My Malleable Mane

I was recently taken to task a couple posts back when I talked about all sorts of change in my life over the last 12 years. "Not once," he said, "did you mention all your different hairstyles." Believe you me, my friends, some of them were shocking indeed.

So, in light of this terribly overlooked issue, this post is dedicated to William. Thanks for pointing this out.

I had long hair until I was 15 years old. It was my mom's pride and joy.

Even at this young age, 5 minutes post-womb, I had long hair. (And no, I am not part Eskimo.)

Here's my mom, trying to braid my hair for the day. I think I'm 3 or 4 here and it's down to my waist. She also had 2 other kids at this time, under the age of 4. Why she didn't cut it, I don't know. Masochist.

Couple more cute kid, long hair pictures. Enjoy 'em while you can.

The long hair continued into my tween years, although I started experimenting a little bit here and there.

As a child of the late eighties and early nineties, I was so excited to get my first spiral perm. Unfortunately, I seem to have burned all my big "wave-bang" pictures from the same time period.

As high school started, I stayed innocent for the first year or so. Yes, freshmen really are fresh meat. Long hair still abounds. (God, how boring was I???)

Okay, now things get interesting.

Every kid goes through a period, usually high school, where they want to set themselves apart from the rest of their peers. In the early 80's, it was safety pins and punk rock, the 70's had their "who has the biggest bells on their bell bottoms", and now there are those rebellious teenaged guys who grow their hair out long and share skinny jeans with their girlfriends. For me, it was my hair.

Why hair? Because if it turned out bad, I could always grow it back out. To me, it was a temporary way to make a statement. (Although what statement is made with pink hair, I don't know.) Others were shocked as they pictured their own perfect coiffes in funky colors or sheared off. It just wasn't important to me to keep up that appearance.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I asked my mom to make the ultimate sacrifice - cut my hair. She wouldn't do it at first. This is the woman who took care of it when I was a little kid, dragging my pigtails through the mud and the muck of the Alaskan wilderness, curled it before every school dance, combed out the tangles after my bath, and sat for hours with the hair dryer and brush to straighten it. The hardest thing for her was remembering how in the 3rd grade, our whole class got headlice from one of our classmates and instead of cutting off my locks, she sat for hours and combed it all out with one of those teeny little fine-toothed combs. (Even today, she brings that one up.) But finally, I convinced her to do it.

The before shot, for posterity. The during shot to show my anxiety (look at how my fists are balled up. I ended up plugging my ears too.).

This Final picture is to show the big Texas hair.

It took me a while to get ahold of the short hair thing. But then I was off and running!

A little bit shorter now...

My folks called me Gina Lollobrigida.

GI Jane

Geek-Chic

And then there were all the colors: Burgundy, pink, red and...

Punky Colors: Blue (and you thought mullets were never hot) and my quest to be a platinum blonde.

So there you have it. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly.

And for those of you who are worried you won't be able to introduce me to dear ole mom, so far my hair is dark brown and wavy, just as Allah/God/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Mother Nature intended.