A Hairy Issue (groan, I know...)

I'm a very normal person. I don't do adventurous, risky things like bungee jumping or skydiving. There is very little in me that might intrigue other people.

However, there is one exception, and its ability to captivate folks absolutely baffles me.

I have curly hair. Very curly hair. In and of itself, that's no big deal, right? Right. The attention comes when I decide to straighten it.

You see, all of my life up until I was in graduate school, I straightened my curly hair. Every day. The guy I was dating at the time liked it that way, for one thing, but mostly it was because I figured that if I looked like everyone else, I'd fit in better. In the South, high schools are full of beautiful girls with long flowing straight hair, and I wanted to be no exception.

Several years ago, as I got more confident in myself and began to value individualism, I started to let my hair go the way it had wanted to for 22 years. It took (and is still taking) experiment after experiment to figure out how to NOT look like Ronald McDonald. However, gradually, I've begun to figure out how to manage the twists and turns that so badly want to go their own way as they dry in the mornings.

Every now and then, on a whim and when the air outside is very, very dry, I'll decide to straighten it for old time's sake. My normally coarse curls are transformed into a completely different head of hair. It's suddenly softer, blonder, and longer. I can run my brush or fingers through it without the danger of creating a frizzy poof the size of Texas. (*Tip of the Day: Once they are dry, curls should never EVER be touched, if you want them to keep their shape. Still working with Cal, who's fascinated with the novelty of them, on his learning that one.)

On these days when it's straight, I get exclamations from nearly everyone who sees me, all somewhere along the lines of, "Oh, when did you get you hair done?" or "Is it permanent?" or "Ooooh, Miss Terry, your hair is beauuuutiful!!" I then always decide that I should wear it straight more often, and thus begin a period of time when I never let it go naturally. Two weeks or so will pass before I go curly again.

What happens next? People ask if I've gotten a perm. Seriously! And what's aggravating is that it is the SAME EXACT PEOPLE who were so captivated by it when I straightened it to begin with. Are memories really so short?

All of this is on my mind, as I've completely straightened my hair today for the first time in over a month and am getting all of the predicted comments. I'm amazed at how long it's gotten (shoulder-length!) and also by the still-unfamiliar feeling -it's new in the last couple of years or so- that I like it better curly.

A sign that Cal is different from the other guys I've dated? He likes it better curly, too. Yeah, he's racking up big points on that one...