the one about hair

Within the last three months, I went from having very long hair to a cute, sweet, easy, "reverse bob." My stylist named it that. I'm not sure if it means that my scalp appears backward.

Why did I have so much hair to cut off, you may ask? Well, I got married three months ago, and I belong to the strange group of women who consider it essential to have approximately seven yards of hair to pile on top of their heads for their weddings. Except whenever I wear a ponytail higher than say, the nape of my neck: insta-headache. And I didn't want my hair overly structured and teased and sprayed with twelve kinds of lacquer to make it stay up.

Obviously I wore it in a French twist. Requiring full-scalp teasing, root-to-tip hairspray, a combination of 30-something hair and/or bobby pins, and the feeling that I had bound my head. Like foot-binding. But a head.

I am nothing if not consistent.

Cut to after the wedding, pins out, but hairspray + teasing still very much present. And the fact that, even though I had a spreadsheet detailing the whowhatwherewhenwhyhow of my wedding, I had not packed a bag for the wedding night. I did not have a contact case, a change of shoes, or most importantly, a hairbrush. I respond to the title Idiot Bride, thank you very much.

I could not sleep without brushing my hair. I needed a shower more than I have ever needed a shower in my life. Seriously, I could need a shower less if I ran a marathon. But hairspray + teasing + water = dreadlocks. So at approximately four in the morning, I got up, used Husband's comb to painstakingly brush out every inch of my hair, watching flakes of hair spray fall like dandruff snow. I showered. I washed it as many times as the hotel sample shampoo would allow. I felt like a human.

Do you blame me for chopping off a foot of hair?

Here's the problem. Short, choppy hair requires more upkeep than long hair. This haircut goes from cute flippy-ness to side-mullet in exactly six weeks. I am deep in side-mullet territory.

Of course the person who created this hair cut, promptly forgot about it six weeks later, and then trimmed it, trimming my bangs to the wrong side, no longer works at the salon I go to. Not the first time this has happened to me. Nor the second. It is in fact the third time I have had to change stylists at the same salon. I know this happens. It's New York, stylists are always moving around, blah, blah, blah.

And now I want the side-mullet/reverse bob turned into a regular bob and I have to explain that to a new person.

Who is ironically the same person I went to the first time I ever went to that salon, although I immediately forgot her name afterward and never used her again. Obviously should have stuck with that one. I'm not even going for good haircuts any more. I'm going for the same person cutting my hair three times in a row.

I'm pretty sure the phone message I got from the salon is them yelling at me about changing stylists. Because I could have avoided that.

I'm about a mile from Flowbie territory.