There is a blog called Mighty Girl that is selling abook called "No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog" which one of these days, I might just get around to buying, because the title makes me laugh and I enjoy reading this woman's blog from time to time. I also think the shirts she's selling are hilarious ((click on her book link, and scroll down, if you're not afraid of the f-bomb), but I'm not really sure where I would wear something like that in my daily life. (Although a good friend and I were laughing yesterday at the thought of wearing them to like, CHA. How uncomfortable for everyone, really.)
But as I post about the demise of my mullet, I can't help but think, "Cath…that's more or less what you had for lunch, can't you do better?" My answer will always be an emphatic NO!!!!! (with caps and excessive punctuation) and why? Because let's face it: hair matters, but to me, it might not be the way it matters to you.
To me, the most important aspect of hair is one thing, and one thing only: predictability. I do not have time for hair. Although the amount I spend on my numerous Aveda products may suggest otherwise, but the truth of the matter is, I simply don't have time to find out, every morning, what I'm going to look like. I do not like surprises like that. (Cash and gift kind of surprises, yes. Hair surprises, no)
And here's how it shakes out:
Mullet = Chaos
1/4-inch cut = Peace of mind
Whenever I do grow my hair out, inevitably, I end up looking like this:
In essence, I end up looking like a 12-year-old stoner chick. And that's not the look I'm going for. (Yes, this is me at 12. No, I do not believe that I was stoned. Just really tan!)
Granted, I have made mistakes with my choices. Like this:
But when you're 19, you're expected to make choices that backfire, yes? (I really did like my Elvis phase. And my glowing orange color! NICE!)
Years later, when I entered corporate america, I did go for the fashionable bob for a time. Which was just great. But I had no tan, so what was the point? Really?
But the problem with all of these respective hair looks was in the end, the unpredictibility factor was far too high. I've got enough things to obsess and distract myself with. My hair is way too far down on the pole to keep in the mix.
Wow. Maybe that was the most interesting thing ever to blog about.
I can't wait to write about what I made for breakfast…
Lisa says
I hear ya, Cathy. I cut my hair short only to regret it, waste a year trying to grow it out, only to discover that it looks like ka-ka! I’ve been in this ridiculous cycle for 15 years now. When will I learn?! Thanks for the reminder that it’s okay to not have long hair (and still look fabulous!)
Dawn says
I like the hair cut Cath. I say, blog about whatever you darn well feel like. That is exactly what I do. You know what? Everyone will keep reading.
Have a good one.
Jen Donnelly says
You could blog about what you’ve been knitting. It looks like you’re holding perhaps a size 11 Denise circular in that new mullet-free picture- can you tell I’m a knitting geek?
Lisa says
BTW, I pimped your book on a recent entry: http://graciousacres2.blogspot.com/2007/01/sunday-funnies.html I can’t think of a better way to spend a day (and a sleepless night full of ideas inspired by said book)!
susan says
let’s just start this off with the knowledge that maybe I need a life! BUT…….I was just talking with another CHA bound friend about the things we were looking forward to……your mullet figured prominently on our list!
Lisa Cohen says
Okay not only did I post about what I ate for breakfast yesterday, but I made a video of me cooking up some tasty grub for lunch last week also! But to me, a food-obsessed, digiscrapping (trying paper), curly-q girl, this is what matters! But I am with you about not having time to spend on hair. HALLELUYAH I’ve found someone else! Unlike you though, I haven’t had a haircut in, oh, probably 8 months (so I have long curly hair…. that I AIR DRY every day. Even when it’s cold out. Even when it’s snowing out. Even when it’s 14 degrees. I don’t own a hair dryer and never will. Hair dryer + curls = FRIZZ – even with tons of hair product. So I’ll stick with my Sebastian Wet that I’ve been using forEVER and focus my time on, oh, what I’m planning on eating for dinner!
Oh, and right now I’m eating a lunch consisting of hummus, bruschetta, and a baguette. 😛
Your new ‘do look cute! But I like the corporate America one too! The Elvis… well, we all make mistakes (I have one where my mom cut my hair short and I have a ‘fro… when ‘fros were clearly not the cool thing to have).
sue pigott says
hi. good for you. every 3 years i do the same. grow my hair out. my 5 year old daughter’s friend put it perfectly. my hair is wavy, grace’s hair is straight, sloan’s hair is curly and sue, your hair is bumpy.
bumpy perfect. cut it off, get rid of it. if my hair is super short i have predictibility and i can work with that. no matter how little sleep i have at night.
good for you. you have a pretty face and it shouldnt hide behind hair.
