Bad Hair Days

I feel that a lot of us suffer from bad hair. In the old days, I never had long hair, not even during my teenage years when it was sort of en vogue for both genders to sport long tresses. So I never developed any skills dealing with hair. I would wash it with any old soap that I can reach in the shower and towel it dry and if I felt industrious I would comb it. And that was just about as far as my skill set dealing with hair went.

I then began to let it grow out and let me tell you I looked just plain awful. (today I look awful but I am no longer plain). For about a year it slowly grew out to the point that it hid my newly pierced ears. I was okay with it because I could still manage to cram it under a wig cap and I looked okay with my wig. In fact, the wig had a very polished looked to it (two coat of a good carnauba will do that for you). But then I went from polished to a cross between Phyllis Dillar and Don King.

Then the moment of truth came when I left my wigs behind and went out for the first time with my own hair. You really do not know what a crutch a wig is until you do that. A wig lets you hide. First of all it lets you hide your hair no matter how messy, unclean, nasty and down right ugly it is (not to say that mine was messy, nasty and unclean.) A wig can make you lazy. You just run home, change, and pop on the wig and you are ready. When you are dealing with your own hair, your prep time goes out the window because you can easily be setting your hair today to go out tomorrow. But more importantly, a wig for most changes how you look significantly so as to disguise you from casual observation. So now as you leave the safety of home, sporting your own home grown locks, the difference in appearance between the male and female presentation is reduced greatly so it will be very easy for those that know one gender to recognize you in the other.

After a year, my hair got to the point where I could pull it back in a ponytail. That helped a lot. It kept it out of my eyes, face and mouth. For a time it helped me look more like a guy at work because you still see a fair number of men with ponytails these days. But I still have problems managing it. The humidity here in the North Carolina is best described as thick and my naturally wavy hair basically wants to get up and salute. Now you might be saying why don’t I just cut it into a manageable style. I will when I transition. Since there is very little difference between my male and female presentation at this time, there will hardly be any change in my appearance when I do go full-time except for my hair. It will be the one thing that does change and hopefully it will be a style that is both flattering and easy to maintain.

Until then I will continue to live in my duality. I will continue to try to learn all the things about hair that my mother never taught me and I will sit in the back of the bars to hopefully keep the negative comments from the drag queens to a minimum. Armed with shampoo, conditioner, hair spray, gel, blowdrier, hot rollers, and Elmer’s Glue All, I will go forth to do battle and tame the savage beast.

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