Hair. . . What is it Good For?
I've had an exceptionally bad hair week. My hair was great last weekend. But Monday comes, and I have bad hair. Overnight, it turns into a disaster. How is that possible? It's been rebelling all week. Every single day it's been subpar. This is unacceptable. I have a standard to maintain.

I mean, I treat my hair with the same respect everyday. I go through the exact same routine. Yet, some days it just decides on its own to look less than appealing. Why must it torture me so? I haven't done anything to deserve its wrath. I don't understand it.

I normally have fabulous hair. It's a great natural color (although when I bleached it blonde for a few months, it still looked fabulous). It's a great, simple, easy, flattering, trendy cut. But it goes through a weird cycle from haircut to haircut, almost as though it's a separate entity in and of itself. I lose complete control of it.

My hair looks it's best starting a day or so after it's cut. Then for a couple of weeks, it is truly amazing hair. It falls perfectly every time, and remains strikingly eye-catching throughout the day. During this time I am proud to have hair on public display.

Then after about Week 3-ish post-haircut, it drops the act and freaks out. It loses all ability to behave. I don't know if it gets tired, or if it just feels it's time to show me who really is the boss in the whole hair-wearing relationship. No matter what I do, it insists on falling short of what I like to see as good hair on my head. It sticks out in weird places. It refuses to stay where I put it. Even the texture changes, almost as though it's trying to morph into another life-form. I'm forced to clip it in funky arrays, to cover up it's independence. I always hope 'funky' is still okay to wear on an ordinary day. The insanity of it is extremely frustrating.

Through another week or so of exhibiting poor hair functionality, it gradually begins to redeem itself and look decent once again. By this time I'm planning my next haircut, because the hair is beginning to approach the length of being too long for my liking. It's acceptable at this point, but not as magnificent as it was at the beginning of the cycle. It's disappointing, and often sends me into a depression.

The next week or so varies from haircut to haircut. Sometimes the hair looks okay, other times I'm ready to cut it all off again, down to the nearly scalp. I'm very particular about the timing of my haircuts. I refuse to go any sooner than every six weeks, but if I wait any longer than two full months I almost can't function on a basic level of existence.

The hair is determined to control my life. And it truly almost does. But I will continue to stand strong and deal with whatever the hair throws my way, until I say it is time for the next cut. Thus, the cycle begins again.

Hair, hear me now. You are not the boss of me.

C.T.