Tag Archives: Hair

A Real Head-Scratcher

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Photo: Hairy Alien 1Hair-Raising Conundrums

What a puzzler it is that misty weather makes hair frizz

but rainy weather turns it flat—what kind of logic lies in that?

How, if light pressure makes unfurl what tighter tension leads to curl?

And why our nature is it called, that time grows hair more—or makes bald?

Makes me afraid the wond’ring fright could lead to greying overnight;

I s’pose it’s normal, to be fair, but find I’m tearing out my hair.

When it’s explained, sure I’ll be dead…

‘Least I’ll have moss atop my head.Photo: Hairy Alien 2

Flantasia

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graphite drawingThe Warbling Flantical

Upon a promontory sat the Flantical, in coat and hat,

In curled toupee and beaded gloves (the sort his sort of person loves),

And sang a tune so bold and sweet, a choir gathered at his feet

And joined their voices, fine and strong, to this his pure and sacred song,

Admiring both his vocal fire and handsome mien in that attire,

And so anon, the Flantical and choir closed their canticle

And all dispersed, but all retained the melody that still remained

In head and heart; that is the story born upon that promontory,

And each Flantical now loves to sing it, wearing beaded gloves.digital illustration

Sometimes I Surprise Myself

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I catch a glimpse of myself in a window or mirror as I pass, and I am astonished to realize that the person I see is Me. It’s not so much that I’m horrified or amused by my rapid slide into aging’s odd forms of pseudo-disguise, by my generally slovenly dishevelment after rigorous housecleaning or gardening, or by my bizarre thoughtlessness about what I left the house wearing (though any of those might conceivably play a role from time to time); mostly, it’s just that I don’t really think that much in general about what I look like and so it always catches me very slightly off guard. My spouse tells me he finds me attractive, and that’s all I care much about, as my appearance goes, short of anyone finding me visually repellant, and thus far, no one has admitted that one to me.photo montageFortunately, the same spouse who is stuck looking at me more than any other person has also acted as my barber and general appropriate-dress consultant for the last eighteen years or so, so if he doesn’t like what he sees, he’s free to recommend a different outfit or cut my hair in a new way. This last summer’s road trip, while it didn’t make it impossible to cut my hair, made it inconvenient enough that we decided to just experiment with growing it out longer than two or three weeks’ worth as has been the norm for all these years. It was mostly just a laziness-motivated decision on my part, but after a couple of extra weeks I started to like the idea of just seeing how my hair grew out after having been so uniformly short for a couple of decades.photo montageTurns out, there’s some slight wave to my hair, an unexpected–ahem–turn after the last number of years having had pretty much straight hair, short as it was. I kind of like that what white hairs I have show up better with the slightly longer look too–an accent I like much better than my naturally bland brownette color. Hey, maybe the streaks of white will further highlight my pasty-pale complexion. Ha! Not for nothing that my Thai college roommate and her friends from home called me Princess Snow White!

I decided to celebrate my new/old (wink-wink) look by trying my hand at jewelry assembly last week, and concocted a necklace out of jewelry findings and parts plus a couple of items I already had among my collected miniature sculptural found-object goodies. While I’m obviously a neophyte at the whole practice of concocting jewelry, I was rather pleased with my little semi-Steampunk necklace, perhaps the more so because the first person who saw me wearing it the first time I did so was very complimentary. Given all of the new bits of image-tweaking, and having been asked by a couple of friends to update my Gravatar now that I have a tad more hair to show, it seems apropos to get around to it. In another slightly surprising event, I managed to take a photo in which my eyes remained open, I did not decapitate my self-portrait or get my usual wildly wiggly motion blur, and most amazingly of all, I don’t mind the picture terribly much. So here we go. Never know what I’ll surprise myself with next.photo

Now that My Hair is Longer

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It’s interesting, this growing out my hair after about fifteen years of having it fairly short. Suddenly I’ve got wavy hair, and it not only looks different from the super-straight short stuff I had but I kind of like it better now that it’s got white hairs streaking through it here and there. Go figure. Still, that doesn’t make the following poem true. Just sayin’.photoLady Samson

 Her hair’s grown long now; does this signify

She’s stronger yet somehow, or then, have I

Mistaken this adornment so hirsute

For something that a person more acute

Would recognize as only pretty hair?

