I Hear They're Making Nicer and Nicer Wigs....

In my life, in addition to the requisite heartache and pain, there have been girls who didn't invite me to their birthday parties, boys who said I smelled bad, bosses who didn't pay me anywhere near enough and at least two people who refuse to recognize the brilliance of my writing but I have had only one true enemy and that is my hair.

I wrote the above sentence months ago and have struggled with a post about my hair ever since -- how could I let such a fabulous intro go to waste? What's more -- How could I deny my readers paragraphs of me whining about HAIR? What could be more thrilling? If any post will get me on the front page of Digg it will be this (Q: what do geeks love more than long diatribes on physical appearance?) (A: Jokes about the Linux kernel).

Living with my hair is like waking up each morning to the task of appeasing a rogue dictator. The official words that I used to describe the beast that rests tauntingly just above my forehead (and which proudly takes credit for most of the forehead wrinkles) are "blond" and "wavy" but I'm not actually comfortable saying either of these things because neither is absolutely true. My hair is only blondish and wavish. I constantly feel like my hair is making a liar out of me -- like people are whispering behind my back about how I'm mouse-y brown and stringy and in deep deep denial.

There are 2 options for my hair post shower -- apply a defuser enabled blow dryer it in hopes that the curls/waves decide to play nice and evenly distribute like a romantic frame around my face (15% success rate) or give up all hope and straightening it which will look exactly the same every time I do it but which will also be kind of boring (95% success rate).

Evil hair stylists are always claiming that if I'd just purchase this $50 bottle of goop I could look so beautiful every single day that people would stop me on the street and offer me free ice cream and wouldn't even care when I got super fat. It is possible that I am just way too lazy and oblivious to judge hair products but I can't say for certain that I notice any discernible difference between say Marc Anthony Curl Lotion or Loreal Springing Curls Mouse or just rubbing excess sunscreen on the ends of my hair. All might lead to a comfortably curly frizz free day and all might cause my head to explode.

"Get a better hair cut!" You naively scream. ("Perhaps one that costs more than $20" you might add as a snotty aside. You're kind of a bitch.). The sad truth is that hair styling as a profession is only one step above televangelism or spray on hair in terms of delivering results (though at $13.95 it might be worth it to just shave my head and start from scratch). Hair stylists are incapable of doing anything to improve the state of affairs north of my eyebrows. I've tried to tell every single one about the elusive wave and temperamental frizz and the results are always the same. They claim I should scrunch it more and use some magic product sold only at their salon and I might even be willing to try such foolishness (despite years of failure) if they had any ability to get me out of the salon looking anywhere near presentable, but every appointment ends with some ridiculous take on prom hair. I also hate getting my hair cut because going to the beauty salon means that I have to have at least one conversation with a beautician.

"So what are you up to tonight? Perhaps we can give you a special do!"

"I have 2 episodes of Baby Borrowers buring a hole in the Tivo... Can you do something that will compliment a tub of Chunky Monkey?").

Personal Style

Even though I’m super famous now I still value the needs of my fans so this one is for Lisa.

I am not surprised that Lisa would want to know about my personal style since a recent date commented on my sharp dressedness on national television. As an extra bonus I’ve tried to illustrate my personal style using the H&M Dressing room feature when possible but sometimes my style needs go beyond H&M.

7 Thoughts about my personal Style

I wear a lot of red which I think looks good on me. I think I look bad in purple mostly because my mom once said that purple is not my color and I have internalized this (but seriously look at that girl over there – totally ug.). As I write this I am on the train to Long Island to have Thanksgiving with Amy’s family who have thankfully adopted me (they feel obligated because I cooked Amy food when she had cancer – I plan on living off that good deed for YEARS) and I just put my purple vitamin water bottle up to my face to illustrate “see? I look uglier every time I put this by my face.” She thinks I’m crazy. I also think I look bad in celery green. I generally don’t like pastels.

Secretly I want to be punk rock. I once had a therapist tell me that I had a lot of walls up and even though I knew I was supposed to be sad about this I thought “oh awesome -- that is TOTALLY punk rock!” And so deep in my closet you will find a small collection of clothing that would be totally appropriate should I ever spontaneously develop musical talent or land myself a rock star boyfriend. This collection includes one pinstripes t-shirt dress that can be worn over a slip that I dyed blood red, the lace of the slip peeks out from the bottom of the dress all sexy like. That rock star boyfriend better hurry up and get here. Unfortunately H&M does not really offer any punk rock clothing for my model to wear, despite the fact that Amy is currently wearing a sweater from there which she claims is punk rock strictly because it has stripes – I’m claiming the outfit on the left is punk rock strictly because the tights are plaid. Both Amy and I are equally uncool.

I hate getting my hair cut because it involves paying ridiculous sums of money (usually upwards of $40) to sit in a chair and make chit chat with some lady I don’t know. Said lady also seems to expect me to have an idea of how I want my hair cut which I do not (“ummm can you just cut it?”). Thus my personal style is dictated by hair styles that only need to be cut twice a year (aka long, no bangs). I can get away with this mostly because my hair is curly-ish and blond-ish both of which I like to believe hide split ends. I am constantly involved in a battle with my curls. If they would just behave I would wear my hair curly everyday but most days instead of bouncy even curls I get some sort of half curly half straight all ugly combo pack and I have to bail out and straighten the whole mess. I am seriously tempted to buy a straightening iron but I can’t decide if I should be buying an expensive one or could get away with the target version. This is what I'd look like with short hair if I wear running around in just my underdutchies.

I have an affinity for shirts with witty statements – this is because I am a computer nerd and computer nerds like to pretend that such things make them look hot. In reality such things only serve as a red flag for noncomputer nerds, the rest of you should consider witty tshirts a public service. (Aside: last night I met the boys who sell this shirt which is creative but problematic since I suspect that the number of people who both get the joke and find it funny is very small – also despite what the boys may think there is no way this shirt will get any girls to sleep with them -- especially if they got the joke). H&M does not offer any witty tshirts in their virtual dressing room because they do not cater to nerds. ThinkGeek.com does not offer a virtual dressing room because nerds like to pretend that they don’t care how they look in their tshirts.

Punk rock aspirations aside The truth is that I dress very preppy. This is obviously at least partially due to my obsession with the JCrew online sale but also likely a result of my junior high obsession with being republican. (the hormones wore off, I’ve reformed). This means that I own a fair number of cable knit sweaters (I’m wearing one right now!) and a respectable number of button down collared shirts (despite the fact that they often result in the dreaded “boobie gap”). The model is wearing heels which is a lie, I try very hard to avoid wearing heels because I can’t walk as fast as I like in them and also because I am a huge wimp when it comes to my ankles.

Amy doesn’t think I have a style – it’s funny because as we all know recently someone commented on national tv that I dress really well. The model on the left is Amy – as you can see she also has no style. She also thinks this outfits is very punk rock.

I don’t know how to put on make-up so I just choose not to wear anything other than blush and mascara and lipstick. When I type that out it seems like a lot of make up but the point is that I do not wear foundation or powder. It’s possible that I *should* be wearing more make up but I fear that if I start down the make-up route I could get too used to it and then be one of those girls who felt like she couldn’t leave the house with out make up on and then I’d annoy myself and also have to get up earlier. I can’t imagine being prettier would be worth it.

Snazzy New Look

Banner Awesomeness by Gillian
Distilling my entire life into one sentence by Mike
Annoying whining about what a pain it is to edit the blogger template? That was all me.