Happy Birthday to Me

So yesterday yours truly turned 35. What? you're thinking. Impossible! You look so very, very young! (Even if you're not thinking that, it's what I choose to imagine you're thinking.) But it's true. I am now ten years past the age that, as a 10-year-old, I thought of as ancient. I think because I was going to turn 25 in the year 2000, which seemed highly futuristic and space age at the time, I equated that age with being super old.

Well, of course I no longer think that. I now know that 35 is when you turn super old.

Just kidding! Aside from the facts that I've started sprouting a stray gray hair here and there, my knees aren't what they used to be, and I can no longer eat whatever I want without gaining (mumble mumble) pounds, I still pretty much feel like I did in high school. I'm still just as into music and books, I still get celebrity crushes, and I still find most of the same things funny as I did back then.

To that end, I thought I'd devote this blog to something that made me laugh recently--and it has to do with a subject I've been dealing with since I was a kid and likely always will: my hair. The battle against my poofy, frizzy, hard to tame curls, to be specific. I know those of you who have straight hair will say that I'm crazy to have ever wanted anything other than my big, wild ringlets. I'd kill for curly hair! I can practically hear some of you shouting. But that's only because you never wet your hair in the morning and brushed it straight, sure it would stay that way, then went off to school, feeling divine, only to have it dry and become an enormous bush, making me look like I was walking around with a giant bird's nest on my head. Not cute at all. Don't get me wrong. I have love for my curls now that I have learned how to manage them. But back then, I didn't have a clue.

Anyway, my coworker, Jen Rodriguez, feels my pain. She, too, had dealt with the horror of the crazy curls--pre-mousse and blow dryers. A former art major, she recently drew this cartoon, explaining the trauma to a friend of hers, and it made me laugh out loud. For all you curly-haired girls (and boys) out there, I hope it'll make you laugh too. (If you can't read the writing, I've written the words at the very bottom.)

 

My Hair Saga (by Jen Rodriguez)

I like to get my hair "blown out." 

A good blowout makes me feel like...

MARY TYLER MOORE!

But blowouts are a lot of work if you attempt them yourself, on yourself, especially if you have as much hair as I do. 

After washing my hair, I am tempted to let it air dry. When it is mostly wet, it looks pretty cute. 

   Jen: Curly hair is not so bad. Why am I always trying to beat it into submission?

And I fool myself--yet again--into thinking it's going to look just GREAT. 

   Jen: It'll look CLASSIC! I will look like Hedy Lamarr! (Yes, Hedy Lamarr's face is included in this fantasy scenario.)

But THEN--my hair FULLY DRIES. And I see it in the mirror. (Width of hair on each side = width of face)

It's "classic" all right! Think "Baroque." Think Diego Velasquez's "Infantas." (If you hear chirping that will be the family of birds living in my hair.) 

   Jen: I think I found my Halloween costume!

   Jen's twin sister: Aren't you a little long in the tooth to be called "infanta" anything?

   Jen: Shut up and get me a hair dryer and a round brush!