I’ll ponder it (and hope not seem to stare)

Until a sign arises that this length,

If only by its beauty, gives her strength,

For anyway, I oughtn’t give a fig

E’en on discovering that it’s a wig.photo

Getting Singed

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Is it my imagination, or is it a little bit hot in here???

Femme Fatale

Barbara is standing by to cut my scruffy hair:

but, say–doesn’t that look a bit like an electric chair?

Look at that pair of scissors–oh, boy howdy, are they sharp!

Will my coiffure just leave me playing sad songs on the harp?

I’d say it’s mighty hot in here–a preview glimpse of Hell,

Or maybe just a purgatory-hint, that hairspray smell–

I’m not so absolutely sure that something here is wrong;

and yet, what’s so darned horrible in leaving hair this long?

Is it sheer paranoia and delusion of myself–

Hey! What’s that creepy science stuff in tubes up on the shelf?

I’m getting awfully shaggy, yes, it’s true–but not a Nut!

(I merely hope it’s nothing but my hair that will get cut!)

Oh, Barbara, I am nervous, so please, kindly, Dear, refrain

from trimming quite so near my throbbing jugular, poor vein.

And if you have to croak me (does this happen very often?),

at least make sure I’m wearing stylish hair there in my coffin.

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One way or another, I’ll be a hot number when I come out of here.

I’m So Worth It

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I’ve never understood the horror some people have of others knowing their age. Among other things, it requires endless forms of subterfuge and denial, from falsifying mere statements of age to all of that domino-like cascade of phony documentation and historical records that must be juggled over time–though, according to those claims, that will have stood quite still. In more extreme cases, it leads to a compulsion to alter oneself to fit the imagined character of the mythical preferred age. I find lots of highly stylized and generalized and ‘flawless’ dolls unappealing, weird and creepy, and ever so much more so, living beings who have had themselves altered by cosmetic means (temporary or, in extremis, surgical) to be less age-appropriate or individual.

Yes, I do understand the urge to fit in, to be accepted. But perhaps my having felt, most of my life, that I look pretty average and ordinary–none of me either bad- nor good-looking to any extreme–makes me inured to the pain of those who think themselves terribly, awfully out of sync with others in appearance. Certainly I know that there are many who have had external reinforcement from thoughtless or cruel others that they are unattractive or unfit or otherwise unacceptable. That is one true form of ugliness: bullying. Demeaning and hate-fostering and belittling are as terrible in their way as any forms of torture, because they scar the soul just as effectively as physical abuse scars the body and spirit. And that can make anyone feel old ahead of time.

But when it comes to the simple and petty desire to deny the years spent on earth or the effects of living a full life on one’s body, skin and hair, I still don’t quite get it. I watch those hair-coloring commercials where fabulously primped and preened models assure us that those smart enough, like them, to use X brand are obviously grand and wonderful enough to warrant the expense of that harmless form of self-adornment “because I’m worth it.” Well, good on you! But it so happens that I think I’m worth just as much with my own dull dishwater brown hair sprinkled with hard-earned threads of white. Plastic surgeons are always eager to inform me that I could be smooth, cellulite-free, and have perfectly formed chin, nose, breasts and cheekbones if I’d only let them perform their magic upon me. In addition to my having seen a long parade of walking evidences to the extreme contrary, or at least extremely contrary to my own tastes, I am shockingly content to have a mole practically right in the middle of my face, one ear far lower than the other, shoulders of quite different sizes, stubby hands, remarkably pasty and slightly sallow skin, a couple of scars from clumsiness and carelessness, and–oh yeah–quite the growing collection of wrinkles here and there upon my entire personage.

Get used to it. I’m a used vehicle. I’ve driven this body through a lot of history, which, if not remarkably rough or exotic, takes its toll in bits and pieces, softening up that muscle tissue which once was a tad more taut, stiffening the formerly flexible joints, adding a few pounds here and a lot of freckles and spots there, and all of the other signs of ordinary aging. Beyond beating, as it’s said, the alternative, growing older has some distinctly positive aspects to it in my view, not least of them that I know, like and respect myself and my finer features far more than I appreciated such things in younger years. I am finite, yea, even slithering down the slope of the latter part of my life, and I will die. Before then, I plan to live it up.

