Haircuts

Haircuts for me are quite an ordeal. I have serious haircut anxiety. Some of you may be thinking, "That's strange that she's so worried about her hair, since most of the time it looks like a disgusting straggly stringy rat's nest." The reason it looks like a straggly stringy rat's nest all the time is because I am always on the verge of a psychological meltdown when I go get a haircut, so it really never gets cut properly. It usually starts with me looking in the mirror one day and wondering how anyone takes me seriously looking like this. So then I get really confident and say, yep, I'm doing it, getting a haircut, gonna look super hot. And I make an appointment and when I get there I start with the heart palpitations thinking improbable thoughts like what if she accidentally shaves my head and then I'm bald and then I hate it and it takes 2 years to grow it back? And usually my sister is there with me going CUT IT OFF MARLEE IT LOOKS TERRIBLE TAKE IT UP TO YOUR SHOULDERS and I'm thinking waaaaat?! I can't do that.... I can't have a MOM HAIRCUT I'M ONLY 22!!! And then I end up telling my hairdresser "Well I know I came in for a haircut, but can you just take a little off the bottom? Like maybe 1 inch?" And so she does and you can't even tell I got it cut, and I fork over $45 and go cry alone in my bedroom with my STILL scraggly stringy rat's nest hair.

This may have all started back in 6th grade when I got the worst haircut ever. I'm not sure why anyone would let their 6th grade child decide that she wanted to have all her hair chopped off, but my mother totally did. AND IT WAS AWFUL. It was up to my ears. It was so short, the lady actually used a RAZOR to shave the back of my neck. It was shorter than my neck. I mean, the haircut itself was not GOOD, but it was made even worse by my overall appearance around the 6th grade years. My teeth hadn't quite straightened out yet (not even close) and I was still a bit thick in the middle from the broken knee bacon bagle debacle of 1998. To this day, every time I walk into a hair salon, my subconscious flashes back to those dark, dark years and I trust NO ONE in the salon to touch my hair.

Anyway, on top of the fact that I'm debatably psychotic when it comes to haircuts in general, there is also the issue of my hair. My hair is like, the worst hair. It does crazy things. It parts itself so far over on my head that half the time, I can't see through the veil of hair covering my face. I think some people may think that I actually TRY to get my hair to look the way it does, but au contraire, it has a mind of it's own. No one wants the Donald Trump comb-over, but when your hair insists, you must oblige. One time, my sister wanted to play with my hair, and she was all, WHY DOES EVERY STRAND GO IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS? And I'm all, welcome to my horrible life.

Also, my hair is really, really, really fine. And not fine like "girl, you are SO FINE." Each strand is basically microscopic. And my hair in general is pretty thin. I can use one of those tiny barretts to put my whole body of hair into a ponytail. Also, it is naturally stick-straight. And because it is so fine, it STAYS STRAIGHT. All. of. the. time. People are always like "Oh, you are SO lucky, I wish I had your hair." Don't get me wrong, it's great to be able to hop out of the shower, towel-dry it, and walk out the door with it looking the exact same as it would have if I would've stood there for an hour and styled it. BUT, it also sucks, because if I do end up taking an hour to style it, you can't tell. If I'm going out on the town (rare) and want to look nice, I have to come to terms with the fact that time I spend on my hair will ultimately be time wasted. I will curl my hair and then come dangerously close to suicide by spraying an entire can of hairspray all over my head, and 5 minutes later, it's straight (and greasy from the hairspray.)

Bottom line: When I get my hair cut, I need someone that understands my hair, and knows what they CAN and CAN NOT expect it to do with different styles. My hair has limitations. I need a stylist that gets it.

So the other day, I got really gutsy. The boyfriend was out of town and I had been bragging to him for like 2 weeks that I was going to get side bangs. No one believes me of course, because I brag about getting my hair cut a lot, and then when I do get it cut, they're like "oh, yeah, it looks great, I can totally tell..." but they can't. So he was like yeahthatsoundsgreatgoforit and went back to watching Jersey Shore. So clearly I have to get it cut out of spite now.

So on Tuesday, I felt the urge to get it chopped. I'm like YES, I am making an appointment. I am going to do it. I am getting it cut for real this time. Everyone's going to notice. Everyone's going to tell me I look like a supermodel. I've been to this salon like 3-4 times with my sister and a stylist named Lynn cuts my hair every time, and even though I'm never really pumped about my haircut (probably my fault for not letting her ever really cut it....) she has also never royally screwed me up. So I call.

Salon: How can I help you?
Me: I need an appointment for today at 4 with Lynn.
Salon: OK great, we can squeeze you in at 4. But Lynn isn't here. You'll have to see Tara.
Me: PANICPANICPANICPANICPANIC
Salon: Don't worry, Tara is great.

