Hair Again...Hopefully, Gone Tomorrow

Or if not tomorrow, SOON! My hair has reached a length that is really starting to bug me. Since I've had some unhappy experiences with haircuts in the past (looks great for a day or even a week or two, then it looks like a shaggy dog), I'm trying to hold off getting it cut until I can get up to my favorite stylist in Chicago.

I never know what to do with my hair--even learning how to blow dry it was a major ordeal. I've had some bad hair days throughout my life:

Almost as bad as these fake hairstyles:



So in the meantime, I've been trying a variety of hair products to control it. Headbands are easy, as long as I control my urge to go crazy with bling. For instance, isn't this pretty? Um, yeah--if I was 19 and getting married all over again.



There are some pretty barrettes and combs available, too:




The problem is, I don't need these for a wedding, a ball or a Royal tea party. I just want to keep my darn hair out of my face so I can type without going cross-eyed. Also, my hair is very thick, so it takes either a very large comb or several hair pins to hold it back.

And, let's face it, I'm a little old for scrunchies. (Although some are pretty cute...)



If I could braid, it would be one thing. Unfortunately, hand coordination is not a strong point. Instead of braids that look like this:



Or even something simple *snort*, like this:

Mine look more like this:



Or even this:



You get the idea. I was born without the hair styling gene. You think I'm kidding? Okay, time to share a deep dark secret. You know all those little clippy things in the hair aisle? I don't know what the heck you're supposed to do with them! But desperate times call for desperate measures, so I've picked up a few of those gizmos lately.

I think these are called hair claws:



I put them in my hair and they promptly fall right out. Luckily, I bought the plain and cheap version, instead of the pretty ones I posted here. (Can't resist bling--what can I say?)

I thought about trying this, but I'm not good at tying scarves artistically, either:



I actually do remember how to do a ponytail pull-through, like the one shown below, and it doesn't look bad even on someone my age. But, damn, after awhile it gives me a headache:



I saw one of these doohickeys, and it looked kind of cool:



But it also looked as hard to install as a kitchen sink. I looked for one of these, which appeared moderately easier to use:




But I couldn't find that particular one. So then I picked up a stretchy comb-thingy by Goody. It's black elastic with a sort of Celtic knot design and two black combs attached. It looks similar to this:



There are no directions with it, and the illustration on the packaging shows a black stretchy thingy on a woman with black hair. Seriously??? But it looks sort of like this:




(Okay, I know this looks nothing like me, but use your imagination, for Pete's sake!)

Sorry, I'm a tad irritable, after wrestling with this damn thing for half an hour. Then my husband got into the act, analyzing the hair product as if it contained the mysteries of the universe. (For all I know, it does.) He couldn't figure it out either so, like a guy, he went online and looked up some tutorials, like this one:



All I can say is, don't be surprised if you see me with really short hair in the not-too-distant future. This is already one of the longest blog posts in recorded history, but now that I'm into this rant, it's hard to wind down. Maybe a couple quotes?

If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?
Lily Tomlin

And more:

“Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!

“Some of the worst mistakes in my life were haircuts”
― Jim Morrison

“Interviewer: 'So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?'
Frank Zappa: 'You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?”
― Frank Zappa

“My hair had grown out long and shaggy—not in that sexy-young-rock-star kind of way but in that time-to-take-Rover-to-the-groomer kind of way.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair. I don’t know, I’m never there.”
― Dolly Parton

“Beware of her fair hair, for she excels All women in the magic of her locks; And when she winds them round a young man's neck, She will not ever set him free again. ”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“She was the most beautiful creature on Earth - her hair said so in that language only hair can speak.”
― Gabriel Bá, Daytripper

“Symbolic of life, hair bolts from our head[s]. Like the earth, it can be harvested, but it will rise again. We can change its color and texture when the mood strikes us, but in time it will return to its original form, just as Nature will in time turn our precisely laid-out cities into a weed-way.”
― Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

In the time it's taken me to write this post, my hair has probably grown another quarter inch. I guess I'll finish with a song that's been running through my head all day, from the musical HAIR.

Bye for now. May the, uh, brush be with you!