I have never received this much commentary on my hair in all my life

I’m 31 years old, and I was born with a full head of hair. It’s thick and dark and beautiful (I sound conceited even to my own ears, but I don’t mean to). When a person has an undeniably great feature, isn’t it okay to just bluntly admit it like that? Is J-Lo vain if she says she has a great bum? Is Brad Pitt egotistical if he says he has a perfect face? Is Suzie Q Non-Famous-Person narcissistic if she admits she has gorgeous skin? I guess I don’t know, but I really don’t mean to sound any particular adjective by confessing I have beautiful hair.

Besides, like every other woman (or man, I suppose) with gorgeous hair (except Jennifer Aniston), it has done me absolutely no good. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t care. I tend to wear it in a bun, braid, or ponytail most of the time. When I do wear it down, it looks bad because I don’t know what to do with it and therefore don’t do anything with it. It’s too thick. It’s too long. It’s neither straight nor curly.

But I have a lot of it and that’s apparently what everyone envies.

And now here I am, a week and a half after getting it majorly chopped off, and I’m writing my third post about it. That is way too much talk about my hair!

Everyone is so shocked by my haircut . . . it’s like the running commentary on what I eat. “She’s wearing it down today!” I had three people say that to me and before 8:25 in the morning. The part-time maintenance man at work asked me if I got my hair done and when I said yes, he proudly stated, “See, I’m a man but I notice things!” He saw me twice last week and didn’t notice.

A gal that I don’t have much to say to had the exact same conversation with me this morning that she did on Friday (the last time I wore it down). I heard a gasp from behind me, and when I turned around she was standing there with her head cocked to the side and the kind of look on her face that is supposed to be reserved for babies. You know, the Isn’t she a widdle cutie-wootie? look.  Not only did she have the look women give to babies, but she used the baby voice on me too:  Look at yoooouuu.   You are sooooo cuuuuuute!  Somehow I made it through the conversation without my head exploding.

8:30 AM: Another comment. Different person, same comment as before:  Cuuuuuuute! Sigh.

Is a new hairdo really worth all this? When is it going to peter out? How awful did I look before, for God’s sake?

I’m doing my best to be polite. I’m so annoyed I could spit, but I’m deliberately keeping my teeth unclenched and saying a simple thank you to all my admirers. I suppose I’m being ungrateful, but I think I’m so aggravated because my feelings are a little hurt by this sudden contrast. The more everyone carries on and on about how great I look, the more I feel like I must have looked really ugly before.

I’ve changed my mind. There is a difference in how people marvel at my hair, and it’s a writing challenge. Somehow I need to write the difference (because thus far in this post I’m coming off as a phony ingrate, and we can’t have that).

My feeling of aggravation is justified because two people in the hall just complimented my hair and it didn’t annoy me at all! I was very pleased by their comments (if slightly embarrassed)(the way a person should be when someone admires them).

And the difference is . . . ? Tone and emphasis.

Did you see the movie Mean Girls? Yes, with Lindsey Lohan. It doesn’t matter; even if you didn’t, the spiteful aura that surrounds and follows Lo Ho should be enough description. But if you did: remember Rachel McAdams’ character? The Bitch Queen. Her two-faced, malicious cattiness is well-portrayed. In a sickeningly sweet voice: “I looove your skirt/bracelet/shoes/purse/whatever! Where did you get it?” The word love somehow has three syllables. Whoever she’s talking to blushes and stumbles on their way. As soon as their back is turned, she makes a gag me motion with her index finger.

Back to real-life . . . I mentioned widdle cutie-wootie. That’s right. My co-workers are baby-talking me. Repeatedly! And, in addition to the baby-talk (as if that wasn’t bad enough) they are doing the Mean Girls thing and over-emphasizing their flattering remarks to the point of insincerity. Recall, I said one gal and I had the same conversation twice.  Talk about laying it on thick.  It's the fact that their praise is in boldface font that gets my back up. And underlined. And two point sizes larger.

