If a few months ago you'd asked me what my favorite thing about my appearance is, I'd have said it was a tie between my cleavage and my hip-length jet-black hair. Asked if I'd ever cut it and I'd have laughed in your face. 'God no!', I'd cry. 'I bloody love my hair, it's fab!'. I probably gave you this fanzine in person and the more observant among you will have noted that my hair is no longer hip-length and jet-black, it's bobbed to my chin and peroxide blonde. After years of being fiercely protective of it, I made the decision to chop three feet off it in the space of about thirty seconds (why yes, this is one of those stories that starts 'well, we were a bit drunk, and...'). A friend was trimming her girlfriend's hair in the garden, and I asked her to do mine. I hardly even thought about it, though my heart was thudding and my hands were shaking as I saw my crowning glory fall to the decking in chunks.
Emotions over the next few days were variable. I oscillated between catching sight of my reflection in shop windows and thinking, 'my hair fucking rocks!' and looking over old photographs of me with hair I could sit on and wanting to cry. Almost everyone I knew loved it, though, and I soon settled down into thinking it was a Good Thing. I love it, now - it's fab, and so much easier to manage - though I do still miss my old hair from time to time.
Plenty of people get odd about their hair, like this. When I was five years old, my father walked into my school Christmas play and I didn't recognise him. It had been a bet, I've found out since: from the longest hair in the office to the shortest in one liquid lunch hour. He's kept it shaved close ever since, though prior to that he'd always said pretty much what I did - nay, no, never. Followers of Flick's LJ may remember the time Alison Photoshopped a photo and got her entire flist to believe, for a few hours, that she'd had most of hers chopped off. Oh, the uproar! And it's right through history and literature: Samson and Delilah, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women.
For all I was more precious about my hair than almost anyone I've ever known (up until my manic snap decision, of course), I've never really understood why it's so important. I think changing it so drastically was part of finally starting to Move On from a load of crap I dealt with last year - but why on earth should a bloody hairstyle be an integral part of that huge decision?
Oh, I don't get it. But you know what? My hair fucking rocks.