When deciding what to do in the face of yet another bout of cancer the first thing that came to mind after leaving Duke Univerisity was heading for the hair dresser (or what every they call them selves these days,lol), when it grew came back after the last round of breast cancer it went from a lovely natural RED to gray and white, I let it grow for the last couple of yrs only because my children wanted me to.  Well after yrs in the NAVY and having it short for regulations I decided to go VERY SHORT, I went and bought some base ball caps, (I hate the sun, I burn like a hot dog on a grill), got some cute earings and felt much better.  The tears stopped, I felt and to my eyes looked better and was content.

I say to all AMERICAN WOMEN do what you want with your hair and the HELL with the kids, men, and other influence in your life.  As children our Mom’s decided what we would do with our hair, in school, that culture decided what we would do with our hair. In our jobs, as my two favorite  reporter always did (that being Mary Tyler Moore and Murphy Brown) they wore their hair the way they wanted.  Thank you Ladies.)

I’m sick to death (litterally) of culture telling us what to wear, how to wear what ever it is we do wear, and trying to be everything for everyone.  From here on out my motto is "DENI IS GOING TO DO WHAT DENI WANTS AND THE HELL WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD".  And with that I thank you all for whatever. :)  P.S. DENI is the name my father gave me when he realized he was never going to have a son and I was his tomboy, football loving, tree climbing kid that gave him the only GrandChildren he had before he left this earth and the only child he had that did anything that made him proud, first being graduating from college, joining the NAVY and then marring a Marine (which turned out to be the bigest mistake I ever made, but he died before the divorce so he never knew. Today would have been my 28th celebration of being married to that want to be man,Oh Happy Day)

Deni, I’m with you. And friends who have had cancer and lost their hair notice the replacement growing in very different from the original, sometimes much curlier. So be it, I say! Do your own thing. Fads and trends do not wow me.

As someone who did not frequent hairdressing salons during much of my life, I wore my hair short, so I did not have to use hairpins, and it was wavy and thick, to the point that occasioally it needed thinning. Well, those days are over, I’ve been post-menopausal for years without hormone replacement (not a terrible transition for me), and of course, my hair is thinner and  has lost its wave. I call it the hair of an unborn calf! Luckily I have little vanity, so one day I noticed a hairdresser cut another woman’s hair, and I realized that the style would be suitable for me. Since that time, about 8 years, I’ve worn a helmet of  increasingly white hair  after being salt and pepper for many years. I love it. With earrings, it looks grand to me, which is sufficient.

 But, I do know the prejudice against short hair; even the hairdresser on this website declared how awful and unfeminine it is. The fixation on long hair dismays me, because most women today seem to want to be post-adolescents and wear what looks like uncombed hair trailing their backs and shoulders. I notice that women do not even comb or brush their hair thinking it looks fuller; it looks awful to me. Why be a clone? Even  though I copied another’s haircut, our facial structure and shape of our heads were different, so the look is different. Why do American women want to have the same hairstyles and color?

I wash my hair under the shower every morning, and I’m relieved that I don’t have to fuss. Of course, there are some people who question my choice, because they consider my haircut extreme. Crazy! 

I am always struck by other women’s beauty when they wear hair cut close to their heads, because the shape is so complimentary, and it reveals their shoulders and neck.  Perhaps hairdressers need additional training or they lack the assertiveness to tell a client that they might look better if they trimmed their hair instead of letting it hang limp below their shoulders. 

I grew up in the era of pompadours, which I could never wear, and then there was big hair, which resembled birds’ nests; fad after fad, when all we can do is search for our own comfort zone and maintain it. 

So, what’s the next topic probing our vanity?