Today I went to a hair salon for the first time since March 1999. I had not even set foot in one since then. My hair is extremely long, and whenever it needed a trim my wife would just cut it straight across for me, but even that didn’t happen very often.

Tonight she called me on her way home and said “I need to get my hair trimmed, do you want to come with me?” Little did I realize she meant for me to get a haircut too! I was very, very nervous sitting in line waiting…I do not remember having any good haircut experiences in my life. When I was a kid, I had dandruff, and whoever was working on me would call the other hairdressers over - look at this little girl with the dandruff! - so I just don’t have any good memories.

Tonight turned out fine, even though she left me sitting in the shampoo chair while she went to ring up another customer. A showed her how much we wanted taken off, which the hairdresser said was about four inches. But in the end it was okay…she really did cut it straight across, no funny business. It really is much shorter - my wife says it’s not, but it is. It used to be past my tattoo, pretty much to butt-level, and now it’s only halfway down the length of my tattoo. But the important thing is that it looks much better - no more ghastly fluffy ends.

Well, my hair is pretty damn red now! The other day I picked up two boxes of Clairol Hydrience Scarlet Shimmer, which is described as an intense true red. Tonight we dyed my hair (I tried it myself once and it came out streaky in a bad way) and noticed on the package that it contains a lot of bleach. Sure enough, the bathroom was almost unbearable while it was being applied, and I was left to sit in there alone while it set! I was quite worried about how much the bleach was going to affect my hair - it looked exactly like sweet and sour sauce while it was sitting on my head. The instructions said that for the best red it should stay on 30-45 minutes, but I was so nervous about the lightening that I rinsed it off after about 15-20 minutes. It’s still damp, so I’m not sure yet what the real outcome is, but it’s definitely red! I don’t think it’s as bad as I was fearing - it’s still in the brown family at least! - but it’s more red than I’ve ever gone before.

Whenever I wear a skirt to work, at least one person is guaranteed to say “I’ve never seen you wear a skirt before!” And whenever my hair is down instead of in a ponytail, at least one person will say “I didn’t realize how long your hair is!” Every time. Without fail.

I’m not sure why it’s so surprising to people that I wear skirts and have long hair. True, I only wear a skirt to work every four to six months or so, but as a female skirts are included in what general society has deemed acceptable for me to wear. I’m certainly not butch or masculine in the slightest, so it’s not like I’m bucking any stereotypes by wearing a skirt. I am simply more comfortable in pants, so I wear them 90% of the time for work and leisure.

As for my hair, I’m not sure why people are surprised by the length. When it’s in a low ponytail it still comes down to mid-back, and in a high ponytail (rarer) it’s down to at least the bottom of my shoulder blades. When it’s all the way down - completely unfettered - it reaches to the top of my butt in back and completely covers my breasts in front (indeed, it goes a couple of inches beyond them). Do people with short hair not realize that putting hair into a ponytail makes it appear shorter, and that if they see a ponytail they should expect the hair is actually longer than the bottom of the ponytail?