A Rant about Hair

I can't seem to get a break when it comes to my hair. I have very fine, thin, straight hair with several cowlicks along the hairline. Over the years, I've decided that a long shag, with piecy bangs and swoopy sideburn-like sides, is the most flattering and the easiest to upkeep.

I've had this haircut exactly twice. Once in 1972, when I was 7, and once about 4 years ago. In between, I've requested this style many times, but no hairdresser seems to be able to recreate it. Usually I get something much shorter - against my will - and it reaches the proper proportions only after several months of growth. At that point, the top layers are too long and I need another professional cut. At which time the cycle begins all over again.

This past March, I took these photos of Liza Minnelli to yet another stylist:

I figured if he was going to go against my wishes and cut it short, he could at least see that the bangs were piecy, and the sideburns had a little length. Also, the top hair is at least a couple of inches long.

I came home with the next best thing to a crewcut. The problem with that particular stylist is that he was more interested in running his mouth and discussing show tunes than paying attention to what I wanted.

In June I needed a trim. Instead of going back to him, I found a young stylist at the mall and I browbeat her into trimming only 1/4" off my entire head. It took her a good hour plus, but she did exactly that. Because she did not want me to bite her. I probably should have gone back to her last week, but I didn't. I thought I'd audition yet another stylist, this time at an old lady salon where all of the stylists had been cutting hair in the 70s and HAD to know how to cut a shag.

I told Pat about my past woes. How I wanted a long shag. With piecy bangs and long sideburns. I came home a #*(@&#@ gamine, with a freakin' Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby 'do.

Or like this. But I don't look like Charlize Theron. And I'm far
far too old for a young woman's haircut.

Sometimes I think that when I sit in a stylist's chair, I suddenly become completely unintelligible to the one holding the scissors, as if my spoken English has become Martian, or Klingon. Or is it that as soon as someone gets scissors in hand, he or she becomes selectively deaf, dumb, and blind?

I'm getting tired of the whole thing. I should just shave my head and take to wearing hats.