Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Just got my hair cut the other day, and she managed to make it do cool things.

Of course it slowly undid itself as I was driving home despite the many products designed to subdue it. The hair eventually won. The hair always wins.

Except once. I lived in Savannah, Georgia for two years, and I once had a hair stylist there make my hair bouffant. I didn’t think my hair could ever do bouffant—I have hair that doesn’t want to do anything completely other than hang in strings. It doesn’t want to have a good wave, doesn’t want to hang straight…and definitely doesn’t want to be bouffant. That giant, bouffy hair was an amazing phenomenon to behold.

I had a hard time driving home because I wanted to look at The Hair in my rearview mirror—which wasn’t hard to do since it took up the entire thing. It was so big, I seem to remember that it hit the roof of my car. When I got The Hair home, I had to examine it carefully to see how she had done it.

All I can tell you is this: It’s still a mystery. It defied gravity. She hadn’t teased it at all. Powerful styling products were involved, but they always are. As I’ve said, my hair laughs at powerful styling products. After much examination, I finally decided it’s another Southern woman mystery. If you’ve ever known Southern women, real ones, I mean—I’m talking the kind who not only know what grits are, but how to pronounce the word with two syllables (“gree-its”)—you know that all Southern women seem complacently aware that they have charms that the rest of the country—or world, for that matter—doesn’t possess.

Now my hair, which was cut and styled by a non-Southerner, is hanging in its customary strings again.

Sigh.

When reporters started to ask at about 50 if I would have a facelift…the truth is I'm afraid I'd become like the guy with a bad toupee; when you're talking to him, you can't think of anything else. ~Gloria Steinem