Saturday night, July 7
10:30 p.m.

I'm crazed.  I've been home from Minnesota for forty-eight hours and I'm flying out tomorrow morning to engage in three nonstop days of important business in Georgia.  My plane leaves at 7:15 in the morning (or so they say; airline actualities are as crazed as I am), which means I need to set my alarm for at least 4:15 a.m. if I'm to have time to take a shower before I pack last-minute cosmetics, the car, and get to the airport in time to negotiate security lines with all the Sunday vacation travelers.  And believe you me, I need a shower.  But I'm too tired tonight.  Yes, I'm tired, cranky and wondering why I'm always--always--running behind with everything lately.

I pull out the side mirrors for a full view (can anyone explain to me why we torture ourselves like this?!), turn my head to the right and left, then tilt it up and down.  It's my hair.  I've needed a trim for a month.  When my hair gets too long on the sides of my head, it accentuates my jowls.  Great.  I'm reminded of the old Scout song that went something like, "Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro...," but it's my shaggy hair that's making my ears seem larger than normal.  I yawn again.  Turn off the light, then . . . turn it back on to take one more look.  (Masochist!)  I CAN'T STAND IT!  What kind of a Real Woman doesn't manage to get her hair cut before a business trip?!  I simply cannot abide by looking like this.

I storm to the kitchen, grab the sharpest scissors I can find and dig through one of the junk drawers until I spy a pair of thinning shears.  I can't remember why or where I got them and I don't recall ever using them, but it's time they take a test drive through the salt-and-pepper mess on my head.  Hey, the chunky look is in anyway, right?  What's the worst thing that can happen?

I don't have a comb with me so I rake my fingers from my crown to my forehead and again from my crown down to my ears.  I'm frustrated, tired and ticked at myself.  I just need to get this over,  so I furiously start whacking away, first with the scissors, then with the thinning shears, then more scissors.  Picture Edward Scissorhands going berserk and turning on himself.  Hair is flying and falling everywhere.

 "George!" I yelp mid-snip to my La-Z-Boy man.  "I'm going to leave a big mess in the bathroom!  I'm cutting my hair!"  Snip, cut, tug hairs this way and that, cut some more, wads of different lengths of hair hanging on my eyelashes, settling on my shoulders, gathering in the sink, falling to the floor.
 

"Okay," he hollers back over the roar of the TV.  The man is a saint.  After all these years of marriage and my zany schedule, he expects my hysterics about now.  He has no idea the mess I'm making and which I already know I'll leave for him to clean up tomorrow.  If I want to get any sleep, I know when I'm done I'll need to stumble straight into bed and try not to think about the 4:15 alarm--or what I've done.
 

No, I'm probably not going to get any sleep.

But getting the vacuum sweeper out at this hour is unacceptable.

Next comes the back of my head and my neckline.  Since I didn't wash or even wet my hair first, the giant cowlick on the back of my crown is living a pinwheel life of its own and I try to cut around it--at the very least not get it too short, which stylists often do.  Even though for a brief time during my senior year in high school I attended Roberts School of Beauty , I don't have a clue what I'm doing, but one thing is guaranteed:  I'm looking better--perkier--and I've definitely, most definitely, got the chunky look, or the chop crop, or one of many things I've heard the latest trend called!

And just like that, I'm done.  I can't take it any more.  I'm done.

Although I go right to sleep (a miracle!), I occasionally wake up and think, MY HAIR!  Then I doze off into another fitful sleep.  Soon my alarm is ringing.  It's time to get crackin' and . . . face the mirror.  On my way to the bathroom, however, I decide to make no determinations until after I've washed and fluffed my crowning glory--at least I hope there is enough left to fluff.

When I'm done with my shower, a quick comb, a little tugging at the hair with my fingers and a quick spray, Magic!  I cannot believe how good I look for a maniac.  Funny thing:  a woman at one of my appointments, one who's met me several times before, makes note of my hair and enthusiastically talks about how much she likes it.
 

The moral of this story?  Sometimes we need to just be brave and take things into our own hands.  Either that, or we need to be desperate enough to risk style, reputation and flunking a sanity test.

On a related note, storms were rolling through our area last night and the channel we were watching broke in to show us the fast-moving (our direction), dangerous swirling and colorful masses on their "Live Power Doppler."  In a direct quote, as the woman highlighted the dangerous area and blew it up full screen, she said, "We'll take this Live Power Doppler to the max."

They've got nothing on me.