Haircut

The moment I discover that my hair has become a shapeless mass, the fixing of it becomes a matter of urgency. At the first opportunity, I race into the bathroom, wet my hair and start slicing through the thick carpet on top of my head; long razor slices. Then I take random chunks out, thinning and shaping it so I no longer look like I’m wearing a helmet. I reach around the back and feel for the fluffy neck hair, grab it with two fingers and cut it out of my life! I make a solid mess of my hairline, which I will never be aware of, because I can’t see it.

I have always cut my own hair. It is curly and thick enough that on most occasions it is hard to see my amateur slashes. I figure I have saved myself thousands of dollars.

Platinum Lesbian

My last professional haircut was straight after I finished school. I decided it was time to throw away the long locks of innocence so I swapped it out for a Madonna-esque metallic white crop. At that time I was feeling wild and determined to make my mark on the world, like Madonna. I also thought I was a lesbian so there was probably something in that too. I remember the hairdresser giving me shots of vodka to numb the bleach burns on my scalp. It was very exciting. Half a bottle of vodka later, I was a gay rock star!

The bleach and cut cost a million dollars and lasted two weeks, which is about the same time I decided I was no longer a lesbian. Hence, my foray into my own hair design.

Recently, my hair cutting skills seem to have gone the way of Melbourne weather; my snips and clips have become unpredictable. Someone has stolen the precision and patience with which I used to tackle the task and my head has started to look a little bit home made. I have been calling it cool and street wise, but if I’m honest, it’s probably veering a little closer to the style worn by that woman who lives with 68 cats.

I decided it was time to start getting proper cuts. If not Melbourne, then where? The road back into the world of coiffure has been a bit rocky. 

Dog Out The Window

I started with Google:

‘Step into a lush paradise filled with tropical plants, flamingos, and rockabilly charm; where the coffee is always brewing and laughter often ensues!’ 

I wanted to go to that place. I could see myself amongst the tropical plants and flamingos (real?), while having my head massaged. But all that focus on ‘good times’ made me uncomfortable. Just say laughter didn’t ensue? Just say I drank too much free coffee and talked too fast and no one got my jokes? It was too much pressure, and besides, the experience would probably cost as much as my dog’s cruciate ligament.

One day I was wandering through North Fitzroy and spied a barber shop. Through the window, I could see that this was a groovy snipping hub. It was decked out with old chunky barber chairs and an enormous mirror that reflected a wallpaper of retro posters, and a queue of waiting hipsters with their lap dogs.

I joined the queue and flicked through the edgy graphic design magazines, with one eye on the artists at work, sculpting the hipsters’ short back and sides with cut throat razors, painstakingly chipping away at their lumberjack beards. I admired the pride that went into creating the cookie cutter heads. I patted a chihuahua.

There were no other women lining up for a haircut, but since I had less hair than any of those men I didn’t think that was going to be a problem. I was told that it was a little bit of a problem because no one had training in ladies’ hair. However, to my relief, one of the men put his scissors up for the challenge.

Like the hipsters, my hair was cut with remarkable attention to detail. I was feeling happy with the progress. The conversation, not so much. The hair artist and I couldn’t seem to find anything in common. My jokes were met with a polite chuckle. The tropical plant and flamingo nightmare was unfolding. The hair on my nose was starting to itch.

‘Does that cowlick at the back of your head annoy you?’

‘Not really. I can’t see it. I think it annoys you more.’

The next thing I knew, the hair dryer was screaming at my face and sending my hair backward like a dog out a car window.

I imagined saying, Please no! I beg you! but I felt obliged to sit there and smile because he had been nice enough to take me on. When my hair was completely wiry, he blow dried my face and dried my eyes out.

We were done. I was Christopher Walken.

I rushed home and snuck in the back door so Adam wouldn’t see my hair and then leave me. I got the scissors out and snipped off the hat.

Arcade Buzz Cut

It took about a month or so before cat lady appeared again. I didn’t want anyone to think that I thought my hair looked good. This time I was desperate.

Before the dawn light could compromise my ego, I rose and took myself across to the Preston markets. There is a dirty arcade over there that runs from the market to High Street. It is lit with fluorescent tubes and has an Asian noodle shop in it, called ‘One Noodle Happiness’  which has laminated pictures of various noodle dishes in the window. Opposite that is the hairdressing salon.

There was a Thai lady in there. Everything was black leather and chrome and there were pictures of 80’s hairstyles sticky taped to the walls. The lady was also decked out in black and silver and had a perm with a sequinned comb in it. Her name was Helen.

Helen told me to sit in the seat and ran her fingers through my hair.

‘It’s different lengths! I have to cut it very short! No style!’

 That’s OK, I said. Just tidy it up. That’s all I want.

While she made random chops around my head, she bemoaned the terrible resource she had to work with.

‘See! Very short!’ she said, pressing her finger into the front of my head - my attempt at creating an edgy fringe.

‘And this! Look how long it is to compare!’ She pulled the hair on the top of my head.

