Haircuts

My hair's getting fairly long at this point, and the Queen is beyond hinting at me needing a cut. That's not a trim; that's a cut. It is cold, so maybe I can use that as an excuse. One part of me likes the hair cut because I do have a smidge of vanity about me, but another part doesn't really care and would rather do something more beneficial with my time. I thought back to my history of haircuts (yeah, what a boring topic, right?), and while my overall hair cropping hasn't varied that much, I have had some interesting cuts in the past. 

Growing up, my mother always cut mine and my brother's hair. She just used your basic electric clippers with an attachment for what amounts to a buzz cut over the summer. During the winter, she would use scissors and cut my bangs and over the ears and up to the hairline in the back with no layering action at all. It looked like your basic bowl cut, though no bowl was involved. When I got older, I continued with that same basic cut, but in a barber shop where they layered it, but I still combed my hair straight down all over (as evidenced by my senior picture with holds to the same basic haircut I had in my kindergarden picture). 

Now, there was one time when I was in those 'tween years where a stylist got a little adventurous on my hair and thought it would be cool to really style me up good. She trimmed it up about the same way they always did, but then proceeded to style it up and gel it into place so it looked like a Disney teeny bopper. How long did this style last? We went grocery shopping right after this cut, and outside the store, I did my best to mess my hair up real good, since I preferred it that way (if I remembered the comb my hair before school, that was a good day -- actually I'm still that way, though I remember more consistently now). I spent quite a bit of time that night washing all the goop out of my hair.

Naturally, I can't go through this without mentioning the Army cut. Yeah, I've seen myself completely bald. It's not a pretty sight. A lot of people out there have a nice dome to their head. It's perfectly round and you could chop them at the neck, and use them for a bowling ball. Those are the people who shave their heads and take a razor to them to keep them short and shiny. My noggin is not so nice.

I will be the first to admit that I've bumped my head a few times in my life. I clearly remember falling backward off a ledge about three and a half to four feet off the ground and landing on my head. I was subsequently yelled at by the bus driver who saw it happen for holding up his route when I did jump right up and run to the bus which was pulling up. But I landed right on my head and had a pretty good knot for awhile.

Anyway, it's kind of hard to explain what the deal is with my head. I have what amounts to a dent across the forward center of the top of my head, so from front to back, my head come up over the forehead, it dips down, goes back up to the crown, the crown of my head has a bit of a crater to it, and then it comes back out of the crater and down the back. It's not as extreme as it sounds, but that's how it looks to me. Makes me wonder sometimes how I managed to get a non-dome-shaped dome.

While I was in the military, I got what's referred to as a "high and tight" during my time in AIT. This is basically a short cut across the top of the head (covering my deformed brain cavity, restoring my head to a normal look), but almost no hair on the sides. In the latter days of AIT, and onto Fort Carson, I changed it to a "low and tight" which is the same basic idea as the high, but you have more hair on the sides that fades quickly as it moves down. It is a military cut that stays within the 2 inch rule of Army haircuts. My hair grows really quickly, and I did not get it cut weekly, so it grew long enough fairly often for me to do something with it, and I started combing it to the side to keep it out of my eyes (as 2 inches shouldn't go into your eyes, right?). Ok, so the band was a tad lenient on hair cuts, but they still required it cut.

I kept the side look for awhile once I left the military, but I got a little weary of trying to control it. I dislike dealing with any kind of styling, since I have better things to do (in my own little world). When I did go in for a haircut, I told them (and I still do) "about a quarter of the way down the forehead, off the ears, up to the hairline in the back, and even it out all over." This description has yielded a world of difference between hair cutters.

I say hair cutters because it's hard to classify these people as they all want to be something different, and that's the most general term I have. I have had barbers, hair stylists, cosmotologists, and hair professionals on my knot, so they all get lumped into "hair cutter." Teach them to not settle on one standard name.

Well, it was within a year of being out of the Army that I found the hair style that I maintain to this day. I use the word style very loosely because I really don't do anything to it but comb it back and then let it dry. My hair appears to have a natural part to it...right down the middle. I mean, perfectly down the middle. So my hair parts itself without any help from me, and my overgrown bangs fall to either side of my face allowing me to go even longer without a haircut than I could in high school. Haha!

Now, I will admit that this does make the Queen crazy. You see, my hair continues to grow very full and it does this quickly, so when I don't cut it for awhile, I have one thick head of hair that gets harder and harder to control, and while to an extent, I don't care, I do have to maintain the status quo of the business world meaning I can't look like a total hobo. However, I think I've got more hair than most of my office does, and I suspect that's not entirely their choices, if you follow me.

Anyway, I'll probably end up chopping my hair off again sometime soon, but I figured I'd share a little hair history for the sake of sharing. Now you know that when it comes to styling my head, I do as little work as possible.