Tanya Summers says
You had me laughing out loud this morning – that is good blogging to me! It can be about your mullet or whatever you want – as long as it is funny, people will come back, and they do!
Thanks,
Tanya
Jody M says
I would LOVE to cut my hair like yours…short, cute, no fuss no muss ~ perfect! But you have to have the face for it, and you my dear friend…you have the face for it! I do not ~ I guess I’ll just have to live with that unpredictability! YUK!
Suzanne says
That’s not Elvis hair, that’s Kid’n Play! Same kind of mistakes — remember that asymmetical 80s one — one side short and the other sort of bob-ish. Yep, that was me.
Patty S says
I love your blog! It’s like a Seinfeld episode… The topic may be about ‘nothing’, but with the right person telling the story, it’s a masterpiece.
You keep blogging = I’ll keep reading it!
Glad you’re having a happy hair day! 🙂
Nitty.Gritty. says
Hair does matter. It must, because people spend LOTS of money on it and the products that go into it (or take away from it), and there are magazines published each month about this sole topic, and what about E! TV? Or makeover shows. Yep. Hair definitely matters. As for breakfast, well, I blogged about Pop Tarts yesterday, but tried to tie it altogether with world peace somehow. And people read it, and even commented. So, blogs have this unique phenomenom that some of us just can’t shake. Maybe in reading about other people’s hairstyles and breakfast we are personally assuring ourselves that we are okay. That our thoughts and abilitues to connect with others means that our little lives are at one with the universe. (How far out is that thought?!)
It’s really not that different than watching and getting hooked on reality tv. I mean c’mon. How does seeing a guy wittle down a group of fantastically beautiful wome by taking them on group dates and visiting their families only to see it all end in heartbreak on the cover of People magazine enhance the rest of our lives in anyway? It’s mindless etertainment…but millions are watching the tube everyday and then spending time chatting about this kind of stuff at work and with their families at dinner, and some even on their blogs. But we keep reading and living it and doing it ourselves. I have no idea where I was going with all this…all I know is that I cut my hair after seeing yours (and some cute choppy styles on a girl in a Hanes ad), and I’m reading about your thoughts on wanting to ‘shake-up’ CHA by expressing yourself and that you’re so right a lot of the time. How we live our life seems like it should be so simple and obscure…yet somehow every little detail matters. If anyone thinks otherwise, maybe they’ve never worn a questionable tshirt in a public place. =)
Ann says
Um, I won’t get too deep or philosophical. I will say this, I happen to like ALL your hair styles, even the ones on the “times may change, but you can’t change time” David B scrap LO. But it’s not about like, it’s about what’s easy. In my life, easy is a ponytail and that’s what I wear every single day.
Shelly in the NW says
I does suck how having bad hair can totally ruin your day!
your ‘elvis’ picture actually reminded me of the old ‘hip hop original group’ kid and play:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_'n_Play
and why is it that we always think if we get a bob haircut it will be easy and we’ll look like Issabella Rosalinni…??? which will NEVER happen….
http://www.nndb.com/people/243/000025168/
personally my motto has been the more hair product the better…must have come from when I lived in Dallas in the late 80’s and the motto was ‘the higher the hair the closer to God’. 😉
Jen Donnelly says
OMG Kid-n-Play… LOL!
I’ve tried to get my hair cut really short, because I am deeply envious of the zero maintenance thing, but my stylist flatly refuses… which probably means I should obey him.
Wear it proudly, Cathy, you are very, very lucky!
suzy says
You look beautiful now matter how you cut your hair, although personally I like the bob cut on you. Just don’t go putting green streaks in your hair, ‘kay?
Kelli Johnson says
oooh you know that Elvis Hair…as you so eloquently put it ;)…I’m scared that’s rolling back in with the 80s styles, no? LOL
this was great joy to read. BTW what did you have for lunch?
Tami P says
You have summed up short hair for all of us. I recenly cut my hair back off to nill, just because I feel like myself with short hair and like an kid when I grow it out. I only grow it out to prove to others that I can do something different. But as soon as I cut it off again they always come back with the “you look so good with the short hair” as if I looked like crap the other way. Thanks. Thanks for explaining it to everyone.
Nancy says
Your daughter looks a lot like you in the “12 yo stoner chick picture”. Except she doesn’t look stoned. And I don’t suppose she’s quite 12 yet, is she?
lol.
Kelly says
You are so funny! I am entertained reading your blog. Keep it up!
