hair today, gone tomorrow

Back in the day, I wore my hair short. WAAAAY back in the day, when I swam and was a life guard, I wore my hair quite short (I also did some odd perms that were designed to be curled and feathered-- and rarely were-- so ended up like fros....the '70s and high school age girls were certainly NOT a good mix). In college, I did the asymmetrical cut, went new-agey and punkish, toyed briefly with a mohawk...but generally, have never managed to sustain any hair style that has required even the most minimal of care. Nothing has really changed since I began growing my hair long 14 years ago...it's gone longer (to my waist), bobbed, somewhere in the middle...but always long enough to wear in a pony tail. My beauty regime involved washing, using cheap conditioner to lubricate it so I could comb it, pull it back and go. I get it cut once, maybe twice a year. When I wore bangs, I'd whack them off in the middle of grading when they were long enough to get in my way.

Of course, no one wants 8" long strands of hair falling out in clumps, especially not me. I have few things that squick me out, but this whole cancer journey seems to be touching on most if not alll of them: needles (yeh, I need valium to get a shot, and even then I'm fully capable of puking just thinking about an injection; oddly, IVs and blood draws don't bother me at all); and hair not attached to heads. Seriously, I can NOT clean up hair...looking at the floor of the Wal*Mart hair place, with the hairs stuck in the wax turns my stomach, a hair on a wash basin can ruin my day.

Therefore, to mitigate part of the hair falling out trauma (which is less hair falling out trauma and more the trauma of dealing with unattached hair), I decided to cut my hair short-short before I'd start losing it. Originally (oh, I also like to plan and pretend I have control over my life, and clearly right now I don't), I'd intended to start the semester with short hair in an attempt to ease my newbie, first year students into the idea of a bald teacher. It appears that I don't even have that much control right now...I should lose my hair on our around the 22nd or 23rd, 10 days after my first infusion. The weekend before classes start. It would probably be more traumatic for my students to have my hair fall out every time I touch my head (and I've noticed I do that a lot) on their first day of class than for me to show up bald....or with an appropriate head covering, which really won't fool anyone. Do they ever?

Today was hair cutting day. To be honest, I've been looking forward to this. Seriously. For probably 5 years now, I've been saying that I want to cut my hair short, but I have always wanted to be sure that I really wanted it short for the rest of my life, because I never, ever want to go through that horribly awkward "growing it out" stage ever again. And, I always thought I was too fat to wear really short hair. Now, it doesn't matter. This is my chance.

And I took it today. My sister-in-law, an awesome hair stylist, came today to cut my hair. I should have sucked it up and done it sooner. I love it. I'm thinking the wig I bought isn't going to work now because I like my hair this short so much. Right now, I have absolutely no plans to ever have it much longer. Just think, at this length, I can decide I want purple hair and, NIKE, just do it and when I'm tired of it, cut it off and start again. I totally see why Nathan is so happy with his extremely short hair. Wash your face all the way to your crown, and voila, go about your day. I'm pretty sad it's going away in a couple of weeks.

But speaking of that, as you can tell, hair is not a high priority for me, so the whole "loss of hair" struggle that seems to be so very important to a lot of women going through chemo just hasn't been a big deal. I really don't want to be bald. I think a lot of women can pull it off, looking graceful, sexy, powerful, and inspired. I think I'll look....bald. But then, once I get used to it, I'm not sure I'll care. And if me bald bothers the rest of you, oh well. That's your problem. I have enough of my own right now. I have no beauty regime, and it's not because i think I'm so infused with natural beauty that I can't benefit from a little artificial help. It's just that I simply don't give a damn, don't enjoy spending the time or money on such regimes, and can't be bothered.

I'd like to say that it's a feminist statement, and it probably was when I decided to stop wearing make up and shaving (around the same time I stopped wearing my wedding rings). But it all boils down, ultimately, to being lazy. Probably the same reason I just don't decorate my house. We are all about function and ease. Heck, our drinking glasses are canning jars.

This hair is function and ease. Seems a pity to look for a wig with so little hair. I'm calling it my Tyne look. Here's what I was going for, and here's what I got