My Week in Hair

Big on hair? Got questions about it? This is the blog for you. Each week, Big Hair answers your hair questions and shares an incident involving his hair, your hair, or the hair of the person next to you.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Keeping Up Appearances

Dear Big Hair: Recently, my boyfriend told me that I would never be a good writer because I don't have the proper hair. My boyfriend tells me that writers always have short hair, even women, and glasses. If they are women, it's that sort of punky hair--or it would be punky, if they were to dye it purple but usually they just leave it like normal. I'm very distraught. I love my hair. It is big. Can women with big hair be writers? --Big-and-Beatific Kerouac Wannabe

Dear Big-and-Beatific Kerouac Wannabe: Your boyfriend is a ninny. Of course you can still be a writer with big hair. The issue isn't whether you can be a writer but what kind of writer you want to be. Here are some of the kinds of writers who have big hair: (1) romance novelists (particularly those from Texas); (2) eighties music hipsters who were hip but are no longer and don't yet know it; (3) ummmm. Okay, that leaves two options open for you. I'd go for the second. I think they're a happier breed, living in their past but thinking it's the present, rather than living in their future dreams and waiting for them to arrive. Your chosen nom de plume (that's French for pen name, Ms. Kerouac Wannabe) suggests to me, however, that you want to write like a beat. Big hair, unfortunately, will not work for that. Can you see Kerouac with some huge pompadour and long strings rolling down his back? The guy would have gotten his hair caught in a passing car. To be a beat, you'll need to cut your hair drastically, probably in line with your ninny boyfriend's suggestion. I would, however, choose, instead, to be a hippie writer. At least then, you could keep your hair--though blowdrying and washing would be no-nos. I'm afraid you'll have to settle for dirty, unkempt, and flat--but at least you'll still have the long tresses for when you want to become a New York society maven writer to the stars.

For hair advice, write no1bag@gmail.com.

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