stories about hair (part 1 of 1000000)

summer 2001 - growing out my home bleach job

summer 2008. first time using buzzers.

(inspired by this post from the wonderful mightyfemme)

fat, queer, korean, adopted, nonbinary
there is a lot to say about hair.
here are bits and pieces. there are many more to come.

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beautiful, silky, shiny, lustrous, exotic...

i heard these words constantly from my mother, and every time i go to the salon. it's a place called Place Vendome, full of upscale perfume, magazines about dieting and older rich white ladies getting unstylish blowouts. i started going there after attempting to cut my own bangs at age 8. my mom went there for twenty years and admits she never got a good haircut from Lisa, her stylist.

this is not unexpected, considering that Lisa told me that i could never cut my hair above my shoulders because my face was too round. 

i was 11. just gotten my first period. growing out my bangs. i was vulnerable, impressionable.

these are things that stay with you.

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a stranger once berated me for the size of my cheeks when i was young enough to use a stroller but old enough to remember every word.

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my third grade i was 100 pounds. Tommy Gianis, scrawny, shrill-voiced elementary school bully, took every opportunity to call me a fat whale.

i took every opportunity to kick him in the testicles.

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my hair was the only thing anyone ever said was beautiful about me.

even then, it wasn't that my hair was beautiful, it was that Asian hair was so beautiful.

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for years i grew my hair out long. people would always ask me if i was going to do locks of love. in fifth grade i went in to cut it off but could only get about 18 inches. Lisa wouldn't cut it any shorter because of my fat face.

in middle school i began to want ultra-short hair because i thought that was how you were gay.

 but Lisa's words (and the advice of every teen/beauty magazine ever) kept me from it.

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but your hair is so beautiful. why would you want to do that?
i'd never do that if i had hair like yours.

my mom took me to Place Vendome to get red chunks put into my hair. they gave me teeny tiny auburn highlights instead.

i begged my mom to let me dye my whole head but she refused. i accused her of being concerned with how it would reflect on her with the other parents at my fancy Catholic private school. she screamed and denied it.

less than a year later, after dropping out of that school because of a bullying-induced mental breakdown (and switching to public school), my older brother bleached and dyed my whole head manic panic purple haze.

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i didn't cut my hair above my shoulders until i was 18. at this time, i was emaciated, back down to my elementary school 100 pounds, because of a particularly toxic cocktail of psychiatric meds wreaking havoc on my system.

i was still so afraid of my round face. so round, in fact, that strangers still felt compelled to comment on it upon meeting me.

i was at an event offering free haircuts, but you had to wait your turn. i sat for an hour, flipping anxiously through short hairstyle magazines. i finally found a short, choppy hairstyle on an Asian model. i had always attributed my round face to being Asian (since every other difference people continuously commented on was related to by being Asian) and seeing that hair on an Asian face was comforting. i resolved to finally get the short hair i'd always wanted. but when it came to my turn i wimped out, just told her to give me a slight trim.

a person who had been sitting next to me stood up, pointing to the hairstyle magazine i had been looking through.

"no," they said. "they want this one."

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it doesn't end there. it only begins again. it gets more complicated. but here is a beginning. here is a place to start.