"Your haircut is offensive to lesbians!"
-- Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
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| Self portrait 8-2-14 |
"Hey, I am not my hair,
I am not this skin
I am not your expectation, no.
I am not my hair,
I am not this skin
I am a soul that lives within."
-- India Arie, "I Am Not My Hair"
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| Self portrait 8-2-14 |
It's no secret that I enjoy a good, short haircut.
And I trust my hair stylist completely.
Usually.
But yesterday she got uncomfortably close to the scalp.
I showed her a picture of the cut I wanted.
It was a photo of a very feminine cropped hairstyle, shot head-on, from the front. Since that was the only view, the sides and the back were not visible, which left them up to my stylist's interpretation.
She got the front right.
I'm trying to look on the bright side.
Otherwise, it's a little military. I look like a new recruit.
Or a skinhead.
Or ... well ... let Leo tell you. These are the words he chose in his cautious, fumbling attempt to delicately render his opinion:
Him: "It looks like a ... um ... what are those one ladies called?"
Me: "Lesbians?"
Him: "Yeah."
It's a good thing hair grows back.
Sure, I dig androgyny and blurring gender lines. I like to have fun mixing up the masculine and feminine elements of my appearance. But this haircut skews a tad too, shall we say Sapphic, for even me.
I could just take the plunge and shave what's left into a Mohawk the way Leo and the rest of his teammates have done for their 3-a-day summer football practices. It could potentially make me the coolest mom in the history of the team -- an ultimate show of support and solidarity and team spirit -- like when lovers shave their heads during their partners' chemotherapy.
Or not.
Shaving my whole head is on my bucket list. But I kind of want to do it when I want to do it, you know, when the moment is right and on my own terms.
Probably I'll just end up wearing my Indians ball cap a lot more often. It'll be baseball season for a few more months. I will support the Tribe and camouflage my skinned head all at the same time.
Meanwhile, I'm taking this opportunity to wear more eye makeup and lip gloss, to kind of try and tip the scales back towards some kind of he/she balance.
That being said, I'm going to go ahead and give my stylist the benefit of the doubt and not get over-excited about this one-time random fuck up.
At not-yet-even 40 years old, she became a grandmother 5 days ago. I suspect that maybe she got a little distracted telling me all about her beautiful new granddaughter.
During my haircut.
Oh, man.
