(*Note: ha, gotchya! Of course I’m not giving up blogging about my hair! Because what else would I blog about? No, seriously?)

Well, The Internet has spoken on the important issue of What I Should Do With My Stupid Hair, and it seems the Internet is firmly in favour of me cutting it all off. Or a big chunk of it, anyway. Like, really in favour of that.

Naturally, this has given rise to several small but intense moments of paranoia today, as I’ve thought to myself. “OMG, The Internet must really, really hate my hair the way it is now, if it’s this enthusiastic about the idea of me cutting it off! Wah!” But who am I to resist The Internet? So (drumroll)…

I’ve booked an appointment with my hairdresser for this Saturday. I know! I was amazed they could fit me in that quickly too – yay for the recession and people choosing to cut their hair themselves or something! (Note: joking. Also, never cut your hair yourself, kids, that way madness lies. Trust one who knows. )

I’m still not totally sure what I’m going to have done.  I’m pretty sure the length will be considerably shorter, but, having re-examined the hair in the cold light of day (why yes, I DO spend too much time thinking about this!), new evidence has come to light, namely the fact that the layers around the front actually start at CHIN LEVEL. These are the most troublesome bits of all, so even if I go to shoulder length (NO. I WILL NOT BE GOING TO CHIN LENGTH. ABSOLUTELY NOT. UH-UH.) I will still face a mighty tussle every morning to coax these layers into submission.

Clearly, getting a fringe is out of the question. I repeat: is OUT. OF. THE. QUESTION so, well, I have no idea what I’m going to do about that. I think I’ll probably just not think about it until I’m actually sitting in the Chair O’Doom, wearing one of those huge, unflattering capes, and then ask for a fringe anyway.

(I’m kidding about the fringe.)

(Probably)

Meanwhile, Terry had lots of fun today making me look like “a mutant” (his words) with Photoshop. I’m particularly amused by the mad skillz he has employed to draw in the part of my sweater which was covered by my hair in the original photo. I promise I don’t ACTUALLY have a hunchback. Well, not so as you’d notice…

Almost 100% certain I’ll be going with the one on the bottom right…

(These all have about 5″ taken off the bottom, by the way. Except the,er, Bichon cut, obviously…)

Say you’d had a really bad haircut. A haircut so bad, in fact, that even now, months later, you’re still growing it out, and while it may not look too bad to the naked eye, only you (and now the five or so people who read your blog) know how much time you have to spend trying to wrestle it into submission every morning. (Clue: a LOT of time.)

Say you know that, at the current rate of progress, you still have quite a few months to go before your hair will return to anything like “normality”.

Would you:

a) Say, “To hell with it!”, make an appointment with the hairdresser and have it cut to shoulder length (or, OK, maybe just below that), thus getting rid of most (but not all) of the mullet-like layers in one fell swoop, but leaving your hair the shortest it’s been since you were about 14. And you’re really not sure how you’re going to feel about that…

b) Say, “To hell with it!”, leave it to continue growing out for another month (even although some mornings you’d like to rip it clean out of your head) and spend the money on shoes instead.

c) Take the sensible-but-boring approach of getting it cut, but only having a couple of inches taken off, so you will continue your progress towards normal, non-layered hair, but slowly.

d) Get a fringe.*

Your feedback on this most important of issues would be appreciated.

*Note: I’m kidding about the fringe. Probably.

A few weeks ago, I started using a new hair conditioner. It’s called ‘Radiant Red’ and as the name suggests, it’s made especially for us redheads. (And very good it is too, by the way: you should totally buy it. Unless, of course, you don’t actually have red hair, in which case that would be a bit silly.)

Anyway. The conditioner is called “Radiant Red” and trust me, this is not a reference to how my hair looks after I’ve used it, but a reference to what the conditioner itself looks like. It is red. Oh so very red! Radiant red, you could say. Or you could just say, “Oh my holy hell, I wish I hadn’t bought white towels now. And a white bathroom suite.” Because trust me, this stuff gets absolutely everywhere. One thing I’ve learned about myself since I’ve been using it is that I apparently flick my head around like a demented person when I’m in the shower. (WHY?) I know this because every time I use the conditioner, the bathroom ends up looking like THAT scene from Psycho. GOD.

Luckily, the stuff washes off.  Not so luckily, I am the person who has to wash it off, which I guess is only fair, really, given that I’m the one doing all the head flicking.

So, yesterday I decided to have a shower while Terry headed out to walk the dog.  I thought this was quite cunning of me, because not only did it get me out of having to be outside, where it is cold, it also gave me a good excuse for not answering the phone while Terry was out. Or, indeed, the door.

