This is the first column with my new picture. What strikes me most about it is how much better looking I am in real life.
You'll have to trust me on this. I hope what strikes you is the change in hairstyle. If you didn't notice, please lie and say you did because I'm a little sensitive on the issue of my hair. It seems no matter what I do to it, people always think it looks the same.
To hear folks tell it, you'd think I should be one of those makeover shows for people who are stuck in a hairstyling rut. Granted, I've never sported anything radical like a Mohawk or dreadlocks, but I'd hate to think that all these years I've been cycling through endless variations of the same basic style.
At a high school reunion, friends commented that my hair hadn't changed. We graduated in the late '70s, for crying out loud, when our hairstyle icons were Dorothy Hamill, the Bee Gees and Princess Leia. How could the world have come to its fashion senses in the intervening 30 years, while I, according to my high school classmates, am stuck in a time warp?
Recently I ran into a woman I hadn't seen since we graduated from college. She told me I hadn't changed a bit. Normally, I would be flattered, but then she said even my hair looks Exactly The Same. Which was odd, since I recall I had a perm when I graduated.
I pulled out my yearbook when I got home and verified that I did, indeed, have curly hair my senior year. And this wasn't some run-of-the-mill perm, mind you, but one wound so tightly it looked like I was on my way to audition for the title role in "Annie."
In law school, in an attempt to save money, I decided to spring for a $6 haircut only once per semester. So I told the woman cutting my hair to cut it as short as possible. Turns out, "as short as possible" is barber code for "make me look like I'm shipping out to Parris Island."
Not all the mistakes have been my idea, however. I can't forget the woman who talked me into a style she assured me was very fashionable. She cut my hair to just above my earlobe on one side then angled it to a tapered point below my chin on the other side. The only way that slanted haircut would look good is if I lived on the side of a very steep mountain, and even then only in dim lighting with the liberal use of a fog machine. Remarkably, I willingly returned to this same stylist two months later only to be told she'd left the salon to join a religious community. I can only hope she is spending the rest of her days praying for forgiveness.
One time, I decided to try life as a redhead. Although it seemed like a good idea in theory, in practice my hair became such a vivid shade of copper it would give a newly minted penny feelings of inadequacy.
The color was so bright it should have come with a warning: Failure to don protective eyewear before looking directly at my head could result in retinal scarring.
At least my husband, who had no idea that the promise to take me for better or worse would include hairdos, knows I haven't always looked the same. When I told him I was writing about all the bad hairstyles I've had over the years, he reminded me it was only a column, not a whole book.
I guess it's human nature to want to remember only the good things while blocking out the ill-advised, the unfortunate and the downright hideous. How else can I explain that, no matter what, people think my hair never changes — unless by "never changes" they mean "always looks bad."
It's enough to make me want me to pull out all my hair by its roots. Maybe going totally bald is the answer. At least if there's a Broadway revival of "Annie," I'd be a shoo-in for Daddy Warbucks.
Betsy Bitner is author of the blog lostintheadirondacks.com and a mystery writer. She divides her time between Clifton Park and the Adirondacks. Her email address is bbitner1@nycap.rr.com.