I have a lot of hair. Not that it's thick or curly or poufy or anything like that, but it is long. It used to be waist length until Mom insisted I get a trim, and then it ended up being mid-length between shoulders and waist. It's been growing back for months and months now and still isn't back to waist length, which annoys me since that's the only length I've been happy with on my head.

I really prefer long hair over short in most cases. This is going to tick a lot of you off, but almost every girl I've seen with really short hair I just didn't find attractive any more. Anything above the shoulders tends to turn me off. As for around shoulder length, it's an okay style, but the thing is, it's not spectacular. Most people you meet have that hair length. You blend in with everyone else. That's not at all interesting or exciting.

I was incredibly pissed with my mother in the second grade because she took me to the hairdresser for what I thought was a trim and I ended up with it all cut off into a Buster Brown helmet hair do. "Oh, isn't it CUTE?" she squealed. I despised it right off the bat, and I hate looking at my school picture from that year because I look like a little nerdboy. I didn't even dress up for picture day that year (something I, who love to dress up, would normally never miss out on) because I knew there was no way I'd look good in that shot anyway. I never liked short hair before that, but I really don't like it now.

This pretty much traumatized me, hairwise, as I have never let anyone take full control of my head again since. I grew it out, which happened slowly. I don't have fast-growing hair on my head, so it took about ten years to get to a length I was happy with. I know if I ever do go insane and cut it all off, I probably won't get the length I used to have back again, so I'm even more reluctant. Waist length isn't an ordinary cut like everyone else has (shoulder length, bob, blah blah whatever). It's distinctive and dramatic. Only getting it there did lead to a lot of split ends because I was so paranoid about getting any hair cut off at all that I only allowed trims on rare occasion. I'm willing to live with them. I'd really have to chop it all off to get rid of them, and I don't want to do that, so no biggie. Likewise, I no longer care if my hair is dry or flyaway or in desperate need of conditioner 24-7. I use conditioner on it all the time, and it still remains dry, flyaway, and in desperate need of conditioning (how many times have I walked into a room after a shower only to hear Mom say "Didn't you condition your hair?"), so fuck it. It's my head, after all.

I think I'm justified in being paranoid about having my hair cut off, by the way, it's not just bullshit. I had a roommate a few years ago with butt-length hair who went in one day to get a trim. The stylist decided he'd rather cut her off to a few inches below the shoulders instead. The girl was devastated, and her parents wanted to kill her. So I won't let strangers touch my head. I have a stylist in my hometown that knows me, knows what I like, has been trained for years not to make her own decisions as to what to do with my hair, and doesn't try to talk me into a nice chop or surprise me with one. I am not interested in shopping around in this town and finding another hairdresser in case things go drastically awry with that one. Once a hair mistake has been made, they can't very well glue my hair back on.

Mom used to be obsessed with styling my hair. She stuck curlers in it, tied it up in rags, braided it, crimped it, curling ironed it so damn often I had bumps on my head from how many times she dropped it on me. The results were quite varied. At this point, I refuse to style my hair any more, texturewise. I'm not good at curling it or French braiding it or anything that requires a lot of tending at the back anyway, but nowadays I don't even want to take the time and effort to blowdry it, even if everyone says "it looks better that way." It also comes out straighter that way, as opposed to airdrying it, which promotes the slight waviness it already has. The only thing I've really felt like doing with it in years is dyeing it various shades of red (and drat, wouldn't you know it that before an interview, I need a root job).

There are two reactions a long-haired girl gets, I've noticed. Boys love it being long, girls want to chop it all off. One girl I know in particular (who, last I saw her, had systematically chopped off so much of her hair she might end up bald next) was obsessed with the idea of getting it all cut off. "It would look SO CUTE and you'd look SO HOT if you went REALLY SHORT!" she'd gush and gush. I came up with this page because of this girl, since I don't keep the horrible second grade pic around to prove to people that I don't look cute with short hair. I think her reaction to said page was "heh." Believe me, I don't need to look any cuter and hotter. I'm already needing to smack the boys down with sticks as it is.