‘Yes. I know, just make it all the one length. That’s OK.’

She moved around the back, snip snip snipping, as if she was pruning back an annoying hedge.

‘There’s a big hole! Who put this hole in your hair?!’ Her finger pressed the back of my head where I had taken out a huge chunk.

‘Yes. I know. I don’t expect there’s any fixing that, but just tidy it up is OK.’

‘It’s a huge hole! Who put that hole there!’

‘I did, OK! I cut that hole in there! It was a mistake, sorry! So just do what you can with it.’

Snip snip snippety snip and then shaved off anything she missed.

And then she got out the blow dryer, puffed it all up, blew short itchy hairs all over my clothes and dried my eyes out.

We were done. I was a lesbian again.

‘There is no style! It’s too short! Come back in three weeks and I will make you look like that!’

She pointed to one of the magazine pictures on the wall. It was a profile of a girl’s head - shaved at the sides with wispy bits of hair around the ears, and a boof on the top. She had glitter on her eyes.

I was never going to see Helen again.

‘Three weeks! And don’t touch your hair!’

She was still yelling at me as I walked out the door, so I said sorry and walked home.

‘Don’t touch your hair!’

A Pink Rinse

I didn’t touch my hair.

A month later it turned into some sort of head merkin. I called my good friend Mari for the number of her hairdresser in Northcote. Mari has great hair. It’s always groovy and has pink streaks through it. I think she pays a lot of money for that, but I was ready to step into the big end of town.

When I walked through the door, my presence was completely drowned out by snipping and chatting, hair washing and coffee sipping. I was happy to disappear into the cacophony and let my self-consciousness go.

My hairdresser was all smiles and stories. Her name was Lucy, Lucy from Canada who was flying back for two weddings this year! Lucy who left no silent gaps, so I could swap my jokes for listening. I drifted off while she massaged the shampoo into my head and went through the itinerary of the first and then second wedding.

Eventually, we had to get down to the business of why we were there.

I told her my long and sordid hair history, through the reflection in the mirror.

‘…so you see, it’s been one disaster after another! I think I would like to grow my hair out now and I want you to nurture me through this process. I don’t believe I have to look like Janet Frame for the next six months while my hair grows. I want you to make that happen. Can you make that happen?’

‘Yes. I can do that.’

Her answer was a little too quick and confident, but then she had been firing off pleasant conversation like a machine gun since I came through the door, so I guessed that was her way.

‘The first thing we’ll do is take off that furry thing you have going on at the back. It’s like a mullet.’ She laughed, and I think I laughed.

A mullet? Was that an accurate description, really? How many years have I been walking around with a mullet? How can I tell all the people who've seen it that I didn't know it was there?

I watched her delicately slice through the merkin and methodically snip off the tiniest lengths of hair; a bit here, a bit there. She was good. Everything was going to be OK.

I settled into the rhythm of her conversation and scissors while I watched the reflection of her moving around my face.

…my face. What the fuck? What happened to my face?!

The clouds had miraculously parted, so the light was now streaming down from heaven, through the window and across my face, revealing great canyon sized wrinkles around my eyes and my mouth. God! They were also running across my forehead and neck! Lines telling stories about my indulgent life, drinking and smoking, baking in the sun and dancing at discos; stories so loud that everyone in the salon could hear them!

When did this happen?! Why am I not twenty? Everyone else in this salon is twenty. Where is twenty!

I tried to lean my head backward, away from the light, but Lucy kept straightening it for me, so I moved it ever so slightly to the side, but she straightened it again, ever so slightly. After a bit of experimentation, I realised that I could minimise the mouth lines by smiling, so I smiled for the next hour. They say that if you smile, it tricks your mind into believing you are happy. Not so.

‘So what do you think? I think we’ve definitely tidied it up nicely for this first stage.’

‘Yes. It’s great. Thank you for paying such lovely attention to me. Ignore my sad eyes, it's just that the world is mocking the youth I carry in my heart.’

She gave me the inevitable blow dry and we were done. I was a 45 year old woman.

My phone beeped.

Mari:

How’s the hair?

Alex:

It was all unicorns and rainbows until I sat in front of my own face for an hour. I’m going to drink some cocktails now and then call you and tell you about all my regrets and then read to you out loud from a book I found in the bin.

A 45 Year old Woman

Months have passed since that haircut.

I did go back to Lucy, just one more time. After all, it wasn't her fault I got old. But I decided that if she was not going to turn me into a younger version of myself, or someone else, then she was charging a bit too much.

I do understand, the lines are not going away. The lines are not going to go away - except in my bathroom, when I’m at a certain angle to the mirror and backlit by the light coming through the half open window on an overcast day. The rest of the time I say, fuck it! Those lines are marks of a life well lived! And it was fun. It was.

I have since found a no fuss salon in the suburbs. My fast and thick growing curls are being tamed by a beautiful young Italian lady called Christie, who smokes between clients. She massages my head at the end of a long day and asks me if I want a blow dry and a glass of wine. I say no to the blow dry. Laughter often ensues.