The other day, onchard and i had an in-depth discussion after i lamented on the snails pace of my bangs growing out. It went something like this:

melastica:why can i not make any good hair decisions?

onchard:i just realizrd that myself...you hating it the next day is a common thread

onchard:clearly you should be removed from the process

So, i began to reflect, and perhaps he has a point... (Keep in mind, this list fails to include the multitude of unfortunate cuts i've inflicted on various pets over the years.)



1988: THE PERM THAT WOULDN'T DIE This essentially turned into an explosion of sparkly blonde hair. Granted, we all had crappy hair in 9th grade, but this was just the beginning for me. As it grew out, i tried to keep it straight and cuts the curls off in layers. This seemingly inspired a Zoolander dance-off-ish competition between my two then-paramours, onchard and "saul". I allowed saul to cut my hair, which then offended onchard, so he then cut it to fix it (though i'm not sure there was anything wrong with it). Thanks to weasel for this forgotten nugget. Once the curls were all gone, I became restless. This led to


1990: SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL Inspired by Mary Stuart Masterson, I had chard chop it all into a boy bowl cut (despite his protests). Just for coolness, we left a long, skinny, braided tail. At the time, i thought i was the coolest thing, EVER. In retrospect, this may be the worst offender.


The next few years were spent mostly growing this out. By 1993, it was most of the way down my back and it was glorious. The next year i ended a long relationship and did what all girls do with liberation: i cut my hair again. This was a fabulous flippy bob that i love to this day. Eventually i dyed it pink, but still, i grew restless.


1997:MIA FARROW I AIN'T Onchard provided me with a mock up in which my face was placed in Mia's head circa Rosemary's Baby. It looked really great. At the time, Winonna Ryder had a similar wispy pixie cut that i admired. So, i went for it. All i can say is that i was mistaken for a guy...more than once...from the front. That was the end of that. I pretty much have kept it at a chin length bob since then and seemed to be satisfied until...


2004:THE BANGS DEBACLE For some reason i thought, "Wow! Catherine Zeta-Jones look really great with bangs...I should get bangs!" I wasn't really thinking at all. I got the rest of my hair cut along with the bangs, and that first day, I convinced myself that it was cute in an "Amilie" sort of way. The next morning, I was horrified to see "Swan" from Mad TV looking back at me in the mirror. It was the world's weirdest case of beer goggles ever. Once someone pointed out how much more i looked like my mother with bangs, they had to go.


This brings us to the present, in which i internally whine every day that they're not growing out fast enough. In the future i will stick to straight and one length, this seems to work best for me. I write this to remind myself not to fall into these trend traps again, no matter how tempting. I've talked myself out of shaving it all off time and time again. I'd be really interested in seeing what my natural color looks like, but then i get the fear. Although, it has been a while since i was blonde...