Big Girl Haircut

Potential Wise Saying of the Day: “You’re only as good as your last haircut.” Fran Lebowitz

My publisher just told me I need to do a “video thing.” That is, I believe, the official title: “video thing.” It’s to be 2-3 minutes so sales people can be inspired to sell my book more than the other dozen or so "just released" options. I’m supposed to share my passion for this work, tell why I wrote it, and inspire people to pitch it, all in 180 seconds. Oh! And make sure the camera is on a tripod.

OK...I’m married to Kevin the Video Husband, a tripod is no problem—staying married while I try to pimp my own baby to strangers in front of the tripod and the husband with the camera running might be. As a footnote: There is a reason why writers write: we don’t do excessively well, or don’t feel uber confident, or able to communicate adequately around people. A Video camera is worse than people. It’s like the ultimate Demanding Perfection Mother of All Time. A video camera allows you to say things over and over and over again using different inflections and facial expressions. And worse than that, you then have to look at yourself saying it over and over and over again, each time wishing you could make that extra chin go away and change your hair color to something perky. With Kevin the Video Husband behind a camera and me in front of it we get the domestic version of Anal-Retentive Godzilla meets Trauma Girl from Planet Fetal Position.

To stave off this potential tragedy I’m doing something pro-active: I’m getting a new haircut, but I’m not telling my hair. Each time my hair realizes it’s about to be cut, it reacts by looking perfect for several days prior. It will even go as far as to look “fluffy” and “lush.” Once, I fell for the ruse and cancelled the appointment thinking that my hair had gone past the booty-ugly “growing out” stage and was finally in the Long and Luscious zone. Within minutes of calling the salon, my tresses realized they had been spared so they immediately deflated into their normal, fine-haired, flat mousy brown selves. Each time, I tell myself, it will be different. This time I’m going to go into that Special Salon with that Girl that Everyone Loves and have her find that Perfect Cut that will totally change my looks—I’ll even do something dramatic—make a “new me” worthy of film and fame. The reality is that my hair does its own thing—the same thing, no matter what I do to it—poofs out in one or two inappropriate places, remaining stubbornly flat everywhere else, attempting to frame my face in a more or less a completely unmemorable way—they know deep in their little protein-based souls that they are not the follicles of Carmen Diaz or Reece Witherspoon—they are writer follicles and they must maintain the Look of a Writer because that is their duty.

So we're off once more, with freshly clipped magazine pictures in hand (with their faces cut out so I can better imagine how the New Do will fit my over 40 face) to try to find the Ultimate Haircut.

But shhhh...it's a secret.