I was sitting on the couch at our Cape house last Saturday night, reading the article about Anne Hathaway in InStyle, with When We Left Earth on mute when I realized I wanted to chop my hair off. I turned to Plus One and said, "I think I want to cut my hair?"
"Like how short?"
"Like to here..." and illustrated the length that came just below the nape of my neck.
"I think you'll miss it."
"I think I want to do it."
Accustomed to my whims Plus One ignored me. She probably thought I'd get bored with the idea, realize that I love my long hair and let it go.
But I am impulsive to a certain point.
The two times I decided to move I hopped on Craig's List and found an apartment pretty much the same day. I like to get things done. My hairs were no different. The next day on the beach I called my salon to make an appointment.
"Thank you for calling the James Joseph Salon located on Newbury Street. We will be closed June 28th until July 6th for renovations..."
Oh merrrrrrrrrr.....
I'm not going to beat around the bush, the salon I go to is a high end number. The stylist I see has been written up in Allure Magazine and currently charges about a million dollars for a cut and color. Luckily I've been seeing him since he was just a regular hair dresser so I'm grandfathered into his less famous person prices. Because the regular salon does so well they opened up a studio a little farther down the street. I guess it's like an army boot camp for hair dressers. They learn the ropes at the studio before graduating to the real salon.
Thank god for being opened 7 days a week!
"Thank you for calling the James Joseph Studio."
"Hi I need to make an appointment for a cut and color."
"Ok..."
*extended pause where I was supposed to say when I wanted to come in*
"Wh-what time would you like to come in?"
Did I really want to do this? Chop my hair off? The last time I did it I was a senior in college and went to some random place with Rambinaberg. The guy cut my hair into a mushroom and I was so horrified I chewed a hole through the side of my mouth.
But I wanted to do this.
*deep breath* "Currently I go to the James Joseph Salon and I've been growing my hair out since 2004 so I really need someone who is experience with cutting long hair into short hair and I need someone who is nice. And cool." *exhale*
"Ok hon. Well Kylene is really good. And she has an opening on Tuesday at 6."
"Perfect!" I hung up the phone and basked in the sun, my pony tail drooping over my beach chair.
"Oh, honey, I'm glad you're gonna cut your hair." That was The Donna. The Donna hates long hair. When I was in second grade she had my hair chopped to boy short length. When I came into school the day after my hair slaughter, Matt Pinkos asked me on the playground if I had a sex change operation over night because I looked like a boy. I think I cried for a month straight.
My childhood had been a series of bowl cuts and/or close cut crops. If you look at Polaroids of me you can't really tell if I'm a boy or a girl. I always imagine the awkwardness strangers must have felt when they came up to me, saw me with my short hair and dressed in a white shirt and brown corduroys and not knowing what gender I was. Sort of when you see a newborn baby dressed in yellow. You ask the parents, "What's its name?" I often wonder if my mother ever got that when I was around.
I tried to get into the long hair phase but then the curse of Friends arrived and everyone was getting that damn Jennifer Aniston "Rachel" shag. Caving to peer pressure I too instructed my hair dresser to shag my hair just like J. An. Little did I realize that I had a round face unlike J.An and hair that mushroomed in the humidity and not a personal hair stylist to fix it for me. The Rachel shag was a disaster yet I still continued to cut my hair short. It wasn't until the above mentioned senior year hair massacre that I decided to never cut my hair short again.
Until I got sick of it and decided to lop it off.
Tuesday rolled around. I walked into the studio and immediately felt at ease. It wasn't as high pressured or as elitist as the regular place I go to. Kylene was my age, really cool and we talked about relationships the entire time. Both of us had been "let go" as we put it, by guys over email.
She did the color first.
"Ok so, you want to cut your hair to about here?" Her hands hovered above my shoulders.
"Yes."
"Ok. I'm just going to sort of rough cut it now before the color."
"Ok..."
She put my hair into a little pony tail and *CHOP*
"Holy shit!" I exclaimed
I looked down and saw scattered pieces of my long dark chestnut hair scattered all over the hard wood floor. Oh dear God. What had I done?
Freshly colored, Kylene started in on the cut. She had me turned away from the mirror and I constantly tried to strain my neck to see what she was doing and she constantly had to snap my head back into place.
"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass. It's just...I just....It's been so long for....."
"It's ok."
"Ok....but please....just don't make it too short. I don't want to look like I have a mushroom hat on."
She laughed. "You're fabulous."
We were in the middle of talking about something, I don't even remember what, when she flung me around to face the mirror.
"Well? What do you think!?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
I clapped my hand over my mouth.
"OHMIGOD. It's SO SHORT!!!"
"I think it looks amazing. It's so chic!"
"It's so short!"
I reached to the back of my head and all I felt was air. My hand had to travel a little further up to above my shoulders before I reached actual hair.
She started the blow dryer and I immediately started to cry. (I had always heard stories of girls who cried after they cut their long hair short and always thought how stupid that sounded. Now I TOTALLY got it) and texted everyone I knew to tell them that I had just chopped off four inches of my hair and that I was crying.
Two of my friends called me straight away and I whispered that I'd call them back. My other friend, Brennon, said that he was sure I looked gorgeous and then promised to do sexual things to me no matter what it looked like.
I walked out of the salon very self aware of my neck and shoulders. I was so used to the thick mane of dark brown hair acting as a security blanket that I actually freaked out, called JSutt and asked if I could stop over to borrow her hair curling device. When she opened the door she shrieked and said how much she loved it and her boyfriend Dave concurred. After a while of staring at myself in the mirror I began to love it and can't even believe that I had my hair that long for such a long amount of time.
My mother will be so happy.