I cut my hair.

My head feels lighter. anything involving the use of my neck fells almost surreal -- too easy, like gravity has ceased to effect the joinery between my head sn shoulders. I woke uo this morning with proper bedhead, rather than a horrifying mat of wadded blond beneath my cheek. I have a wee pony tail, the perfect length for a genuine Cop-Out Hairdo (toss it up and put a baseball cat over it) -- something I was never able to do with huge hair. I feel lighter. I feel free.

Let me back up a little. I have had long -- and I mean long -- hair all my life. Honestly, I have never cut it. Every six months or so, my mother would take an inch or two off to combat the worst of the split ends. Otherwise, it hung there, like a second entity attached to my body -- a limp. baby-fine, parasitic twin.

I kept it as long as I did for other people -- particularly my mother. She was talked into cutting her hair twice (and got one disasterous perm) when she was quite young, bitterly regretted it both times, and has spent the rest of her adult life growing it back. It was a great pleasure for her in my childhood to keep my hair long. When I was old enough t be allowed to cut it, I was always talked out of the idea -- it was special to ahve long hair. Your hair is beautiful. why would you want short hair like everyone else?

one word: migraines. having pounds of unruly mane attached to a screaming head is not exactly a barrel of fun.

Even now that I've lived on my own a year, it has been hair to get rid of the vicarious hair guilt. Just before I came home for Christmas, I joked that my parentrs might not recognize me when they picked me up at the airport. My mom suddenly got quiet and whispered into the phone, "you haven't...*cut your hair,* have you?" My joke about a mohawk did now go over well.

Last night, freshly showered and about to leave for the first Blow-Out! reading at The New Gallery, my hair was not behaving. It was a huge, obstinate mass of blond seaweed. I called to Ed in frustration to come into the bathroom and cut it off for me. To my amazement, he appeared, grinning, in the doorway with some scissors.

We then talked about it. I spazzed out for a few minutes but, after a few false starts, I handed him a ponytail that reached past my hips, squeezed my eyes shut, and told him to go for it.

It wasn't a snip. It was a wholesome, very satisfying shredding sound, punctuated at the end by the blades of the scissorscoming together with a "shink." My head bobbed up, like a baloon held under water, then released. New, smaller hair slithered forward and hung around my face.

I love it. I love it's flippy cheekiness, how healthy it looks hanging around my shoulders. part of me wants to leave it exactly as it is, but I suspect I really should get it professionally cleaned up a bit. Office scissors do not the best hair cutting utensils make.

The only downside I can see: while it does make me look much more professional and less fairy-princess-hippy-child-Buttercup, it does seem to make me look...younger. Which was something I never needed much help with. Michael (my amazing brother) was right -- I am going to be 30, PhD'ed, finally have babies, and peoeple will still stare and whisper about "that poor teen mother."

At least I'll have cool little hair. =)