I mean, do I trust Tara? I don't even know who Tara is. What if she doesn't know how to cut fine hair? What if she's like 80 years old and tries to give me a grandma haircut and a perm? What if she doesn't understand how I want my new trendy side-bangs to look? LYNN HAS BANGS SHE CLEARLY UNDERSTANDS BANGS I COULD TRUST LYNN WITH MY BANGS.

OK, breathing, breathing, "Yes, that's fine, I'll see Tara at 4. Thanks." I decided that since it isn't often that I feel really confident about getting my hair cut FOR REAL, I couldn't afford to wait until the next day when Lynn was available. Knowing me, by then I would have talked myself out of it and would just be like "oh yeah, just need another $45 trim thanks." No thanks, Lynn, no thanks.

I looked at pictures of celebrity haircuts worked for the rest of the day until 4, packed up my stuff, and headed over to the salon. I was nervous. What if Tara accidentally stabbed me with the scissors? What if she accidentally dumped hair dye on my head? What if she accidentally gave me my 6TH GRADE NIGHTMARE BOB AGAIN?!?

I walked into the salon, took a deep breath, and said, "I'm here to see Tara." The receptionist said "She's over there, she'll be right with you." I look to my left.

^^TARA.^^

OK, I want to put it down on the record that I love black people. I do. I'm sure someone reading this is probably all "omg shes such a racist wtf" but NO. NOT. THE. CASE. but...... I will admit I was freaking out. I hadn't planned for this. I don't really understand black people hair. All I know is you can't wash it more than like twice a week or it will kill you. DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IF I DON'T WASH MY HAIR EVERY DAY?? Total greaseball flat-to-my-face stringy grossness. POLAR OPPOSITE OF HER HAIR. How does a black person relate to white people hair enough to feel good about cutting and styling it?? I mean, if I was black, I would DEFINITELY not want a whitey hair stylist touching my head because CLEARLY they don't understand my plight. Kind of the same situation here. And maybe this is just because like I said, I have pretty much no experience with black people hair. Well, not entirely true, I did have one accidental black people hair experience, and it was back in high school. I saw this commercial for Pantene Pro-V Relaxed & Natural shampoo and conditioner, and since I'm a huge sucker for advertising, I ran out and bought it. I mean, I wanted my hair to be relaxed and natural, you know? Never once dawned on me that everyone in the commercial was black. Also didn't register when it was the only brown Pantene Pro-V bottle on the entire shelf. Also didn't register when I read the front and it said "For Women of Color." I thought it meant women that colored their hair. Yes, I am retarded. Are we starting to see a pattern here of me doing stupid shit and ignoring red flags along the way? I think so.

I used that shampoo every day for 2 weeks before I complained to my mom about how greasy it was making my hair and how it's the worst product I've ever bought and I'll never buy it again......

Anyway, as you can see I'm not super well-versed in African American Hair Maintenance. I would venture to say I'm not well versed in Caucasian Hair Maintenance either. In the salon, I was freaking out a little. OK a lot. OK I may have almost had a heart attack, but the point is, I was worried she wasn't going to understand my hair and all I could think about was a few weeks ago when I was doing that online celeb makeover and gave myself a Jerry Curl and CLEARLY could not pull off black hair.

^^NOT A GOOD LOOK FOR ME^^

Anyway, I sat down in the chair and tried to disguise my sheer terror. She also looked alarmingly young, like, almost right-out-of-beauty-school young, and all I could think of is "What if I'm her first client?" and had visions of Frenchie from Grease and how she was so terrible at beauty school and what if she dyed my hair pink accidentally? (ignore the fact that I wasn't in there to have my hair dyed at all........ these are the things that go through my head.) She told me later that she had been cutting hair for 18 years, and that calmed me down a little bit, but not really.

OK, fast forward 1 very scary and mentally unstable hour, and TARA IS MY NEW BEST FRIEND. Not only was she hilarious, she also gave me one of my favorite haircuts I've ever had. We shared good memories that day, memories I'll cherish forever. We laughed, we cried (not really but I almost did when she started cutting my bangs on the wrong side of my head) and we blow-dried until I looked like a movie star.

I think she was so good at cutting my hair BECAUSE she doesn't have white people hair. I mean, my hair SUCKS. And other white people know this. They, like me, feel like it has limitations because of how bad it sucks. But Tara was like, YEAH GIRL YOU CAN TOTALLY PULL OFF SIDEBANGS! And she just started cutting, and at first I was terrified, but then when she was done I realized that she was totally right. This haircut looks WAY better than any of the other ones I have gotten recently. It was like she didn't baby my hair because she was like "yeah, it's just hair, watch me work my magic" and BAM, I was stylin' and profilin'. And I know I was being retarded all along because I'm sure in cosmetology school you learn how to cut black hair, white hair, red hair, curly hair, straight hair, short hair, long hair, alien hair, whatever. But it was something I hadn't ever experienced before. And I am SO glad I did, cause from now on, I only have eyes for Tara. Too creepy? Whatever.