Pam says
I’m thinking my 4 blog readers won’t care if I tell them what I had for lunch but I’m curious about the shirts so I have to go and look! 😉
Love the photo of you and the cute orange kitty, you almost match! 😉
The new ‘do’ suits you!
Mer says
I’m weird. I liked your mullet. But I also like your new ‘do. And the glasses are hella cute.
Hair discussions beat lunch posts any day, never fear.
nicola says
*cough, splutter* omg…it would take some BIG boy bits to wear those t-shirts lol
my confession…as a teen in the 80’s I was a Princess Diana wannabe, complete with the whole black-eyeliner-on-the-lower-lid, doe-eyed look. Oddly, no photographic evidence remains….
Tee says
My first time commenting on your blog…and it’s about hair! LOL! I swear we could be hair twins. I have sported your previous styles too. My stylist is trying to convince me to keep a mullet to be “more feminine” but ack…next week, off it goes! I am a wash-n-wear gal. Your hair rocks!
gloria says
omgosh cathy!!
aidan looks
just
like
you
when you were younger!!
okay so now that i see that, she looks like you *now* as well…
i don’t know how you wouldn’t have noticed, so i’m just throwing this out there to get points for noticing!!
😛
Abby says
You have just said out loud what I think every day – no time for fancy hair, keep it simple, and yes, predictable! It took me YEARS to grow out bangs because it was just too damn much work! I lived with the “Agent 99” from the Get Smart program (half up, halp down do forever). Problem: you can’t wear a hat with a clip permanently attached to your head! Now the clip is gone and a cute hat covers a lazy or bad hair day! Your hair looks super cute on you, and really, who needs the stress?
Annette says
cute cute cute
you look fabulous!
suetreiber says
once again, I’m peeing my pants.
I also love no fuss hair, only mine isn’t cut cute like yours. Im just too lazy to do much with it. Plus I look terrible with short hair.
Even if you blog about your lunch, I will read. I missed you too much!
natalia dexter says
Cathy you look fabulous with that style of hair cut. I’ve had some shocking hairstyles over the years but in particular when I was a teenager! I don’t think I’ll ever get over the perm I begged my mother for when I was 14! Heaven help me! I still feel embarrased now at 33! My brother (like most males who don’t mince their words) on seeing my new hairdo said “what happened to your hair?”. well that was enough to send me literally running home! I can still hear my mum say “what did you say that for?” to my brother as I bolted out of the shopping centre! As for your blogging topics you can blog about anything and we’d all love it. You have a magic way with words. I love reading about your everyday happenings even what you had for breakfast.
Nicole says
‘Elvis’ phase? Surely you meant NKOTB or Boyz II Men, right? *hee* *hee*
I love the Souixsie bob hair cut in the angsty last picture. Very alterna-rocker.
Anyway, I love that haircuts are so defined by the times…there is rarely anything ‘classic’ that transcends time. Bless you for being so adventurous with yours. I am not 😉
Loydene says
Rejoice in the fact that you look GREAT with 1/4 inch hair — not just anyone can make that look work!
lindey says
for the heck of it…i decided to click on the dead link in my favorites.
to my absolute delight…you’re blogging again!! you entertain the heck out of me, c…so glad you’re back!
Hunzer says
I want that shirt. It’ll go perfect with the ones I got in the mail yesterday. I won’t post them here because they are naughty, but it’s on my blog if you feel like perusing a fellow St. Paul girrrl’s blog.
Welcome back sugar!!
Ania says
Ooo LOVE that tshirt you linked to. Might go buy it myself – just need to make sure that neither mother-in-law nor grandparents-in-law are around when wearing it 😛 And you know what…not that my opinion matters, but I think you’re fab and best with your hair like it’s now – short & chick! 🙂
Sarah Tirrell-Baker says
well the sad truth is that we all will keep reading ya lady, cuz youre just too cool! andi am totally not afraid of the f-bomb and will from now on think of you as i don my shirt that features a male deer, full-head of course that says “nice rack!” thanks chickie!
Nicole Pollard says
OK! It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who doesn’t use a hair dryer. I do own one and use it occasionally on my daughter, but I just can’t be bothered. What is it with all of us mullet wearers? (I’m currently one of them.) Why do we believe we must have longer hair? I’m guilty of it too, the grow-it-out then chop-it-off cycle. Actually, you have inspired me. I think it’s time to cut my hair off yet again. I’m tired of the unpredictable hair and the bangs in my eyes. What was I thinking? I like my hair short. Thank you for your post on your hair. Don’t change a thing, you’re awesome!
