A rediculously long post about my hair

It's been a year since I chopped my hair off. 2010 was the year of the pixie and now I've decided to grow it out again.

For a while I toyed with the idea of going even shorter. A la Emma Watson's new doo:

via

I love, love, love this hair cut. Andy was less than enthusiastic when I asked his opinion, but you know what? It's my hair.

Ultimately, I have decided to put this uber-short style on the back burner. You see, last spring my hair developed a new identity called "getting older" and it has caused me to rethink my hair choices. What started out as three gray hairs on the top of my head has multiplied and spread to other parts of my cranium. I studiously refused to pull out any of my grays, and threatened bodily harm to those who tried, for fear that pulling them out would cause more to appear. Alas, my tolerance of the original squatters did nothing to deter others from joining the party.

What does all this have to do with cutting my hair or growing it out? Well, I'm just not ready to start coloring my hair. I like my natural color and while there are a couple specks of silver in it now, there aren't enough for me to consider covering them up. With a short cut like the one above, though, you can see every.single.hair, including the gray ones. It's a lot easier for a gray hair to get lost in longer hair. If it's short? There's no covering the gray unless you're using color from a bottle.

My decision has been made and my last hair cut was three months ago. Usually, if I were going to keep up my pixie, I would head to the salon about now. Instead I've been having battles with the flat iron every morning trying to work my shaggy mop into something respectable. A couple days ago I knew the battle was over and I was going to have to get a trim. If you've ever grown out a pixie you know it takes regular trims to keep it from looking like you've turned into a character from Fraggle Rock. With my trusted hair dresser 1600 miles away, in North Carolina, and my hair staging a revolt every morning, I had reached a crossroads; deal with the mess until it got a little longer (possibly another three months) or fork over the cash to someone I've never met who could potentially ruin all my hard work.

It would have caused me physical pain to pay $50+ to someone for a trim. And then what happens if they suck and screw up my hair? Generally I don't trust a new stylist with a lot of layers & if my hair has anything right now it's layers, upon layers of hair. On the other hand, it was in no shape to grow for another three months untended. Something had to be done, as I was looking more and more each day like I had a mullet. In truth, my hair is healthy and only needed an inch taken off the bottom in the back. Just to make it look a little more like a bob and less like a grown out pixie cut, which is exactly what it was. I would have just done it myself, but I'm not a contortionist and I can't take my head off or turn it around, so I was at a loss.

In a moment of desperation last night after dinner, I bought some trimming shears and a mirror. Then we came home, I gave Andy a quick tutorial on what to do and I turned him loose. I enlisted the help of our house guests and roommate to make sure it was straight and that he wasn't cutting large chunks out of the back of my head.

After it was all over and I could breathe again, I looked in the mirror and you know, he didn't do a half bad job. It got the extra inch off the back and while it certainly isn't a pro job, it will pass for another three months until my hair has more growth and I feel comfortable letting a stranger cut it.

Have you ever grown out a pixie cut? How did you deal with it & keep yourself sane?