February 6, 2021 by Amy

Lament of the Curly Girl

I am very, very close to getting my husband’s 25-year-old Wahl clippers out of his cabinet, attaching the longest guard, and going to town on my head.

It normally takes me much longer to reach this state, when I am so sick of my curls that I am ready to take whatever means necessary to rid myself of them. I think it’s because I didn’t set out to grow out my hair this time. This was a pandemic-induced grow out. A forced march through a hairy jungle, if you will. When you can’t get into your stylist for months, your pixie becomes an elephant. A giant, wild, unruly elephant with a mind of its own. 

When I finally got back into my stylist’s chair (lo! It was glorious!), I asked about cutting the curls as I wished. I had very specific criteria: I only wanted the pixie again if I could be guaranteed to get back within four or five weeks to maintain it. I didn’t want to go through The Great Grow Out again. She checked her calendar. “My next available appointment is in two and a half months.” I took it, because duh, and then we booked my appointments every four weeks for the next six months after that. She touched up the curls, gave shape to my head again, and out the door I went, relieved to have a plan in place to get back to my pixie.

That was three weeks ago and I’m done. Done with the curls.

Done with the insane process it takes to make them presentable for being seen in public, instead of looking like Larry from the Three Stooges.

Done with waking up looking like I just flew through the tornado in the Wizard of Oz and knowing only a full on dousing or shower and repeating the entire process will tame everything back into shape, because jamming a hat on my head only works in certain situations. I am spending inordinate amounts of time on my hair and it doesn’t even look that good.

Curls take too much damn time and effort. 

• Special shampoo and conditioner. 
• Can’t wash them every day, so keep track of when they were last washed. 
• Don’t get within 10 yards of a comb or a brush. 
• Use a special towel when you get out of the shower. 
• Use 87 different anti-frizz, plump, shine, curl-enhancing products in the form of sprays, mists, gels, pomades, spackling paste, and caulk. 
• Scrunch the curls, don’t rake. 
• Use metal clips to clip your hair at the roots so it doesn’t dry smashed to your head and instead creates the “halo” effect so desired to avoid looking like a drowned rat. 
• Use a diffuser on the hairdryer. Congratulations! It now takes 25 times as long to dry your hair and you can do nothing but sit there as a jet engine roars around your head.
• Remove the metal clips which are now the temperature of the sun thanks to 30 minutes under a hairdryer. 
• Feel your scalp breathe a sigh of relief and apologize for the torture yet again. 
• Turn upside down and shake your hair at the roots with the fingers to get volume, but again, do not rake! 
• Use special hairspray to try to maintain whatever wild style has come out without weighing down the curls. 
• Stick errant curls behind other, well-behaved curls and hope they don’t pop out in the meeting with your boss this afternoon. 
• Sigh, because despite your best efforts, you still look like Larry from the Three Stooges.
• Leave the house anyway, because “my hair looks like shit. again.” is not a good excuse for a sick day.

This is insanity, and I can’t take it anymore. I have so many better things I could be spending my time on. Like, I don’t know, naps. Or gouging my eyes out with a pen.

Pixies are much more reasonable.

• Use whatever soap-like substance you find in your shower.
• Dry your hair with the same towel you used on your body.
• Stick goo in it.
• Go.

I was so desperate that I googled “how to cut your own pixie” the other day but the results were frightening. So instead I looked at my calendar yet again, counting down the days to the pixie. It’s four weeks and six days from right now. Thirty four days. Eight hundred sixteen hours. Forty eight thousand, nine hundred and sixty minutes. But who’s counting? It’s in the middle of the workday and I don’t care. I will feign appendicitis or my dead grandmother’s funeral or scurvy to not miss this appointment. I’m not sure how I will explain showing back up later that day with significantly less hair and in a great mood, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

The curls. They must go.

#curls#hair#larry#pixie#three stooges