The postman arrived at the door with a package for me while I was in the shower. I didn’t even hear him knock, on account of how Rubin wasn’t there to throw a complete fit at the sound of someone walking up the driveway, so I continued to merrily apply my RADIANT RED conditioner to my hair, in blissful ignorance of the fact that there was now a package waiting for me. So the postman took the package to our neighbour, and a few minutes later Terry arrived home, let Rubin into the house and then headed over to our neighbour’s house to collect the package.

For reasons that still aren’t clear to me, he did not take his keys with him when he did this. So the door closed behind him, and locked, forcing him to knock to gain re-entry.

I, meanwhile, was still in the shower, still coated in RADIANT RED, and still completely unaware that all this had happened. So when Terry knocked on the door and Rubin started a hysterical barking in response to this, I was confused. Apparently Rubin was home, but Terry was not? Had Rubin made his OWN way home from his walk then, and somehow let himself into the house? What had happened to Terry? And why was Rubin barking hysterically? Was it… OH MY GOD… could it be that something had happened to Terry while out walking, and Rubin was, at this very moment, trying to get me to follow him to the scene of the accident, where I would no doubt find Terry stuck down a well, calling feebly for help while his faithful hound raced home for reinforcements?

Well, no. Terry had just locked himself out, and so it was that I was forced to abandon my lovely warm shower and run the naked gauntlet of the freezing cold house, scattering RADIANT RED as I went, in order to let him in. By the time I got back to the bathroom it literally looked like a massacre had just taken place. The walls were splattered with RED.  The floor was splattered with RED.  The ceiling? RED. (HOW?) The bath? Filled with a pool of RED, that I swear to God, looked exactly like blood. Seriously, I am still amazed at how far that stuff goes. I’m still finding bits of it now, every time I go in there. And I really wish I had thought to take a photo at the time but clearly I’d more pressing matters to deal with at the time, so all I have to show for The Incident is this:

The Afterbath

They were on the floor of the bathroom as I swept by them, and the photo actually doesn’t do justice to the sheer amount of RED I had to clear up. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Oh, and that package Terry went to collect for me? Contained two more bottles of the RADIANT RED. I’m not even joking.

So, yesterday I went to the hairdresser and had a big ol’ chunk cut off my hair.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those entries, where I end up screaming and crying that OMG, it’s SO UNFAIR, and I HATE MY LIFE. No, this is actually a good hairdressing story – or as good as a hairdressing story can get for me considering I’m still growing out a MULLET, obviously.

Anyway, as you know, after my last brush with hairdressing hell, I had sworn to never let a pair of scissors near my head again, and to just let it grow until it got so long I had to employ a team of small children to walk behind me at all times, carrying it. I believe the name “Rapunzel” was mentioned. And the thing is, I totally intended to stick to this plan, but a few weeks ago I suddenly realised the plan was fatally flawed, because while it is true  that the front part of my hair has, indeed, been growing, SO HAS THE BACK. At the same speed. So if I just let it grow I would basically never be free of the Mullet. I’d just have a super-long mullet instead. Yeah.

Gradually, then, the unwelcome truth became evident: if I ever wanted to hold my head up in public again, I would have to just bite the bullet and submit to having large chunks cut off the back of my hair every few weeks, so that eventually the front and back would meet in the middle, so to speak, and I would have “normal” hair again. Maybe.

Well, for the last few weeks, each day I have faced an almighty battle not to just pick up a pair of scissors and hack it all off myself. It is THAT BAD. And yesterday morning I woke up, looked in the mirror and realised that I could not tolerate it ONE DAY LONGER, and that if I couldn’t get it cut right that very day, I would be doing it myself. Given that I am the clumsiest woman alive, the second option didn’t sound good even to me, and so it was that I found myself in the car and driving towards the only salon I knew might be able to squeeze me in on a Saturday afternoon, repeating the mantra, “I will not ask for a fringe, I will NOT ask for a fringe” over and over again.  In fact, I repeated that mantra so many times I’m actually amazed I didn’t just walk into the salon and shout “NO FRINGE!” at them.

I didn’t, though. And they told me, yes, they could fit me in, so, with fast-beating heart, I sat myself down with the stylist and told her the tale of The Mullet, after which she moved in for a closer look at the offending hair.

“OH MY GOD!” shouted the stylist, jumping back as if stung. “This is… this is a MESS!”

Now, I have to admit, I felt ever so slightly smug about this reaction. The thing is, no one has ever really believed me about how bad this haircut was. For the past two months, I’ve mostly tied it back, cunningly trying to disguise the fact that I now looked a lot like Billy Ray Cyrus, when viewed in a certain light. And, you know, there is the fact that I’m a known drama queen, and I just know most people have listened to my tale of woe and thought, “yeah right, whatever. Bet it looks exactly the same.” But it was NOT the same. And this New Stylist had instantly seen it for what it was.

