Hair-do-well

Was I a willing participant in the fads of my childhood?  

Well, I was a latecomer to the Beatles and all of rock 'n roll.  I remember kids talking about the Beatles when I was in grade school,  but until my best friend became obsessed with one of their songs (Come Together?  Hey Jude? After all these years, which song we listened to a thousand times escapes me....), I knew little of the Beatles outside of "She Loves You, Ya, Ya, Ya."

Exhibit A: 

Indeed, I wore bell bottom pants; my mother made me a pair of flowered wide leg pants when I was in junior high...and while I don't know if they made me a fashion plate,  I wore them for my most special occasions...like junior high skating parties...and I loved them.  As far as I know, no photographs exist of this outfit.

Exhibit B: 

Yes, I know the picture above was taken in 1981 when I was not only married, but had two kids.  Never the less, in this shot, I am not yet 25 years old and by modern standards, I would still be on my parents' health insurance, which means I would not be a 'grownup'. 

 So...as I was saying... enter exhibit B: the permanent.  On me.  The baby, girl, teen, and now,  woman, least likely to keep a curl in her hair. And believe me, it wasn't for lack of trying.  I remember waking up one morning as a young girl and finding my hair turned up at the end!  Eureka!  A curl!  The precursor to a pageboy!  Imagine my consternation and disappointment when I looked in the mirror and that upturned tendril turned out to be the result of sleeping too soundly...a truly errant 'wild hair'.   

That ill fated harbinger did not deter me from bucking fate and heredity.  No.  Over time, I used my mother's pink foam curlers, electric rollers, home perms, and finally, the chemically induced frizz produced by hours of stinking saturation under a hair dryer in a beauty parlor.  It was a strange desire for someone born with the uber straight hair featured in any black and white photo of the years I was growing up: whether the ultra individualistic unkempt and unwashed '60s or the 'do your own thing' '70s.  No, it was my fate to faint and pine over the Rococo curls of the 1980s...just as I embarked on the ultimate no frills journey of a housewife and mother....

Ok.  These pictures feature Julianne Moore and Jennifer Gray.  Compare these to the picture of me with two very cute little girls on a North Carolina beach in 1981.  The movie stars showcase the look I visualized.  And the tortured Medusa head in the snapshot is the best attempt man's ingenuity could accomplish with the resistant, recalcitrant pelt that is my hair.  Chalk this attempt up to the rampant hormones of a soon to be mama.  As a triumph of hope over experience...and fashion...my attempts to update my hairstyle...and nature...have to rank up there as exercises in futility.

Hairdo well?  Ne'er do well.