Clip Job

Hey, remember the time I got my hair cut really really short in the Philippines, right before I left for Hawaii?

Well, guys, it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Okay, so I didn't plan on going so short, but it just so happens that the lady who cut my hair at the Neighborhood Chain Salon kept misunderstanding me when I pointed to several pictures and said "I want my bangs like this, and I want my hair this short." Apparently lady kept pointing to her soccer-mom helmet and asking me "You want your hair like me?" and I kept saying no, hoping that she'd give me the Jane Fonda-esque shag that I wanted. (Also another consideration: Lady wasn't using a razor. But hey, I get what I pay for, especially since my last trip to Lexus' chair nearly broke my grocery budget.) Eventually I thought to myself, the heck with it - but there's no way she's going to cut my bangs short, nuh-uh, not on my watch.

The resulting haircut looks almost like the one my avatar is sporting - short in the back with long sweeping bangs (almost cheekbone length) swept off to the side - but since my hair's been kind of temperamental lately, I can't wear it without product, or I'll end up looking like the love child of Dorothy Hamill and Pete Wentz.

So yeah, I have to keep tucking the whole thing behind my ears, and I have to wear thickening lotion so it wouldn't mushroom. It also helps to know that cutting my hair short was the only way for me to prevent the thinning and breakage that was already starting on parts of my scalp, made even worse by constant combing.

But you know what's ironic? I'm a lot more feminine with the short hair, especially since the cut is what I'd look like if I tied my hair back loosely. With long hair I always had to wear more makeup and product because I always risked looking boyish - but the short hair with the long bangs bring the attention back to my eyes and cheekbones, especially now that my face isn't as puffy as it was ten years ago. And it's also appropriate for me, since I've been doing a lot of working out lately and it's a good thing for me to not have so much hair flinging about when I'm doing yoga. So it works.

****

Which reminds me: Right before I started typing this entry I'd just finished watching Against All Odds (sing with me, people: "Take a look at me nowwww, well there's just an empty spaace...") and I couldn't get over the fact that Rachel Ward looked all sorts of hot in this one, even with the shorter hair. True, she was sporting the Sheena Easton-esque short puffy curls in this one, but I spent the movie ignoring the dialogue and trying to imagine what she would've looked like if she'd worn a hairstyle that didn't seem so stuck in a time capsule. Granted, girlfriend was pretty slim in this one too, but with longer hair she would've looked way too much like Parker Posey... and considering what the rest of this movie was trying to accomplish, that would've killed a little bit of the sexy.

Now that I think about it, the rest of the folks in this movie have probably aged for the better as well: For some reason I think I like Jeff Bridges a little better the way he is right now, especially with the quirky-paternal thing that he's got going on. Same with James Woods - okay, he'll always bring the sleazy to me, but comparing the regrettable '80s mullet-crew he had here to the Pantene-worthy shag that he's sporting in Shark, I'm just glad that he's not walking all over the place looking like he'd been going to work every day like it's El Dia del Muerto.