“There’s a really big difference between the length at the front and the length at the back,” she said, staring at the hair as if it might bite her. “It’s almost like…”

“Like a mullet,” I said. “Yes, I know: you can say it.”

“Yeah,” said the hairdresser, warming to her theme, “But the thing is, I bet even YOU don’t realise how bad this is. I mean, you can’t see the back of your head. Seriously, YOU SHOULD SEE THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD!”

I just nodded at this, as if I hadn’t spent hours in the bathroom over the past few weeks, holding up my little Sephora mirror to try and view the back of my head. And then weeping. And drinking.

“I mean, I’d have hated to have seen this when it was first done,” continued the stylist, who was actually starting to enjoy herself just a little bit too much at this point, really. ”That must’ve looked TERRIBLE.”

Then she tried to persuade me to let her cut it to shoulder length. “It won’t fix it,” she said, “But it’ll make it look less like a … well, you know.”

Readers, I held firm. I know she was right, but I was nervous enough about being back in The Chair (“You must be terrified!” said the hairdresser cheerfully as she started snipping. “I would be!”) without adding the pressure of a Dramatic Change into the mix. So we compromised, and she cut it to just a couple of inches under my shoulders.  This actually still feels like a Dramatic Change to me (when I brush it I get that horrible sinking feeling when the brush suddenly encounters air and I’m all, “OMG WHERE IS MY HAIR?!”), but I realised a long time ago that when you have long hair,  no one ever notices the fact that you suddenly have four inches less of it than you used to. This theory was proven last night when we went to visit my parents and neither of them noticed, even when I swished my head around ostentatiously. They just thought I was having a fit or something.

Anyway, it’s still going to take months to grow out the mullet completely, but the point is, I have at last had a haircut that didn’t make me cry afterwards, and I think this could be a turning point in the career of my hair. I feel like maybe the ancient curse has been broken, and there is new hope that the mullet may one day be defeated. And I was going to blow-dry it and style it all nice, then get Terry to take a picture of it, but then I thought, “Why do that when I can just sit around on my ass letting it dry naturally and get all frizzy first?” So I did. Then I remembered that when Terry takes photos of me, they generally end up looking something like this:

windy!

He took this while we were out walking the dog today. “Take a picture of my hair,” I said. “Try not to make me look like a lunatic,” I said. Gah. So it looks like this is about as good as it’s going to get in terms of photos of The Hair:

There were others, but I swear to God, I had my eyes closed and was frowning in every. single. one.  So, um, yeah.

Maybe I’ll ask for a fringe next time?*

(*joking!)

As you go through life, you start to realise that there are some things only stupid people do. Pouring bleach in their coffee. Almost choking to death on their own dinner. Wearing crocs.  To this short list, however, I would add one more item: trying to cut their own hair.

Now, I know not to cut my own hair, and specifically, not to cut my own fringe (or "bangs" if you’re in America). The reason I know this? Because I have done it before. Many, many times, in fact. And it has never, ever, worked out well. My hairdresser has told me not to do it. My friends have told me not to do it. I have told myself not to do it. So, what do you think I did today, folks?

I cut my own hair.

It was the work of moments. Do you ever get those days where you’ve been perfectly happy with your hair, and then suddenly you wake up one morning and you just can’t bear to have it on your head any more? I do. And today was one of those days. My frustration with my hair was largely focused on my long, sideways fringe. Up until yesterday, this fringe had done nothing to annoy me. This morning I woke up and it was totally in my eyes all the time. "What would be really stupid would be if I tried to cut my fringe myself!" I thought, heading for the bathroom. "But I’m not stupid enough to do that, nosiree! Why, small children aren’t stupid enough to do that. Even Britney Spears isn’t stupid enough to… oh no, wait…"

The next thing I knew, the scissors were in my hands and my fringe was on the floor. D’oh.

So, as you’re reading this I bet you’re probably thinking "How bad can it be? I bet it’s not that bad at all?" It is that bad, folks. I look like someone attacked my head with a lawnmower. Luckily for me, hairbands have been going through a bit of a resurgence recently. You know, those big, wide, Alice in Wonderland style bands? They are everywhere. I even own some myself. The problem with that, though? Those headbands look really stupid on me. Seriously, I look like an overgrown, Sloaney child right now. And this, my friends, is how I will look for the rest of the summer – or for a few weeks at least. Pity me. And also: let this be a lesson to you: never try to cut your hair yourself.