And if that shows in my greying, thinning hair, my spotty memory (which was always a hair more colorful than reality anyway) and my thickening waist and glasses, my slowing reflexes and my ever speedier increase of dithering and forgetfulness, so be it. If it shows in my increasingly complex network of wrinkles, why then Good on Me. Literally. I earned all of these insignia of my fine, me-sized-adventure filled life, and if they make me look less than smooth and perfect and doll-like and youthful and conventionally beautiful, I don’t mind one tiny bit. I certainly never liked ironing anyway, and I earned the right to savor my wrinkles just as they are.graphite drawingP. S. I was born in 1960, and I still have hopes of getting a whole bunch older than I already am, if all goes well.

A Hairstyle Fit for a Harridan

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My untamed nature often comes out in pointed ways . . .

Beauty queen I am decidedly not. Never shall be. It goes so thoroughly against my natural bent to fuss and primp for prettiness that it’s a miracle I don’t just pop out of bed and haul directly off to wherever the day should take me, entirely unimproved. But that just wouldn’t be nice. Unsuspecting people outside of my house deserve some consideration.

Ever look in the mirror and wonder just who that creature is that’s staring cryptically back at you? In my case I never doubt it’s my own image reflected, but depending upon the hour of the day (can’t promise it’s morning either when I’m willing to arise or when I’m remotely prepared for a look in the mirror) I may be only moderately willing to admit to the relationship, at best. This beast-that-is-me has no sympathy with playing princess. I’m glad to say that I think myself pleasant looking enough on the whole without any serious touch-ups, but the effects of what some jokester decided to name Beauty Sleep just make it hard sometimes for any natural niceness I possess to shine through visibly.

So I always recommend scheduling your interactions with me well after the crack of noon, just to be on the safe side. Otherwise, you may meet face-to-snout with a slightly startling character and I simply can’t promise there wouldn’t be lasting effects on your morale or sanity. I do mean well.

It’s not really my fault, but nighttime takes a toll on me that can counter the best effects of a good dream-fest abed. First, there’s the whole problem of the bed linens. While they may make the practice of lying down to pass the night more sheltered and comfy in a very welcome fashion, they also have a miraculous way of twisting themselves into a close enough facsimile of mummy wrappings that I always come out of bed wearing a series of elaborate stripes, squiggles and indentations that reconfigure me into a suspiciously mythical looking creature by morning. The Atomic Prune with Two Legs!!! Run for your lives! Somehow it seems cruel that the bed linens get to contort me mercilessly like that and yet I still have to de-contort them to get the bed back into usable form for the next night’s expedition towards forty winks.

Being from birth about as pale as a second-rate vampire, I am none too fond, either, of the proto-invisibility I achieve by sleeping my circulation down to virtual nil. Some days I fear that if I were to look into the mirror too soon after waking, I would have accomplished the full vampiric inability to see my reflection at all. It may be that I should consider building up my retirement funds by taking advantage of any temporary invisible state and become a criminal mastermind while it lasts . . . but then I remember that this would require the capability of being a mastermind along with invisibility. Never mind that, then.

My teeth grow sweaters overnight. I’m a big fan of fine cardigans, but never intended to produce them orally, let alone where they can apparently only be dismantled by brushing with a belt sander. Seems like I could be down to teeth the size of sesame seeds by the time I’m seventy at this rate. Not that I don’t like sesame seeds. Smaller and thinner than sweaters, at least. Certainly a new Look for me.

Most predictably of all, every time I look in the mirror is a new challenge to my skills for creature-identification, given the interesting and amazing things my hair can do. I wear it short both out of laziness–wash-and-wear hair is all the style I am willing to attempt–and out of vanity: I learned the hard way years ago that the long hair generally considered on other women to be a sexy beauty asset just makes me look like an inbred Afghan hound. So I go with the shorter ‘do, and it does just fine. Except overnight.

That’s when it takes on a life of its own and converts me into anything from a depressed Cheviot ewe to Dr. Seuss‘s Grinch, from an oil-slicked sea lion to an alien invader and/or Bob’s Big Boy. All of them potentially entertaining, I’ll admit, but at the same time, possibly unsettling to see in the mirror. Or is that just my insecurity speaking?

Very probably, my ruminating on it just now is merely an indicator that it’s about time I headed for the aforementioned bed. Risking, of course, whatever that contraption and my time overnight in it might chance to inflict upon my body and being. I think I can continue to cope: whatever Ma Nature dishes out I must learn to handle as best anyone can. I’ll let you know how that’s working later–but just in case, don’t stop by the house before noon!

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If it's good enough for Mother Nature, it's good enough for me!