Haircuts

After Jordan's bar mitzvah I decided that I would let him take the lead in his hairstyle. I'll still offer him haircuts, but instead of saying "Haircut time, let's go," I am now saying, "I am making a haircut appointment for Aaron; would you like a haircut also?" The first time I asked the question this way, he said no. He likes his long bangs. That's fine with me. Here he is recently with a chicken.

Amusingly, I had a similar haircut when I was a couple years older than he is now. I found this cute photo. I would guess that I am sixteen here, and that that's my high school in the background, but I'm not sure.

In my opinion, hair is a wonderful canvas for self-expression. That black hair above is not my natural color; I used that to cover up a series of color experiments that started when I was fourteen or so. First I had short hair (what my grandmother lovingly called a "pixie cut"); then I had blunt-cut stripes in the back that alternated brown and blonde; then I bleached it very pale blonde and wore it messy and grew a braided tail, just like Aimee Mann in the Til Tuesday era. (I wish I had pictures of myself with blonde hair, but people just didn't take so many pictures then.) In art class, I realized that my bleached-to-death hair soaked up color like crazy, so I watercolored it in random rainbow hues. Then I dyed it a color that I hoped would be an elegant peacock blue, but turned out to be a ridiculous Smurf blue instead. I couldn't live with that for long, so I covered it up with black. Then I went into a less punk, more hippie phase, and just grew it out naturally for the next several years. Through all of this, my smart parents never said a word. In fact, they paid for all of it without saying a word, which I now think was wonderfully generous of them on both counts.

Aaron, meanwhile, still happily gets terrific haircuts from our regular stylist, Leslie. She is excellent and he looks great.