A Bad Hair Life

I have the kind of hair that inspires Southerners to say, "Bless your heart." Curly, messy, never-does-the-same-thing-twice, frizzy and crazy pretty much describes my hair.  I grew up in an era when the hair to covet was straight, blonde and long. Oh wait, that era hasn't quite passed yet, has it?  I mean, having short, curly, brown hair has not been in vogue for at least 40 years or more. Coincidentally, that's exactly about how long I've been living. Hence, I have tolerated the frizzy mop atop my head for a very long time. It could be worse. At least I have one good hair day every six weeks. That's the day I go to the hair salon to get it colored, cut and styled. Isn't it amazing how a good hairstylist can work miracles? In fact, my hair looks better when my hairstylist pulls the towel off of my wet head, than it does every time I try to fix it for the next five weeks and six days. I have used every hair product under the sun to try to get my hair to behave. It never has, so I decided a long time ago to just whirl with the curl. The product I'm currently using is called "Be Curly", and guess what; my hair doesn't really want to be curly now. Oh, it pops a curl here and there.mainly right on the top of my head exactly in the same spot as Alfalfa from "Spanky and the Gang". Obviously, I am doing something wrong, but none of this is new to me.

When I was in middle and high school, I would roll my hair with hot curlers to make it straighter. Yes, straighter. I wanted to have long enough hair to roll onto frozen orange juice cans for soft, pretty, flowing curls like my older cousin, Laura. I never could stand it long enough to grow it out, although I really tried. Unfortunately, the process was just too hideous to endure. Even my dad said something along the lines of, "What's wrong with your hair? It looks like a rat's nest." I didn't even know that rats had nests, and come to think of it, Laura had long, straight, blonde hair. I guess that was an early indicator that I was a dreamer. They should have seen it all coming.

Once, I got a perm thinking it would make my hair have prettier, more controllable curls. That worked out about as well as the time I used a pumice stone to scrub my chin because it was broken out and I had no idea what a pumice stone was. So not only did I scrub the skin off my chin, leaving it scabbed and still broken out, I had actually accomplished rubbing something on my face that my parents were regularly sloughing their feet with. I was young.you live and learn.

So now I have a Chi flat iron. It's basically a flattened out curling iron block that cost $150. It burns your hair into temporary submission, leaving it flat, and.ironed. So, here comes the summer heat, in all its humid glory. Now I get to have heightened bad hair days and wear a bathing suit -- a combination that truly builds character, if nothing else.

To add insult to injury, my hair has started turning gray. The hairstylist says my gray is coming in very coarse, of course. That's perfect. Now I can't even have soft frizzy hair. I have to have wiry frizzy hair. I can't even hide wiry frizzy hair under a hat. So here's the deal. I'm thinking if I get one of those new Keratin straightening treatments, maybe my hair will curl again. With my luck, it might actually work, and I have no idea how to manage straight hair. Well, I'll have to roll with it.