Hair Pt. I: "A Bang Look"

"I'm coming out.

I want the world to know,

She's got a weird-shaped skull."

— my hair, probably

My hair is everywhere except my head.

The couch, the floors, the sink, the bed, the kitchen counter are all covered with tiny almost-curls. It’s like I live with a dog. Or several dogs. Or a Sasquatch that never cleans up after himself.

As my former roommates can attest, I am very used to seeing my hair lying around. I promise it’s not because I’m a slob. It’s just part of the territory with insanely frizzy, curly hair that often, if you live with me, you will come across strands of it in weird places.

Like this one, seemingly defying the laws of physics floating on a wall.

Or this one, blowing in my ceiling vent without a care in the world.

Even when I’ve combed it through in the shower, afterward you can count on seeing a hairball so big I have more than once been tempted to put googly eyes on it and stop-motion animate it as a weird creature that lives in my drain. (An image you needed? No. But one I am happy to put in your head anyway.)

Because I’m used to shedding my mane constantly, I didn’t immediately notice when it started falling out because of chemo.

I was watching for it, inspecting my scalp every day waiting to hit the ominous 2-week mark my doctors had warned me about. But visually I couldn’t see a difference in the post-shower hairball or on my head. Blessings of the super thick frizz that had caused me so much stress for so much of my life — I had more time with it than expected.

Before I lost the curls completely, I decided I wanted to try bangs. It’s a look I would have been relentlessly made fun of for having while growing up, but has now come back with a vengeance thanks in large part to Queen Natasha Lyonne.

Having my little sister give me impulse bangs in my apartment bathroom while blasting 80s music was perhaps a recipe for disaster. But I figured hey, if it looked awful, it would all be gone in a matter of days anyway. At least this way I could feel like I was being productive by using an otherwise awful experience as an excuse for a fun experiment.

Here’s an extended director's cut of how that whole thing went down. (Language warning but this girl literally STABBED ME IN THE NECK so yes, I swore a few times):

Three days later I started losing hair fast. I couldn't run a hand through it without huge clumps tangling in my fingers. Thankfully, we were in the middle of nowhere for the weekend so I was free to pull it all out of my head without anyone staring. You know when clowns do that thing where they pull infinite handkerchiefs out of their sleeves? Like that, but suddenly my hair was not so infinite. A balding, sad clown pulling strand after strand after strand...

All around the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, dark curls are hanging from trees. Maybe birds are using it for nesting material. Maybe it's clotheslined a few bugs who's weren't watching where they were flying. Not to give anyone ideas, but the next time a grisly murder happens in the woods it will be SO EASY to frame me for it. For years they'll be finding my hair at crime scenes that haven't even happened yet. (I'll state for the record right now I am not, in fact, a serial killer. But I get it, you can't argue with the facts. And the facts are that my DNA is everywhere and I'm not quite sure if the Cancer Card works as an alibi.)

While in Michigan I managed to squeeze in one more experimental cut before the end.

I'm glad I did. It lessened the shock that would come a few days later when I finally had to shave it all and gave me a brief self esteem boost that maybe I could have pulled that look off for longer than I got to keep it.

In the process we learned that with short hair I look exactly like my brother.

We also learned that, while Queen is in my opinion the perfect soundtrack to everything, the second couple verses of Bohemian Rhapsody hit a little different these days.

I think we'll replace it with this bop for now.