Hair Disasters Part II, Killing Boredom and Bob Cowsill Makes Me Think Deep Thoughts

You know your hair is a disaster when you take a photo of the disastrous results and your friend – who has been cheerfully hopeful through your description of the horror – now suggests you look into a wig or extensions.  When SHE gave up on improving the style – which is to say, there wasn’t a “style” anywhere in sight - I knew there was no hope for it.

I have never worn a wig, never expected to ever wear a wig or an extension ... my hair was beautiful just the way it was, if a little straggly at the ends ... and now I was considering it, that’s how big a disaster my hair was.  I can’t imagine that one stupid salon could completely trash someone’s hair, but this one did.  This salon cut aged me 20 years, I looked so bad.  (And no, I will not post the photo here.)

If – a few years down the line – I post something stupid, like:  “I’m thinking of getting my hair styled”, I hope someone will jump online immediately and scream, “DON’T DO IT!”  Trust me, I’ll be forever grateful.

So, I bought my wig, which matched my original hair as much as we could, and I look actually unchanged and okay in it, if I can figure out how to pin it properly. How odd that I had to buy fake hair to look exactly like I did before the hair cut.  It turns out I’m allergic to the hair “cap” that holds it in place – as soon as she put that on me, my scalp started itching so badly, she had to take it off and use pins.  It is not dramatically different than my hair was before the disastrous hair “cut”, other than there are a few more highlights than I had.  I can live with that.  I know I won’t have to wear it for a very long time; once my hair grows back out again, I won’t need it.

They also said (and by “they” I mean the very nice wig lady, her daughter, and a random customer who happened to be sitting in the daughter’s hair cutting chair):  “Don’t ever take any pictures of yourself!” – they unanimously agreed I look nothing in a photo like I look in person – I’m just one of those people who take bad photos – who look good in person and look horrible in photos, I mean.

THANK YOU!!!  I already knew that, but people who thought they were being nice kept saying, “Noooo, you look fine!” while looking at photos of me.  No, I don’t.  I knew I didn’t.  Thank goodness three other people completely agree with me, and were honest enough to say, “Yeah, you look like shit in that photo!”  I felt so relieved to hear that, you have no idea.  For the longest time, I really thought I looked as bad in person as I did in photos, and if that doesn’t mess with your self-confidence, nothing will.

Rule #1 of True Friendship:  if someone looks a lot worse in a photo than they do in reality, don’t lie and say they look just the same.  All you will accomplish by doing that is messing with their self-image.  I could never figure out why I looked one way in a mirror, and like someone entirely different in a photo – in a way that had nothing to do with the face being reversed.  I just take really bad photos.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to those three people who never met me before and had nothing to lose by lying – she’d already sold me the wig, so it wasn’t like they’d lose a customer by lying.

Not only that, they all said that before they knew how I felt about the photo/selfie – their first reaction after the comment was, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” in the fear they’d offended me; I was the one who grinned from ear to ear and said, “THANK YOU!!”  And meant it from the heart, it was so nice to have people tell me the truth at last.  They were right, I take crappy photos.  After I said “Thank you!”, they all felt free to elaborate, “You don’t anything like that photo!”, and “You look at least 10 years older in this photo than you do in real life” ... it was such a relief to finally be vindicated!

The clothes that were altered look great too; I finally look OK, and I may have the courage to face my childhood crush now ... who apparently was into hiding out in tents when he was younger; don’t ask me to explain that photo, I have no idea what he was doing hiding out in a tent, or why he was suggestively inviting drooling and oh so willing readers of a teen magazine to come into it with him.  I just remember sighing dreamily over the photo scotch-taped to my wall when I was 12 and wishing he was within tent-invitational distance.

I am not betting on a surge of courage when I actually come face to face with the man, but the chances are greater that I’ll somehow find the courage to say more than “Bluh bluh bluh ergle duh ...” than I was before I fixed the hair disaster, anyway. 

But hopefully he’s used to people – who under most circumstances are outgoing, outspoken and confident - turning into blithering fools in front of him ...?  I mean, think about it:  I can face an entire class of students without blinking an eye, yet I completely fall apart at the seams at the prospect of facing Bob Cowsill?  Yes, it seems I possibly could.  Let’s face it, he’s not just anybody ... he’s (wait for the capital letters now) BOB COWSILL.  The same one I created a bewildering shrine for on my bedroom wall when I was 12.

But I was thinking last night – “Why him, of all people?” – and maybe it’s because of who I thought he was at the time when I was still 12, naïve and inexperienced:  at the time, I thought he was handsome, yes (and how!), but also intelligent, funny, thoughtful, poetic, gifted ... if you’d listened to me for all those years, since he and The Cowsills disappeared from public view, trying to answer the question, “What are you looking for in a soul mate?” – the same question you all had to sit through when I started this blog and didn’t even know he was still performing –  that’s what I had been looking for and never found - or at least not yet.  Not Bob Cowsill himself, obviously, but someone who was also handsome, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, poetic and gifted. The guys I got crushes on never lasted because they were none of those things, they were other things.  Maybe just one of those things, not all of them.  The guys who liked me unrequitedly had NONE of those things, which is why I ignored them for the most part.  Bob, in my young and inexperienced eyes at any rate, had it all.

So here was the question:  did the preference already exist before I caught sight of him for the first time, and he just seemed like he fit the bill - or is he the one whose imaginary image created the preference because he was my first crush?  Did every other guy since then have to live up to who I thought Bob Cowsill was, when I was much younger?  I say, “thought” because I never met him, talked to him, interacted with him ... maybe he was actually dumb, unfunny, incapable of deep thought, unable to rhyme two sentences sequentially without aid and not as talented as ... well, no, I can’t say he’s not musically gifted, he is.  And no, I really don’t believe he’s dumb, unfunny, etc., or any of those other things, or someone would have made mention of it by now.  Instead, everyone who has met him has said just the opposite.  He’s funny, he’s bright, he’s charming, he’s witty ... so maybe I had it right, back then.

But maybe he’s also a serious pain in the ass or something.  Maybe he is a “curmudgeon” as his sister Susan said once – although I can’t remember why she said it.  Oh yes, because he put Louise Palanker off for so long about doing the documentary, and was so unwilling to do it at first.  (And thank goodness he changed his mind about that, or I never would have rediscovered them!)  But, in all the successive years, was I looking for guys to live up to a standard of perfection that never existed in reality?

Something for me to think about, anyway.  I’m not at all sure it would change anything.  I would still search for someone who had the same qualities.  Or, if not all, at least a majority of them.

So I am now back to looking forward to the trip to New York.  I love going home ... I am always more energized when I’m home.  The city gives me energy; I feel more alive and more present when I’m there.

I’ve been practicing with a cane and took a major header into the kitchen counter.  Yeah, this is going well.  I’ve been drinking my dandelion tea with lemon and unsweetened cranberry juice ... and have no idea what it is supposed to do; I’m just stubbornly drinking it.  Purge me of toxins or something?  Increases my metabolism?  Makes me grow cranberries out of my ears?  Something useful anyway.  Well, when I find out, I’ll let you know.

And MEANWHILE ... I went back to sewing clothes again.  It took a while for me to unpack all of the fabric, patterns and sewing supplies and put them where they belonged ... but I finally started doing that again as well, while working on “Beautiful Beige” ... which is actually looking quite attractive at the moment.  At least sewing gives me something creative and productive to do ... while reading Paradise Lost and letting it percolate ... while preparing for a trip to New York ... while dealing with doctors, physical therapists and everything else.  Well, at least I’m not bored.