Mirror, Mirror

Have you ever been frightened by your own reflection? A quick glimpse of your mug from a plate glass window or a dim but macabre reflection from a stainless steel bowl that made you want to run away? Oh well, some days, it just can't be helped. And some surfaces are not good for checking yourself out anyway.

I just had a haircut earlier this week. I've always wanted to try a full fringe but right at the crucial moment I find a way to talk myself out of it. I don't want to look like Ugly Betty or what if I get tired of those bangs right away or what if I sleepwalk and get a hold of a pair of scissors and hack at them. So many excuses. But finally, I tried it. I now have big, fat bangs and I think I like them.

You know how haircuts take a few days to settle and really kind of grow into your head? I'm at that stage now and I must say seeing my reflection in the morning is kind of rough. My bangs want to revert back to their old selves and they creep onto the sides of my forehead. There's a kind of mushroom cloud on my crown and the ends of my hair are doing their own thing. Something you might see at a wacky wig shop. Kind of like this:



And if you did more browsing at said wig shop, you might find this next to it:




Which, would look right at home beside this:




And in that wig shop, the most expensive one, the crowning glory, the pinnacle of hair realness, the one on a pedestal at the center, is THIS:

Soft Silky Scraggly And Split Ended

My first memory of beautiful hair was from a Barbie coloring book. I especially liked the close-ups. Barbie. Tight shot. Gorgeous, flowing hair. I would fill in the lines with varying shades of mahogany, burnt sienna and blondie blond. Okay I just made that last color up. It was so much fun giving Barbie highlights and lowlights. My older sister liked the close-ups too. Her thing was putting make-up on Barbie's face.



It was also around this time when my very first hair nightmare happened. My older sister had some bright idea to cut me some bangs! Let me set it up for you. I was four. She was eight. One day while the parents were away, she comes up to me with a sly look in her face. In her hand was a pair of pink plastic scissors. These were classroom scissors, you know, the kind that can barely cut paper. So she pulls me into the bathroom, locks the door and she snips away. Snip snip snip. Giggle giggle. Yeah, it was fun. FOR HER.

Bangs are meant to kind of kiss your eyebrows, right? Not the bangs I had just acquired. Nooo. More like kiss my SCALP!!! Seems like my sister had an avant garde streak. That, or a bad case of the shakes rarely seen in children. To my regret, it happened around Christmas and many a photograph has captured that bad hair episode.

I used to try to tame my hair into obedience. Lots of blow drying and hot oils with the hope that it would be nice and straight. Didn't happen. Allow me to illustrate. If you would, close your eyes and imagine a human head. Then, picture its hair as you would a pyramid. A slight one but a pyramid nonetheless, a kind of triangular afro but with strands of hair that can't decide if it wants to be wavy or straight. Right.

I have since made peace with my hair. I have accepted that it really is some kind of wavy/ straight hybrid with a sprinkling of frizz. On a good day it's actually not bad.

Unless I decide to tie it into a high ponytail.

Take a look, I made it extra special, in silhouette.