I Feel Bad About Feeling Bad About My Hair (In the time of Covid)

I don’t know about you guys but I’m exhausted.

I’m all at once raw and stoic, fearful and fearless, feeling the big sadness, exploring the pockets of grief that show up unexpectedly, expressing absolute candor and telling lies of omission because, let’s face it, it’s easier. All of this happens in the space of a day if I’m lucky—or an hour if I’m low on sleep.

I. AM. DYING. TO. WORRY. ABOUT. SOMETHING. OTHER. THAN. DYING.

So, when I reached out to my dear friend of thirty-something years, my hairdresser, to see how they were doing, and found them struggling to survive, (let’s not be overly dramatic here) make ends meet, I turned my attention toward a much more familiar obsession. My hair. Because hair is everything.

I can feel all of the rapid eye blinking virtually changing the direction of the jet stream as you read that, and if you think that’s bad, then you should stop reading any further because I am not the spirit animal you seek.

I am shallow. Some may call me a heartless turd even as the news breaks my heart every goddamn day. But I tell you guys all the truths. Even when they’re complicated. Because I know deep down, that we are all more alike than we are different. And that spending a few hours being “normal” felt like redemption. Like an extra large scoop of ice cream in hell.

Anyhow, read on if you can.
xox

Dear Pearl-Clutching-Barbara’s,

I did something subversive today that I’m reticent to tell you about. BTW: Reticent and I seldom, if ever, breathe the same air, so this is weird. 

I drove almost one-hundred miles each way to do a cocaine drop, run guns to the border, get a haircut.

A haircut. Something that I’ve done without a scintilla of forethought and a minimum of fanfare (although that purple fringe did make me want to throw a parade) every 45-60 days—of my entire adult life.

Now, before you go and choke on your kale salad, hear me out. 

About a week ago I woke up and looked in the mirror only to find Phil Spector – The Trial Years, staring back at me. 

You see, I’ve spent most of my early Covid-19 weeks congratulating myself on listening to the thunder rumbling in the distance. I, with my keen sense of the obvious, sensed a lockdown was imminent so I bought enough supplies, food, and such (although, full disclosure, the voices in my head did not warn me about the toilet paper shortage and I’m pissed—irony alert!) to take care of a traveling circus, which, if you knew us, is not such a stretch. I have also learned in the past few months how to use Zoom, paid for the upgrade, and purchased a hot spot to support my janky office internet.

But, (and this is a bone of contention I’m picking with the rumbling thunder) I have come to realize that the high maintenance haircut I’d gotten recently was a mistake. In the beginning, it was a fun and flirty 70’s shag that played up my natural curl. Soon, it transitioned to The Rachel, and now it’s so big and unruly that if I don’t arm wrestle it into blow-dried submission—it scares dogs and small children whose company I looked forward to on my walks every day. 

Yet, I feel bad about feeling bad about my hair.

Everyone gets outraged when you get off-topic. It’s a literal pandemic out there! People are dying!

I get that. I do. How could I NOT? But I cannot stay in the big sadness 24/7. I just can’t. I’m still alive, and the anxiety will kill me before the virus ever does if I don’t refocus my attention sometimes. 

So hair.

Over the weekend I spoke to my stylist via the dark web like all good subversives do. In reality, it was by text but you get the gist.

“How r u doing?” I inquired.

“Ok.” They replied.

“Just ok?” I winced, knowing I could be opening a Pandora’s Box of Pandemic Misery.

“Yeh…I’m out of money.” 

Gut punch. I saw the three little dots waiver…then disappear. Uncertain what I could do to help my mind jumped on its habitrail. I could send them a check for the haircut I’d missed, which I knew they would never cash and send back with a mildly sardonic note and a loaf of freshly backed banana bread, OR…

“When can we do this very forbidden thing?” I asked like I was holding Liam Neeson’s daughter for ransom. Months went by. Okay, minutes, but when it feels like the FBI is about to come and bust down your door, well, it feels like a long time.

