's just hair, and anyone who would really look down on a poor fashionless girl like me for having dog butt hair...well I wouldn't want you for a friend anyway vain pants, so maybe it's better I busted out some bo-daggit hair to see who really likes me for me.

Just kidding.  It's not that dramatic.  I feel like my friends are solid whatever my hair looks like....I hope.  Rhett actually said today he may like it too once he gets used to it.

Dog Butt UPDATE:

Went back to fix some things that I really did hate and I'm liking it a lot better now.  My dad said the dog butt is gone.  I think it's a little short from the photo, so in about 3 weeks it will be longer and  hopefully I'll have figured out to make it a little closer to what I originally planned.  So we'll do the best with what we've got here.

So anyone who is into hair and knows their stuff.  Please study the magazine photo and tell me how to mimic the look as best I can.

Small words and many steps would be best.

jessica.crapo@gmail.com