Wow. I love your hair! It’s soooooo adorable! LOL!

The LOL and over-use of exclamation points gets me every damn time.

I'm bald! (Part 2)

Not sure if the lighting is any better,
but at least I'm wearing makeup.

(Part 1)

Do you ever wonder why some people think some things are appropriate to say?  Or even, why they're you're friend in the first place?

Crapola grammar aside, I'd really like to know the answers to both questions.

Number One:  Really?

Where are the filters?  Some people don't have the appropriate filters that I think I was born with.  Have I ever spoken out of turn?  Put my foot in my mouth?  Dug my own grave?  Of course I have.  Of course!  Hello . . . we all do that.  Sometimes.

On occasion, I have spoken without thinking.  So have you.  So has everyone else on the planet.  But what about people that do it all the time?  How is that okay, exactly?  When is it ever okay to tell someone to their face that they look, "Terrible!"?  The answer:  never!  Especially if the "You look terrible!"  is spoken with aghast, horrified shock.  Believe it or not, this actually happened at work a few weeks ago.  Not to me (thank God--I would have cried), but to a gal that sits in a cubicle near me.

To be fair, she did not look her best that day.  Apparently she had been up crying all night; "problems at home" was the only explanation I ever heard.  I don't like to guess a person's age, and I would never refer to a person as old, but it is a simple fact that she is older than me.  As women age, crying all night gets harder and harder to recover from gracefully.  That's another diplomatically stated fact, isn't it?  So, setting the scene, the gal in the cubicle near me has lost almost all of her ability for elegant restoration from a night of crying.  Someone walked up to speak to her, and when she looked up at him the "You look terrible!" was blurted out in stunned exclamation and obvious recoil from her appearance.

She handled the rude comment with much more poise then I ever could.  On my side of the cubicle wall, I was livid.  This was not okay!  Unacceptable.

And now, number two:  Are you kidding me?

Sometimes I wonder why I'm friends with some people.  For some, it goes beyond a simple lack of filter; they are just plain mean!

So, I recently got my hair cut.  Blah, blah, blah.  I'm in shock, it's been hard to get used to.  Good cause, yadda, yadda, yadda.  (I've been repeating myself a lot at work, can you tell?)  It is no secret that I prefer my hair long and I'm having trouble learning how to style my new do (which means, I've been wearing it in a ponytail a lot).  I've also been very vocal about the fact that I like the way it looks in a ponytail; it does the little flip-doo that I so admire in other women with short hair.

And yet, someone thought it was okay to tell me that:  1)  my new haircut makes me look so much younger now (how old did I look before?!), and 2) my short hair looks so much nicer when I wear it down. When I have my hair pulled back (any length) I look like a spinster.

WTF?!

That is a direct quote from a supposed friend.  What a bitch!  Did I look like a spinster at my wedding?  Because I had my hair pulled back then.

And what about all these days that I've been wearing it in a ponytail since I've gotten my hair cut?  Was she telling me that every day all week I looked like a spinster?

I was so shocked, I didn't respond at all.  But now I hear it over and over in my head, and with each replay I wonder yet again, "Why are we friends, exactly?"  I'm not really sure.

It is just not right or fair that people can open their mouths and spout such horrible things with no remorse or recourse.  In fact, it's wholly unforgivable.  Sure, we've all said things we regret, but what she said goes beyond "regret."  It's inexcusable for any person to be that clueless to that degree.  People who say things like that think they're being honest.  They think the brutal truth is okay because it's the truth.  They think laughing after saying something severe makes it less venomous.

I think that's horse shit.

I think it's just plain rude and hurtful.

It's not just me.  I'm speaking generically but it's actually one despicable person that I'm talking about.  My friend, no less.  Why am I friends with such a deplorable human being?  This isn't the first time she's said something that hurt my feelings or someone else's.  I've heard her tell people they "look tired."  That means they look like shit.  I guess I can't think of any other examples, but don't worry . . . they're out there.