(Amusingly enough, I just found said girl's new journal when writing this, and guess what's on one of the most recent pages? She changed her hair YET AGAIN. Different flat short cut, different color. Man, I don't know how her hair holds up after all that.)

I actually wrote the above hair rant like a month ago before I went home on vacation (didn't get time to post it, and it didn't really go with the holiday events of the time anyway), but it's become scarily appropriate as the family debate goes on about How Jennifer's Hair Sucketh On High And Must Be Chopped NOW For The Good Of Jobs And Humanity. Today I got e-mail from Aunt Susie (I should really clarify my aunts sometime, huh? This is the one that had the foreign exchange student and gives job advice, not the "master of unemployment" one.) also telling me that I should cut my hair short so I can look older and more respected in the business world. Okay, it's not like I haven't heard the whole "when you get older you must cut your hair short and dull and wear ugly gold earrings and blazers and heels every day until you retire" thing before. I know, I know, I know. (Though in all honesty, I have a young-looking face, and makeup, different hairstyles and different clothes haven't done a damn thing about said face so far. I don't think a hairchop will help.) But still, do I really want a job where I have to chop off my hair for it? Wearing clothes I don't like is one thing, I can wear different stuff on my own time. But I don't want to walk by mirrors, see my shorn head and shudder at my appearance for the next ten years. I'd rather wear my hair in a bun every day (a la the ten years I spent in ballet) than do that, thankyouverymuch. Besides, Aunt Susie has a really short bedhead do, and in all honesty, it looks really bad. This is what's respected in the world?

Sorry folks, but this is me, and I don't want to change it. I live with my hair 24-7, and the rest of you don't. I have zero interest in pleasing you if it comes at the expense of pleasing myself.

Off the main subject of today, I did hear back from reference #2 and she's thrilled to recommend me and all, so yay to that. And I got an e-mail from the president of a club I used to be secretary of, which kinda saddened me a bit. Specifically, asking me if I wanted to still be listed on the club's website and stuff like that even though I haven't been there for over six months.

I was in said club for� I think over two years. About half of that I spent as its secretary. Unfortunately I made the mistake of contradicting the VP of the club, and all hell broke loose. I used to consider the VP a friend, and most of the time, he is a nice guy. But if you ever disagree with him, well, think of Lex on Survivor after Teresa voted for him, only with access to e-mail. He goes fucking scary. After yelling at me online for contradicting him, he then sent around to half the club a loooooooong list of my failings as an officer. Some of that stuff he was completely right about. Some of it he was wrong and frankly, should have bloody asked me or the president about before saving it up for six months and exploding at me. He was also royally pissed at me for not taking over some of his duties- only he'd never you know, like, ASKED me to, so I don't think he has any reason to be mad at me for that one. (He thought I wouldn't do it, which is why he was mad, apparently.)

In short, he unleashed a tsunami of vitriol on me in front of a lot of other people, which I do NOT think is an appropriate way to treat anybody. Nor is it a good idea to save up your rage for six months when it comes to business stuff, either. Between his being an ass and my ex (who I was still speaking to at the time) encouraging me to quit (long not pleasant story as to why), I ended up quitting the job and the entire club. I didn't want to deal with the VP's vitriol on a regular basis, and I figured that would be what would happen if I stayed in his vicinity at all, even if de-officered. They found a replacement for me (the person I replaced in the job the first time) immediately and nobody's missed me since, I'm sure. However, since the replacement was, well, even less likely to take on extra stuff than I was (and I do know it should have been her job to have sent out the checkup e-mail I got, so maybe she's not doing a lot?), I do kinda wonder how the VP felt about that. Not that I want to ask or anything� Anyway, I'd told them all to take me off the site ages ago, but they never did (I suspect the prez and secretary, who I was friends with, just plain didn't want to), and seeing this come up in my e-mail again made me feel sad a bit. I didn't want to quit in the first place, but I felt like I had to. I said something back like "You know why I want off this, so take me off everything." Oh well, at least I won't be reminded of the whole thing any more after this.

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