Well, they took the rain and cooler temperatures for the weekend out of the forecast. (Is it me, or does it seem like forecasts are failing more regularly? Several times lately the weather people seemed fairly certain about something and then it changed shortly after).
it's going to be hot. Very hot. They're predicting heat indexes of 105 or over. I'm glad my only plans for the long weekend were to come in and work on the chapters I am proofreading (hopefully they leave the ac on in the building like they did two weekends ago - then again, it's a dropbox application I'm working in, so I could work at home).
I....just....I'm not ready for it to be this hot again.
Finally, this morning, I just said, forget it, I don't want hair down on my neck today (even though we are in an air conditioned building) and dragged out my hairpins and put my hair up in a bun at the nape of my neck. I think I wound up using eleven hairpins to hold it and still the very wispy end of the ponytail escapes. (I have heavy hair).
I know, I COULD cut it, but I've had my hair this way since I was 19 or so, and there have been too many other changes in my life this spring. And also, my hair, to be manageable, has only two possible lengths: below shoulder-length or boycut. And I mean SEVERE boycut - think the 1920s flappers, the ones with the really short cuts, and you're pretty much there.
I don't look good with a boycut. I wore one for a while in high school because I was swimming (as my "sport" - we did sports rather than gym) in the winter and I didn't want to drag a hair dryer to school with me every day. Also, I've become girly enough that having super short hair* would bother me.
(*Unless I had some kind of medical issue necessitating it. I have threatened that if I ever contracted headlice, I'd just shave my head like Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3. Because I don't have anyone down here I feel close enough to that I would feel like I could ask them to help comb my hair out to get the nits. Or if I were undergoing chemo and my hair started falling out, I'd cut what remained off and get a short wig to wear. If I felt I could do it without upsetting to many of the higher ups here, it would be fuchsia or electric purple or something like that).
Any intermediate length, the unruly natural curl takes over and I wind up with giant dandelion poof hair. Or at least that's how it was the last time I had my hair short-but-not-SHORT-short. (It was also one of those late 70s layered type cuts and I wound up with a pyramid head). It's possible the dandelion poof effect was due to the onset of puberty (I know other people whose hair went crazy) and maybe it's calmed down, but I'm unwilling to experiment.
So anyway. You can MAKE long hair feel like short hair by pinning it up, which I consider another point in favor of long hair. And there's more I can do with long hair. Granted, the commonest way I have of wearing it is a sort-of-messy ponytail (the holder at the nape of my neck - so the hair mostly hangs down my back). On rare occasions I've worn it down which is apparently a very good look for me (from some of the inadvertent reactions some of my male colleagues had - inadvertent, because they'd say something or stare, and then immediately backpedal, considering how we live in an HR dominated world where people fear the wrong word to the wrong person will lead to trouble for them. Though honestly? They know me well enough that even a wolf whistle in the hall would almost certainly just make me turn around and grin at them).
I don't wear my hair down often because it gets messy quickly and I have to keep touching it up if I do. (I don't like wearing "product" in my hair). And also it does get in the way... and it's sort of contraindicated in any lab involving glassware or chemicals or flames. So wearing it pulled back is more practical. For the field I often braid it, though that doesn't prevent stuff from getting into it 100%. (Field lab yesterday: I had to push through a half-dead red cedar and I wound up with little bits of the twigs in my hair and down my shirt, which was unpleasant)
The bun can be a bit of a (literal) pain, depending on the pressure from the hair grips and I definitely can't sleep in it. Also sometimes if I pull it up too tight, the traction on my skin can hurt a little, and I suppose long term it's not good for the hair. (There is something called "traction alopecia," where someone loses some of their hair because it's been bound too tightly in a ponytail for too long or something).
But yeah. I wish it would cool down.
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