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November 02, 2005
The Nelson Twins
Yes, I shouldn't be complaining but,
OMFuckingG, my hair.
I’ve got just way too much of it.
This has been growing out for the past five and a half years. It’s stupid long. In a hippie, insane way now. Like – not a style – long.
Why is it that when you google “haircut”, every website is totally outdated? And when you go to a hair salon, they’re still pitching you those terrible books with the awful pictures of haircuts from the 80s that you’d never ever do.
And then, the worst is having to say, “You know, I want it like Jennifer Lopez’s hair in the I’m Glad video…” and you know that must be said in a whisper. Shit, I whispered that I loved some J LO shoes in the mall last night. How could I utter the words J LO? You know what? Why am I even fronting? I like her Sweetface line. I sometimes hope to see her somewhere on Long Island. And I like hearing her speaking voice, so there, I said it. What?
And while we’re on the topic of J LO, whoa. I was messing around on the good old Internet and I saw a hat that I really liked on shopjlo. Shut up, I know. Lesson learned. As you will soon read.
I purchased this hat called Felt Vanity Fedora Floppy in blue.
Now, I had asked for many opinions before making this e-purchase and all parties involved were like, “yeah girl, do it” or “ooh, that’s cute” or “you could totally pull that off” or “I like it” so I decided to just do it regardless of the many hesitations. You know, the fact that it is J LO and the whole Internet thing etc.
I got the package today and brought it to my boyfriend’s office so that I could open it in front of all the girls that said it was okay for me to buy this. There was an exciting moment of anticipation and then I opened the box.
Bitch.
I should have known. I knew it was a lie. The hat was not the deep blue like the picture suggested. Instead, it was like a Morris Day and the Time purple. I put the hat on and immediately I morphed into a greasy ass pimp set to sell off a couple nasty prepubescent girls with belly hair. The kinds of girls that go from "car modeling" to soft porn to straight hookin'.
I was so upset. The hat was promptly wrapped right back up and sent right back off to Secaucus NJ where it belongs. I want my $44 back immediately. Jennifer Lopez would never wear that hat so I don’t know who she thinks she’s fooling.
That’s what I get.
It doesn’t matter. The clock is ticking. At 2:30 eastern time, I’m cutting my hair off. That’s the plan. Not really short. No, I won’t be repeating those Cobra Kai Never Die days. Yeah right, then I wouldn’t have room to gain weight in my face because my face would be on blast all day. And on Long Island, weight gaining seems to be my forte although 20 minutes on the elliptical four times a week seems to keep my shit in check.
I’m going to regret whatever it is that I decide.
If I just trim it, then I’ll be stuck in this same hair that I’ve been carrying around for the past two years. If I cut it medium length and I don’t commit to ironing every day, then I’ll have a curly bob and um, no. I don’t have kids yet so why should I get a mom haircut. If I go super short, I’ll spend, at the least, ten days indoors crying and J will be so over me. He’ll say, “Dude, that’s your biggest problem? That you hate your hair?” and he’ll do his famous “pfffft” sound and tell me to go fuck myself. And it will totally be warranted.
Oh no.
First of all, the same man has been cutting my hair for the past five years but he lives in LA! And he’s biracial too, so he completely gets my hair because he has the same hair! He’s the one that got me here. With his meticulous trims that started out every six weeks, then every 9 weeks and so on and so forth. He’s the one that helped me get this length. And that’s all I ever wanted when this whole project began. I just wanted crazy long Crystal Gale hair and now that I almost have it, I’m so over it.
And people spend cash, crazy cash, to get my hair. They buy this shit all day long and I can grow it. Thank you Shorty and Mercy. I’m not bragging, I’m just saying, a part of me would like to keep something that makes bitches envious. I mean, isn’t that girl nature? Yeah, bitch my hair is real. Get with that shit. I absolutely love it when someone asks me if it’s fake. That makes my whole day. No, this is real, I say. And I take the bun down, shake it out allowing the expensive shampoo smell to straight effervesce and then I offer up my roots thus shutting this person all the way down to Chinatown. Love it.
Not everyone can just pull off the Halle Berry. I personally think she looks best with short hair. Why she grows it out (or adds extensions), I don’t know. I envy anyone that changes her hairstyle every six months with no fear. Well, they’re not dealing with this fucking Jody Watley 80s curl length so whatever. Jody Watley cut all her shit off one day and she looked cute.
