Still don't care for sock monkeys

My HS yearbook photo*

I was inspired to do something different with my hair today after spending way too much time looking at YouTube videos of how ladies with long hair style it so it looks like something other than a sad mop.  Because, my hair?  She is a sad mop, mostly.

One thing I noticed in these videos is that most of them are for gals with long STRAIGHT hair.  Hair that's easy to brush, doesn't tangle, can have fingers run through it without snagging in some hidden but of follicular turmoil, hair that looks glossy and awesome even when NOT styled.

Again - my hair?  Sad mop.  NOT an awesome glossy cascade, at all.

So, this morning, I did something about it.  Well, I did two things I don't normally do: blow-dry and straighten.  I know, totally going over the top, right?

My goal was to actually wear my hair DOWN, for once.  There are lots of women at work who wear their slightly long hair down, without benefit of a single clip or pin to hold it back, and I wanted a taste of that for my own style today, even though my hair is much longer that 'slightly long.'  For this look to work and not make me look like a big ol' hippie gal straight from 1972, the hair had to be straight.  Therefore, I spent something like 15 whole entire minutes with the heat straightener and went over each section twice, taking time to slowly pull out all the curl and wave in my sad mop.  It took forever!  Then I went back and curled the ends under, for a nice professional finish.  The style was to part it on the left, tuck the hair on the left side behind my ear, and arrange the hair on the right so it didn't get in my face and looked like someone had taken copious amount of their precious morning time when they could have been sleeping to style it.  Then, HAIRSPRAY, and off to work I went.

I felt great, and the hair looked really swell.  SO proud of myself for taking the time to take care of 'my look.'  Surely, this was to be the way of the future!

And that is what I thought, until just now, when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.

Y'all - The hair on the back of my head has re-sprung its waves, so under a layer of straight hair on top there's a layer of gently undulating hair, which is so much not a good look.  Also, the hair on the left was not cutely tucked behind my ear anymore, the carefully arranged right-hand-side hair had parted into stringy bits, and that curl I so lovingly worked into the ends is so far gone it's over the hill and halfway to Boise by now.  My cute time-sink of a professional-looking hairdo lasted all of about 4 hours and is but a brief and happy memory.

Clearly I'm not destined for sartorial greatness, and so all that hair is now whanged back into the clip I brought with me 'just in case' and I look just like I do every other stinking day.  Like someone who doesn't give a crap about their hair.

This girly thing is hard, y'all.  Is it really worth it?

Tiff out.

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*Not really.  Mine was worse.