My First Hair Cut of 2007

Cancer Bitch went for her $60 hair cut Friday with trepidations and a ruler so that she could send 10 inches of hair to Locks of Love, though it’s a controversial outfit, as her friend from Iowa City pointed out in a comment. (In 2002, it supposedly gave out fewer than 200 wigs and collected hundreds of thousands of dollars.) She came back with a more sophisticated haircut as part of her Gradual Program. This will get her used to seeing her own face. Hairdressers always say this: Now you can see your face.
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It was a one-person salon not far from my house, on a street with restaurants and houses and a liquor store. The owner has long Afro-Korean hair made up of little curly waves. It was tied back. She was very friendly and when I told her about my plan to cut my hair progressively shorter, she told me about her mother’s cervical cancer. Amazingly, she’d been treated well and successfully at the county hospital. She asked me if I was sure I’d lose all my hair, and I told her yes.

She did not approve of my triangle AKA umbrella cut, which I’ve had for many years. I never saw anything wrong with having hair that got progressively wider on its way to my shoulders. She also did not approve of my hair-around-my-face trim of a few weeks ago, which looks good when I put gel on it, which I hadn’t had time to do that day. I did it so that the hair around my face would curl. I told her I wanted today’s haircut, then a shorter all-around haircut, and then a Mohawk for a week. She wanted to make my hair very short, but I wasn’t ready for it. Her strategy was to make a diamond cut, which means that the hair would be wider on the sides than the bottom.

She measured the strands before she cut it and said to forget the ruler, she’d just give me a good cut. The pieces on the floor were about 4 inches long. So I’ll send a monetary instead of a 10-inch cuticle, cortex and medulla donation to one of the wig programs, for women or children. Once again, vanity triumphs. (I'm still not sure how effective any of the wig programs are. Locks of Love has been criticized, but now it's in the BBB's good graces. Wigs for Kids' finances weren't audited by a CPA. I can't find an evaluation for Beautiful Lengths.)

But back to the hair cut at hand. I think it looks good. It’s curly all over and you can see my face, which is rounder than I would like. At its longest, it's a few inches below my ears. I don't feel bad that this cut is only temporary. I’m going about this hair-cutting the way I have to. Losing all my hair at once would be too much of a shock. The hairdresser reminded me not to be lazy, and to put gel on my hair every day.

I am planning to get extra holes pierced in my ears so I can decorate myself when I’m bald. L doesn’t like multiple piercings, I found out today, after 11 years together. But he has no plans to try to stop me. He knows I have the cancer card.

I think I am burying the lede here: Chemo starts Monday, March 26, and hair is due to fall out 16 days later.