“I can do it in a week,” they replied.

I don’t know why, but I was surprised.

“You can? I mean, how does that even work?” I texted back.

Are you beginning to see what a terrible criminal mastermind, rule-breaker I am? I am the worst kind of bad. I treat it like a joke and then I wait for the other person to incriminate themselves. Not really, but it started to feel that way. Texting is so weird. It is void of all nuance and sarcasm and THAT is why I am so often misunderstood. 

Anyway, they explained that they’d been mixing and delivering hair color complete with instructions to client’s doors and that they’d started to cut one person’s hair a week, behind a partition in the back of the salon while following very stringent guidelines. See you guys? Other people, in a very prohibition kind of way, had been bending the rules! (Which by-the-way would still hold no water in an argument with my mother.)

“First, it’s gonna smell like Lysol-hell in here because I disinfect the place like I’m about to perform open-heart surgery. I’m gonna take both of our temperatures when you get here, we’ll both be wearing masks and gloves (see what they did there, they didn’t suggest, they insisted) Then I’m gonna dip you in a vat of sanitizer AFTER you wash your hands and I’ll always stand behind you.” 

“Uh, okay.”

“It’s what they’re going to make us do in a few weeks anyway, only with more people so…” Their text trailed off at the thought of trying to style hair while staying alive, a skill-set that transcends any beauty college curriculum. 

“Okay, so when?”

“Wednesday,” they texted back. “It’s that day that follows that day that’s after the weekend.”

That was funny. We both sent laughing emojis.

“Hey thanks,” they texted, “This really helps me.”

“Me too! (kiss face emoji) That wasn’t a lie.

And that’s the point really, isn’t it? To help the living keep on living? 

That night I felt different about myself. I’ve been such an obedient quarantiner. I haven’t ventured further than the market, hikes, and walking the dog. But now, clearly, I am someone who runs toward the Zombies. I swim the moat. I take matters into my own hands and…I can feel the lingering stares and all the nostrils flaring out there.

STOP.

Let’s put this in perspective, shall we? I’m not storming the barricades brandishing an assault weapon in lieu of a mask— I’m getting a haircut in a level three quarantine setting.

On my one-hour-plus drive to this clandestine, undisclosed location (that I had to find on Google maps) I couldn’t help but notice the lack of traffic. It felt surreal. So did the yellow helicopter that hovered ten feet over our heads on the freeway. Three separate times, three different yellow helicopters appeared out of nowhere, hovering low over our cars while we drove underneath them.

I called my husband.

“Helicopters are tailing me!” I hyperventilated into the car’s Bluetooth. 

“What?”

“Yellow helicopters are hovering above my head on the freeway!” 

“Yellow? Well at least they’re not all black,” he laughed.

“Well, maybe the black ones are yellow now! I’ve seen this movie! This does NOT end well!”

Suddenly, the moat didn’t feel worth swimming.

My mind was reeling. I was an escaped Tribute and the Capitol was here to take me back into custody.  I had broken free and The Google had turned me in! 

Just to be clear, I don’t want to live in a dystopian world like that. 

So I hit the gas, coddiwompling toward what felt like freedom.

“You’re overreacting,” he said. (As an aside, that is just the perfect thing to say to a hysterical person, especially if you’re their husband. I’m not kidding. It immediately turns their fear—to rage, which somehow feels more manageable.)

“You’re fine.” (Again, this may be ideal for soothing a hostage-taker—just not your wife who is being harassed by helicopters.) “You’re getting a haircut not trafficking children.”

“Okay, gotta go, bad cell!”

Hi, my name is Janet. I’ve been cutting my own bangs with dull cuticle scissors after too much wine, so I broke quarantine in favor of a haircut by someone with sharp shears and a license.  

Listen, Barbaras, we were safe. The salon was empty and will continue to sit empty for another week to “rest”. My stylist lives alone. I live alone (almost). They needed the money and I needed some fresh air and open space.

I know. You’re outraged. 

But Carry On Anyway,
xox Love, Janet