Behold, the Power of Gel....

Pardon the lengthy pause. Just presume that had I been blogging in the last couple weeks, the posts would have been titled as follows: "It was hot at work today." "Why won't it rain? I hate watering plants. It was hot at work!" "I found a $100 bill in the street, so I'm probably going to die soon." and "Jesus, it's hot."

I'm pretty OCD about my hair. Actually, I'm pretty OCD about a lot of things, but that's another story. (At least I'm not OCD about watering the petunias on the trellises at work--wait, that's ANOTHER other story. Rewind. Hair.) My haircut hasn't changed substantially in quite some time, and I tend to obsess just a little about its length and shagginess level.... But the summer weather has conspired against me, as you can see in all those posts I didn't write; I finally decided it was time to get my hair cut short. Not super short, but a lot shorter than I usually do. It's sad how freaked I was at this prospect before I finally did it--would my ears show? Would they look stupid? Would >I< look stupid? Would people point and laugh? Rationally, of course I know no one except me gives a crap what my hair looks like, but irrationally it's right up there with, say, the Space Program and Oprah's Book Club. So I bit the bullet, got the cut, and you know, it looked just fine! And felt cool, which was key.

Well, the next thing I knew, the trickle of change led to a rivulet of styling gel. Two friends, who we'll refer to here as Rat Girl and Butterfly Woman (sort of to protect their identities, but mostly because it makes them sound like really lame superheroes) took me to Target, stood me in front of the hair products section, and forced me to select gel.
ME: How about this one? It says "Sports" on it!
BW: No.
ME: How about this one? It's in a cool shaped bottle!
RG: No! Be serious.
ME: Hey, this one is purple! Can I--
BOTH OF THEM: NO.
Eventually, the proper gel was selected--in an odd coincidence with previous posts, the one I chose was orange--and we went back to RG's house to sculpt me out. I have a powerful aversion to anything that reminds me of those horrible makeover slumber parties in 7th grade where they'd pick the one girl who didn't wear makeup (me) and hold her down while they "fixed her up." But I trust the dynamic duo, stifled the tiny flame of internal panic, and let them do my hair. It was fun. Admittedly I look kind of like the dudes from "Grease," in the Go Greased Lightnin' number... But I kinda like it. It's worth 2 extra minutes in the morning and a glob of orange non-sport "Dep" gel. So we'll see how long it lasts.