the tortoise hair
One of the things Jennifer decided to do during her vacation last week was to get her hair cut. This is always an interesting experience. Jennifer has had basically the same hairstyle her entire life. Long, straight, all the same length. There have been interludes of bangs, and layers, and that time in the mid-80s when she tried something involving cutting most of it off, except a very long rat tail. And then there were the early months of her life where she was pretty much bald. But otherwise, nothing too complicated.
One of the problems with having such a straightforward hairstyle is that it seems silly to pay someone a lot of money (or really any money) to maintain it. When Jennifer goes in and asks a professional to basically cut in a straight line she encounters two small issues. First, the professional finds this boring and usually tries to talk her into something more challenging for them to do. Second, most places charge extra to cut long hair, even if you're only getting an inch cut off. This is particularly annoying to Jennifer b/c she's asking them to do something that a vaguely competent monkey could do. This is why much of the time she just trims her hair herself, gets a friend to do it, or doesn't bother at all.
But every once in a while she decides that she really ought to be a bit more civilized and get a "real" haircut. The other problem with having long hair is that getting any substantial amount of it removed is a mildly traumatic experience. At least it is for Jennifer. This may seem silly b/c, as we all know, the saving grace of any haircut is that no matter how it turns out, you know it will eventually grow back. But Jennifer says that her hair grows so slowly that when it all gets chopped off, she always feels somewhat upset. Actually, we've heard that everyone's hair grows at the same rate, it's just that some people's hair is more fragile and breaks more easily. Whatever, Jennifer says...it still takes forever to get it back to where it was before. Especially if it's not all the same length anymore. Because then, of course, you have to wait for the shortest pieces to grow out.
The other problem Jennifer has with having anything other than long, straight, all the same length hair is that then you have to actually do something with it. With her standard hair, she just has to wash it, brush it, maybe blow-dry it. Then usually at some point she gets annoyed by her hair and sticks it in a ponytail or ties it into a knot. But with her latest hairstyle she has to put a little more effort into. Not the kind of effort that some people put into their hair, but still. Jennifer's not really one for "styling." She thinks the last time she owned a bottle of hairspray was probably around 1989 (well, technically she had possession of a bottle until fairly recently, but she thinks she bought it almost 20 years ago--which just goes to show you that she never used it).
Anyway, she's still getting used to it. It's not like it's super-short. The longest pieces are past her shoulders. But the shorter pieces keep trying to escape and go find their own way in the world or something.