“She’s growing it out.”

[my favorite line in all of Tangled]

…wait…what?

Yes, I am. Growing my hair out. Not like Rapunzel’s, but definitely longer than the awesome pixie cut I’ve had for nearly a year. Right now I’m aiming at an A-line bob and we’ll see where I go from there. I have LOVED every minute of my short, easy hairstyle. But lately I have been craving some locks, you know? To brush and braid and ripple. I must be crazy, because with the exception of my babyhood and the past year, I’ve had long hair my whole life, and it’s always been a static, wispy, in-my-eyes burden to me. And yet, I suddenly started to miss it a few months ago.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading lots lately, and every girl in nearly every book always has LONG, luscious, flowy hair. I guess wind swirling long hair around the heroine’s face is much more romantic than the way wind spikes up and floofs odd shapes into short hair. With a pixie hair style, you’re sort of joined at the ear with your blow dryer. Nothing else fixes the intense bedhead or wind damage. I just feel ready to have a little more freedom from the machine. So here we go with a super-selfish post all about MY HAIR. Blogging in general is narcissistic, but blogging about my very own hair for a whole long post seems even more so. Just so you know, I do NOT feel cutesy or clever or anything like that. I feel like I need to explain why I may look shaggy and unkempt for the next few months.

Having a pixie cut after a lifetime of long hair has completely liberated me in the hair department. For now, I’m growing it out. But if the mood strikes me back the other way, snip, it’ll be gone again! I don’t feel burdened by hairy fears any longer.

The STARTING POINT: October 4th, 2012 was my last ultrashort chop. Awww, I kind of miss it already! Why is hair such an indecisive subject? Before I decided to try growing longer hair, I looked up what it will look like along the way, and discovered a blog with pictures spanning a year of pixie haircut growth. It comforted me. But the girl in all the pictures did start out with much longer hair than my buzz. So we’ll see.

November 2nd: one month later. Ooo, that cheesecake was GOOD.

Laynie’s birthday, November 28th…getting longer, and I didn’t have time to do my hair that morning. Ahh, Laynie and her parents are currently on a 2 week trip, and I having serious baby withdrawls. A week or two after this picture I went in a got my mullet trimmed off. I wish I had a picture of the swirly, stiff POUF that my hair cut girl gave me after that visit, but I was too distressed by it to take a picture, so I went straight to the bathroom and dunked my head under the faucet to tame the floof.

December 5th, two months in. Still manageable. I used to get my hair cut every 2 months anyway, so after this point is when it started going…shaggy on me.

December 23rd—really the last week that I could stand to wear my hair in the old shape.

December 29th. I hate having bangs flopping all over my forehead, so time to get creative! My sister Em thinks mini claw clips are dorky, but they are so easy and convenient, so I ignore her and wear ‘em anyways. Hey, I never claimed to be cool!

I got a $2 fat plastic headband that is my easiest fix at the moment, even if it is a little too shiny. It clamps down all of those pesky hairs on the top of my head that look funny now that they’re longer but not long enough. The girl on that blog I found called this awkward stage of growth the “Bieber.” HA, that cracked me up, even though I don’t think I could ever be so cool to have a bad hair day look like Justin (please read my attempt at light, joking sarcasm here—it’s hard to tell how this sounds to a third party).

  

She must’ve meant one of these pictures…or all of them?

 

No, I’m far more likely to have Christian Bale hair. You know, when he played Teddy in Little Women, not when he was Batman. Pardon me for not posting a picture, but mine has that same odd flip-around thing going on, on each side of my part. Once it gets long enough to touch my eyes, I’ll be completely stuck in Laurie-land. Hey, when it comes down to it, I’d rather be there than in Bieber-ton.

Luckily I can bobby-pin those tendencies away. I was a late bobby-pinner. My whole life I marveled at how everyone else could hold so much hair up with only a few flimsy pins. I’m still clumsy with them, but I’m finally starting to manage them better now at age 26. The trick is to pretend you want to stab them into your brain, and then they stay in better. It hurts to be bobbied.

Ok, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Four and a half months. It’s still not in my eyes yet, and if the in-the- eyes stage lasts too long I may give it up and whack it off again, luscious locks be cursed!