What-the-hell hair

There's a certain "what the hell" freedom in being in the latter half of one's allotted lifespan. This week, for example, I paid more for a haircut than I have ever before (and, I imagine, than I ever will again). I won't tell you how much; suffice it to say it was in the three figures, and the last two were not zeroes. And I did it with no consideration or planning whatsoever. One moment I was finishing up my coffee in a Dublin Starbucks (may I just say to opponents of globalization that I would have far preferred to be in a locally owned coffee shop, but Starbucks offered free wi-fi and the locals did not; sadly, practicality trumps principles almost every time) and the next I was bent back over the shampoo sink in the chi-chi hair place across the street.

I had flown off to Ireland a month earlier with what I thought was workable hair--no blowdryer, no straightening rod or curling iron, just wash and go. So I washed and went, for a month, with Really Bad Hair, hair that looked as if it resulted from the mating of one of those string mops and a clown's wig. And the thing is, despite being in the latter half of my allotted lifespan, I have yet to learn to be "what the hell" about my hair.

I have, of course, honed a number of coping strategies over the years, all of which I relied on regularly over the past four weeks in misty moisty blustery blowy Ireland: I reminded myself that I am an intellectual and a deeply spiritual person, someone who is really above bothering with something as trivial as hair. I contemplated barrettes and pondered headbands. I tried different side parts. I applied copious amounts of Product. I combed it all backwards. I brushed it all forwards. I avoided mirrors. I wore my hood a lot.

But still, Bad Hair is Bad Hair, and so, in one impulsive moment in Dublin, I chopped it all off. That is, I gave the incredibly sexy, 30-ish, cutey hairstylist guy the liberty to do with my hair what he would. And he chopped it all off--with the most amazing attention to detail, precise technique, and gentle patience. I mean, if this guy does sex like he does hair, well, golly.

And then he told me what the cut cost.

What the hell.

It's a good cut. I now have Good Hair. And life is better. Of course, I'm also at this moment sitting on a stack of pillows alongside my husband on an enormous bed in an "Exquisite Boutique Bed and Breakfast" (so the advertisement) in a Norfolk seaside village. That helps too.