The Beast Within

Well, hello. I know it's been a while. My lack of posting is due to the fact that I lead a terribly mundane life. Not much exciting going on here. As I mentioned to a friend of mine recently, the most exciting thing I've done since the New Year is cut my hair. So, if you can bear with me for one more girly post...

I am a Catholic. I was raised a Catholic and, somehow, I still manage to reamin a Catholic. I even go to church every Sunday. I wouldn't say I'm the best Catholic by any means, but I try.

So, you can imagine my surprise and horror to learn that I share my body with a demon from Hell. My hair.

"Oh, go on" you say, "We all have hair troubles. It can't be that bad." Well, I tell you, it is.

First, let's address the color. As a child, I had that naturally platinum blonde that I would most likely give my left arm for today. It was lovely. Except for the time when my cousin (also a light blonde) and I spent so much time in the pool one summer that our hair turned green. Yes, it did. It didn't last too long - only the summer - but I tell you, we had green hair back when the punk rockers were thinking it too rebellious. I don't know if it was from Chlorine or the algae it was supposed to kill, but neither chemical nor plant scum could daunt our enthusiasm for swimming.

Now that I am mumble mumble years old, my hair has darkened to a color I refer to as Field Mouse Brown. I could have a nest of them living in my hair - and quite possibly do - and no one would ever be the wiser. It's even got the white interspersed throughout, although it mostly seems to congregate in my bangs.

That's right, I said bangs. I also used to have long hair, at one point down-to-my-waist long. But not any more. At some point - and I think it might have been the 63rd day in a row when the temperature inside my house didn't get out of the low 50's - I decided something had to change and, dammit, it was going to be my hair. So, I cut bangs into it. It did give me a more youthful look - so youthful that I probably wouldn't have been able to procure a library card on my own. That lasted a little while and then, about 10 days ago, I cut it all short - well, chin length which is short by my standars. Now I've achieved a whole new look. I look like the love child of the Dutch Boy Paint kid and Paul Williams. Meet my parents...

Mom...



...and dad...



Yikes, I know.

As luck would have it, the day after I did this to myself, the very day I would be going to work for the first time with my new do, my hairdryer and my curling iron - the two appliances I didn't have cause to use for years when I had long hair - went on the fritz. How's that for luck? "Well" I thought, "there's nothing you can do about it." So I just went to work.

When I walked in, all the ladies - being the kind sorts they are - all fussed over my new hair-do saying it was very cute. One of them even asked "How did you get your hair to do that?" Um...do what? I went to the ladies room to see what, exacly, it was that my hair was doing. As it turns out, my hair was having a little circus on top of my head. Some of it was going this way, some of it was going that way, and some of it was swirling about hither and thither. Sigh...

Since that day, my hair attempts a daily coup d'etat, trying to take over not only my head, but my life as well. It knows when I am making special attempts at controlling it - when I have important appointments, etc. - and that is when it goes on the offensive, flailing about, intimidating strangers, injuring innocent by-standers. On days I shoot for a little curl it goes straight as an Alabama sheriff who mistakenly wandered into the Round Up Saloon on his vacation to Dallas. On days I would like the straight look, we get the circus thing going. And don't even talk to me about relative humidity. Don't even.

So, anyway, there it is - my beast within. Or on top. Whatever. It's there.

Next time, I promise a post that has nothing to do with hair, clothing or womanly appearance concerns what-so-ever. As a matter-of-fact, I'm going out right now to jump start my life and make it more exciting. Watch for me on the evening news. I'll be the one with the crazy hair.