Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bangin'

For a long time, I have wanted bangs. I have begged and pleaded with my hair stylists:

"
Give me bangs," I would say, "I want bangs. I need them."
"No," they would reply, "Your forehead is too small. They won't look good. Let's try the next best thing....side-swept bangs!"

So, for many years I settled with the ho-hum side-swept bangs. Some girls can really rock the side-swept. They look so cool, so chic. Me on the other hand.... I don't work them so well. Whenever I have them, they are never that short, and not really recognizable as true bangs. This is mainly because as soon as they get long enough, I shove them behind my ears. What I realized I really wanted was five-year-old, straight-across-the-forehead bangs.

This need was recently reinforced on my last visit home, when I came across some old pictures of myself.

"Gee," I thought, "Look at me! High-waisted shorts with the shirt tucked in, skinny legs, and bangs...I was more hip in'94!"

Exhibit A:


(On a side note, my dentist used to take polaroid pictures of all the kids who would come get their teeth cleaned and then put it on a huge polaroid wall. I have a little collection of me 'roiding in a dentist chair. My dentist was basically too cool for school).

Seeing pictures of me like this made me realize that even though I may never have skinny legs again, I can at least have bangs. I can be one step closer to hipness! One step closer to emulating my indie rock idols with bangs:




Chan Marshall!



Jenny Lewis!


Tennessee Thomas!


So last week, when I went to my hair stylist and she asked me what I wanted, I said,
"Little kid bangs! Even though I've been told that they won't look good..."
"Don't worry sweet haht," she said, "We can make it work."
"Aren't they high-maintenance?" I worried.
"They ah, but you can handle them, sweet haht."
"I'll try, Cathy!"

Here is the result:

These first three pictures are still from when my hair was salon-fresh, still nice and smooth.




(By the way, this is me experimenting with an AA shirt, trying to see if it can be worn fashionably backwards.[Oohh! The V will be in the back!] Experiment results : It can't).




The only problem is, the actualy cut is a little shorter than I'd like. I feel like I have doll hair or something. I usually just wear it up in a pony tail. I love the bangs, but I can't wait for the rest of it to grow out. On the bright side, I can definitely wear cutesy bows in my hair now:




Or I'll decide not to look stupid, and just wear it like this.

What do you think?



2 comments:

natatat said...

I too adore Chan Marshall and think she is the one of the most gorgeous people ever to walk the earth. Kind of.

I'm so excited about your bangs! That's right, fight for your right to bang it! I imagine the hair cut as a movie scene, too: I see you walking in slow motion to the chair, all the images of past haircuts, the voices of naysaying past hairstylists, the envious gazing at magazine pictures, until you burst out with "I want bangs NOW!" like William Wallace or something.

And I totally have a poster of the movie eagle vs the shark, except I forgot it at work so unless they threw it away. Do you want it? I feel like it would be a nice addition to your wall of things. I also got Kelsey a poster of Mongol. And Rachel says she is 80% sure she will be coming to HI! It's very exciting.

natatat said...

and did your dentist do the horrible and spell your name wrong???

And you were so adorable! And I like the bang/ponytail look on you!

And I applaud the unique AA attempt, as well as the prudence to recognize when something won't work.

But I personally think sideswept bangs are super cool.