Good Hair, Bad Hair

Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry once described his hair using the adjective "free-range."

I can relate.

This hair thing is spiraling out of control, rapidly becoming a shine-serum-coated juggernaut that's draining my time and my savings account. It all started when my husband was vacuuming one day, and the vacuum cleaner was refusing to pick up even the smallest pieces of debris—fish flakes, cockatiel feathers, human toenail shards, that kind of thing. (We're an eclectic little family/school/flock, depending on your perspective as a species.) Anyway, an investigation of the contents of the vacuum bag showed us two things: 1) our cockatiel eats very few of the sunflower seeds that are included in large quantities in the more expensive bird food; and 2) my hair. A lot of my hair. There was enough in the bag to populate a whole new head. Then he flipped the vacuum over and inspected the brushes and other moving parts...and discovered they, too, were clogged with hair.

At the time, I had very long, thick hair, that apparently fell out a rate equal to the rate of re-growth, since with the amount of hair in that vacuum cleaner, it should have been way easier to pull a brush through what was left. Shopping for barrettes and cute clips and scrunchies that would hold it all without exploding into plastic shrapnel was a challenge. Something had to change.

"You should get your hair cut," my husband said.

I did. Not right away, and not because he said so. (Well, kind of because he said so.) Short, but not too short. And then my stylist said, "You could use some highlights..."

And so the obsession began.