I got my hair cut today…and I LOVE getting my haircut. When I was younger I used to hate it. To me getting a haircut meant getting it “chopped”…literally. My hair was always short and extremely curly and I had these…dare I say it…BANGS! For some reason my bangs were never quite the right length. Why? Right after a haircut they would be too short. Then when I thought the rest of my hair was finally a good length,  the bangs would curl up under the humidity of a hot New England summer day. They would frizz and go in every direction imaginable. I would come to the realization that my hair just looked out of control and a bit mangy really. Mangy? Ugh, that was the last thing I wanted was to look like a shaggy dog with ungroomed fur that was knotted and dirty. So maybe I didn’t look mangy, but I felt mangy!

All through high school I felt like my hair never looked good. I thought it was ‘bad hair genes’ that were responsible for all the ‘bad hair days’. Eventually I discovered the problem or problems, but it was a long and drawn out process that was more trial and error than a scientific investigation. After  a long time I realized that I didn’t have to have short hair and maybe I could be saved…by the ponytail! I thought cool, this will solve my hair problems for good. Once my hair was long enough, I put up my hair only to discover that my bangs were going to continue to haunt me. The bangs would curl up like a slinky at the hint of humidity. I suffered the painful “grow out” process to eliminate the bangs. ‘Hallelujah I have been saved!’, or so I thought.

I was under the false pretense that “my hair was as good as it could get’.  I moved from the stifling heat and humidity of Maryland to rainy Oregon and made an interesting discovery.  Oregon is known for rain and a lot of it, so how was my hair going to respond? Apparently when you cross the Rocky Mountains something changes in a good way, at least for your hair. Oregon is rainy, but since it is COLD and RAINY it seems to have a different effect on the hair…now my hair was…straight? Well, straight is an exaggeration…how about straighter? Most of my bad hair days behind me, I thought it couldn’t get any better than this. Could it?

After the birth of my daughter I noticed a change in my hair. Why is the new hair coming in a different color? and a lot lighter? Oh no…its GRAY? I have a newborn…and I am gray? This a cruel joke. I thought my ‘hair’ challenges were over, but no, my quest to avoid bad hair continued.  I finally discovered the one-two punch that could “knock out” bad hair forever. The secret combination was known to most, but it took me a while to learn about it…hair dye and a gay hairdresser.  I don’t know what I would do without plentiful hair dyes in every shade and my beloved gay hairdresser.  Somehow he could look at me and pick the perfect hair color (or colors?) and finish the look with a sassy new ‘do’. I knew I struck gold when I walked in the door and my husband said, “You better leave, my wife will be home any minute!”

Even if you are born with hair that is too thin, too thick, too brown, too curly, too flat, too blonde or too brown, you can have perfect hair days. All you need is 1) to live in a dry climate (did I mention I moved to Arizona?), 2) Ditch the bangs, and 3) Find a talented gay hairdresser.  Obviously anyone can still have a bad hair day once in a while…but you don’t HAVE to.