The Bad Haircut

I hear that for many women, getting a hair cut can be very stressful because there is that fear of getting "The Bad Haircut". I think for some of the most vain women, the specter of a bad hair cut looms over them in their dreams. For me, not so much. I was pretty much a tomboy growing up (except for the sad fact that I was no good at sports so I was sorta a tomboy without any skills) so didn't care about my hair. This persisted as an adult. Maybe this is in part because I'm very bad at doing my hair- I really haven't mastered the round brush blow dry, have a very limited ability of using clips and barrettes and certainly am terrible at curling my hair. But, regardless, hair does not stress me out.

A good example of this is the picture to the right. Circa 2001, when I was volunteering in Ghana, West Africa, I got my head shaved. Shaved clean. Slap-bald headed. If you stood too close to my white head, your eyes would burn from the glare of the sun. That kind of shaved. How did this occur? It was sort-of half misunderstanding, half me thinking that it would be cool to have no hair in the hot African climate. My hair was pretty short to start, and when I went to get a cut in the small town I worked in there was only 1 place and it was a male barbershop (the women apparently cut their own hair at home). Despite English being a pretty wide-spread language in Ghana, this particular gentleman didn't speak and I sure didn't speak whatever language he was throwing at me so b/t a combination of some words, charades, and him pointing to a painted picture on the wall of a man with a buzz cut, I gave him the nod to approach my head. He looked scared. Who is this random white girl waltzing into my shop to get her head shaved? I imaged he was thinking.

But I loved it. Once I got a little tan on my head, I really thought it was great. I'm so sad that I don't have any pictures from immediately after the deed. This picture is from about 2 weeks later. I can't objectively tell if I look goofy or not because I just loved my (lack of hair) so much. So easy to shower, no maintenance, such an absolute joy! I still miss it!

What made me dig through all my old photos (pre-digital, truly "back in the day")? Well, on Wednesday, I finally got a "bad haircut". The left side of my hair definitely was longer than the right. I agonized over this for 1/2 hour thinking- am I crazy, is it really longer? I tried looking at my hair wet, dry, in a half-ponytail, with a headband, with a little barrette holding up the long side only--> any way I looked at it, the left side hung down further than the right. Poor Adam dealing with this. He's a trouper!

But no worries, I went back to stylist who fixed it at no charge, so don't bother looking hard at my hair next time you see me. It's even. I promise.