~D says
You look cool in your short hair. Do you like
The Cure and Red Hot Chili Peppers ? Just wondering.
Stephanie Carty says
Funny, you go for short, I go for the long, throw in a pony tail anytime it annoys me look. Like the doo, wish I could wear mine short…too many curls.
PamMc says
I’m with you about the no time for hair fussing thing. I say that if it takes more than 5 minutes in the morning then it takes too much time. I shampoo, brush straight back and air dry. And my hair is fairly short and wavy.
Like the short do on you.
johannahb says
I like your hair short! Experimenting doesn’t hurt………..ok, now about the shirt!! Almost choked reading that and imagining your comment about wearing that at CHA!!! Just let us know before you do so we can take your picture in it! That was so hilarious!!! Thanks for the laugh!!
tara w says
okayohmyfreakinggod the orange tabby cat and the orange skin.
TOO MUCH TO BARE!!!!!!!!!!!!
I AM DYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tina says
I *LOVE* your short hair and I’m not sad to see the mullet go. You’re too fabulous for a mullet! If I didn’t have a face the size of a dinner plate, I’d be going short and spiky, too. I’m all about easy hair with three kids four and under. So I’m going short a bit at a time, inch by inch.
Susan Wesely says
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. If I had a face like yours, I’d have a haircut like that too. You look gorgeous.
And I had to laugh at your photos. I grew up in the 80’s too so I know all too well the styles we all had.
The bob is pretty cute. You look very much like your daughter. Beautiful.
Now if only I could find the perfect haircut…
samantha Jo Campen says
I wish I had the guts to go that short.
So I commend ye.
Lou says
rotflol…..that’s all i have to say!
Lou
Bari says
Don’t feel bad at all – this is exciting documentation on short hair. http://www.fussy.org/hair/hair.html
Plus, there are fewer then 6 degrees of blogger seperation since Mrs. Kennedy is link from Maggie’s site. And I read them from the Suburban Bliss site and Melissa from Suburban Bliss is local to me…ah the internet is a wonderful place.
Heidi says
I guess I’m the only one who liked the mullet. Does your husband like your hair shorter than his? Doesn’t matter. You ARE beautiful no matter how you slice it. Thanks for keeping it real.
Sinead says
Oh, I dunno…
In the last pic, you have rather an Ingrid Bergman/Coco Chanel look.
Not horrible at all. Slightly exquisite, in fact.
Petra says
Honey you are just tooo funy! I love your Blog. Keep on writing whatever your feel like. I think its cool… I write whatever I feel like, I dont give a damn if People like it or not.. they don´t have to read it.. I just love the writing, that feels so good!
Just keep doing what your doing! and I love the new Hairdo.
Lyn Meeker says
With short hair .. even bed head is a style!
Karen Breen-Bondie says
I give you so much credit for trying something new and different, Cathy. I’ve often wondered why more people (women especially) don’t take advantage of the fact that of all the things you can readily change on your body is a hairstyle.
Hair always grows back. Uncertain/insecure of change? Do a little homework to find a good stylist.
Believe it or not, but I never go to a stylist (new or existing) with a photo. I let them do what they want (which does freak them out…so I know a lot of you are bringing photos with you!) because they are much better at evaluating hair texture and facial structure. If they have an ounce of confidence, they are much more objective. I have never been freaked out.
I will say, tho, that it helps to be in a metropolitan area and having a large resource pool never hurts. I love Style Network’s “Split Ends” where two stylists switch places for a week, one from an upscale, urban salon the other from the sticks.
I’m currently growing my hair out into a 1970s shag (think Jane Fonda in Klute).
Wendy in MD says
Did you ever notice that your blog entries could be scrapbook layouts? LOL
Just copy and paste to PhotoShop, do a little rearranging, and voila!
Love your hair at all its stages…you’re a cool chick, regardless.
stephanie says
you are too funny, glad U R back to bloggin’
Jane S. says
Go to Amazon RIGHT NOW and buy “Nobody Cares What You Had for Lunch”. I heard about right before Christmas and ordered it for my daughter, who has a great blog. And in line with our family tradition, I read it first because sometimes my blog entries sound like what I had for lunch. It’s not earthshattering and most of us love your blog exactly the way it is. But it gave me some good ideas
Javacurls says
I think those Mighty Girl shirts are hilarious! Years ago I owned a tee that said, “Too Busy to FCUK” (French Connection UK) and I loved that little tee. I can’t tell you how funny it was to see people’s expression when the would do a double take.
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