The "just kidding" thing is one of my lesser known pet peeves.  I hate the phrase "just kidding" when used to soften a harsh statement.  That's what people like my bitch-friend at work say so they can say something mean and not get in trouble for it.  But they still said it.  "You look like hell today . . . JUST KIDDING!  Hahahahaha!"

I'm not normally violent, but just writing that last paragraph made me want to slap her.  And my point of all this is I'm still searching the appropriate response to the JK Bitches of the world.

I suppose, "Shut the EFF up," is out of the question.

Brain wave!  I just thought of the perfect response to JK Bitch, and apparently I've come full circle.  It's the response I heard at the library a while back:  "My personal appearance is none of your business."

I'm actually looking forward to trying it out.

I'm bald!

Or maybe I should say, "I'm naked!"

I decided about a year ago that I wanted to donate my hair.  It was already long (ha! I've had long hair my entire life!) so whenever I went to the salon I just had a trim.  I did some research and it didn't take long to figure out that I do not meet the criteria for Locks of Love.  I have several strikes against me (the fact that my hair has been highlighted in the past was the biggest one)(also, you're supposed to donate 10-12 inches and that was a hard pill to swallow).

So, I googled "donate hair" or somesuch and found out that I don't meet Pantene's Beautiful Length's criteria either.  What the poo?  Doesn't anyone want long hair anymore?  Why is everyone so picky?

Significantly down the Google list (and after playing around with my search terms), I finally found it:  an organization that isn't as fussy:  Children with Hairloss.  Turns out, they're perfect for me.  They're based out of Michigan, which means it's about as local of an organization as I'm going to find.  They only require 8 inches of hair, and it's okay if it's gray or highlighted.

So . . . I did it!

Please pardon the poor pictures.The lighting was very harsh and I wasn't wearing any makeup. But you can still figure out what is going on. The first and last pictures look especially awful to me . . . she was having trouble with my camera phone so I had to hold my smile for a really long time, and it had started to sag by the time she actually snapped the picture.

Before:

We had to split my hair into two ponytails to cut it off because I have so much hair.  It's hard to comprehend how much hair I had (and still have).  It's actually pretty fine, not coarse like you would think by looking at it.  It's dark and wavy, so everyone assumes that it's thick, but actually: I just have an awful lot of it.

During:

Gasp!  It's off!

The first picture we took I had my arms by my

side and OOPS!  It looked like boob tassles.

We had a good laugh about that!

I ended up with 10 inches to send to Children with Hairloss, and my hairdresser had to take about four more inches off on top of that (to style it).  I added blonde highlights also . . . you really don't see them at all in these horrible pictures but they turned out pretty nice.  I do think my new style looks cute, and I will get used to it eventually (by the time it grows back, I hope), but it's definitely dramatic.

After:

I did pretty good, if I do say so myself.  I didn't cry!  I thought I might because I knew it would be a huge shock, but I held myself together amazingly well.  I was in the salon for FOUR HOURS because we had to re-do the highlights (my hair has been dyed enough that the color doesn't go on evenly).

And now?  Well, I must say:  there is a learning curve with teaching myself how to style my own hair.  I feel like a gigantic moron right now; I don't know how to hold the brush and the blow dryer at the same time, and after 20 minutes still end up with funny kinks.

My morale is so-so.  I'm glad I did it--this was a Good Thing--but it's just so shocking to be without my hair.  I feel very sympathetic toward those whiney bee-otches on America's Next Top Model (sobbing hysterically:  "I just (hiccup) don't (sniff, sniff) feel like meeeee!").  I'm not crying about it, but I don't feel like myself, and that's hard.

The worst part is when I'm washing my hair . . . I feel so naked!  And, since the haircut was on Saturday, I've only had two showers since then and it hasn't been long enough to reprogram myself how much shampoo to squeeze into my hand.