I’m not allowed to complain about my hair to any of my friends. They all want to kill me. Oh, Melissa, your hair is so amazing, shut up. Yeah, fine. But washing it and wearing a bun when it doesn’t fall right and flat ironing it – no. There will be no flat ironing at this length. My arms are simply not long enough and I surely don’t have enough patience. I’ll do half and be like fuck this and then what? It’s bun time. Oh, the bun. The asshole bun. I can’t even lean back as I drive my car because the dumb ass bun is in the way.
But I can’t put the hair down because it gets caught in the windows, in the trappings of my coat, all over my lip gloss. It’s everywhere and it’s so annoying.
When I wake up from a nap, or just when I wake up, I look like a toddler that’s been crazy playing all day and then just crashed somewhere. I have that toddler halo of frizz and no amount of Biosilk can tame it so that I may continue to wear it down. You know what that means? Bun time. It’s always bun time around here and I can’t take it.
And this New York weather is not California. The humidity. The rain. There are no hairstyles for me here. I just live in a Yankees cap. Which also sucks because everyone wants to talk to you about the game or the team and quite frankly, I don’t give a shit. I don’t watch baseball. I don’t like baseball, but this is the best fitting hat ever. And if you tell a Yankees fan you don’t give a shit, they get an attitude and it’s just like, “Dude, my hair sucks okay, what’s it to you, mkay!”
It’s between this one or the Ying Yang Twins one that doesn’t have a hole for a bun so…
I’m so scared. I’m going to a new lady today. I drove to the salon last night because the person that referred me was getting her hair done there. The salon looks nice enough To be perfectly stank, I really prefer a nice gay man whose half chatty, half about business to cut my hair but it’s all older women cutting hair on Long Island. Or Latino men that have no idea what I’m even talking about. This man named Nacho blows my hair out at the mall, of all places, and he doesn’t understand a word I’m saying. He also wears a long pony tail and lots of gold jewelry so I can’t really be nitpicking. He blows me out really nicely though. For all my wedding events here on Long Island since everyone here feels the need to get married. Different day, different conversation, but still. For every wedding, I have to get blown out. I don’t know why, but it’s a ritual of mine.
But for real, I take a peek into all the salons here and it’s all older women with French tips doing the cuts. Like pictures of their kids playing soccer at their stations -- that type of older women here. The kind of women that won’t understand a Jennifer Lopez video reference. ! I’m doomed. My eyes just bulged so far out of my own face, at my own realization, that I just felt stupid. Sitting here, by myself, I made myself feel stupid. This is getting deep.
Like, I want to be offered a hot cup of tea. A stack of the latest tabloids plus a French Vogue thrown up in there and most importantly, a confident vibe like I’m going to walk out with the haircut of my mother fucking dreams.
I said to my friend, “Who’s getting their hair done at 2 in the afternoon on a Friday here?”
She said, “Rich old Jewish ladies with nothing to do. You’ll be fine…”
At my LA salon, on a random afternoon Shifty Shellshock from Crazy Town was getting his hair colored. Not that that’s any step up, but the tattoos in the place and the coy fish in the pond outside made me feel like I was going to get my hair done right.
I’m really really very nervous.
I need to SEE the place with my own two eyes. I don’t want a teacher haircut. And I don’t want the Jennifer Aniston Friends haircut which seems to still be quite popular ‘round these parts. They’ve got the early 90s on fucking lock down here, okay.
I heard they don’t even make you stand up when you get a haircut. Whoa. Isn’t that like, the absolute way to give a haircut to someone with hair my length?
Things are changing. I’m wearing puffy vests and long coats. I looked at Uggs last night (and couldn’t bring myself to actually make a purchase, thank you very much). I’m totally Long Island. I wore sweat pants, a bun and that skinny hairband OUT to CHILI’S the other day. I’m not Hollywood. Nowhere near Manhattan. I’m so fucking Wantagh it’s devastating. I’m totally Commack. Not even Syosset. I kick it at corner pizza parlors. I enjoy spending time in my boyfriend’s office doing administrative tasks like data entry. I watch all of Martha Stewart’s shows (while doing reverse crunches on the ball even though my pooch is too far gone), help me Jesus.
Will I come home with a Long Island ’do this afternoon? Don’t know. I’ll keep you posted though. I’m the worst.
UPDATE: Totally happy with my haircut. I cut off three inches from the bottom. I have long layers everywhere. It’s still super long. When it’s straight, I have long fringy bangs that ooze mod and sex. And when it’s curly, I look kinda Cree Summerish, but not as hippie, just comfy and cute and bouncy. I like it. All that fretting for nothing.
Posted by melissah at November 2, 2005 04:43 PM