The forest and the trees

I haven't had a haircut since August. In theory, twice-yearly haircuts should mean it's fine for me to spend a lot each time. In practice, it means that places that I remember as being in the $60-70 range will be in the $80-90 one the next time around, a problem when it's set in my mind that a good haircut costs $50, which it hasn't in NY for ages. (Getting a haircut here... no thanks for so many reasons, not least of which that anything that costs $X in upscale parts of Manhattan costs $2X on Nassau St. and is half as good.) It's certainly important for me to look glamorous, living in the woods, cuddling with a poodle, and every few weeks or so chatting with highly-focused academics. Self-deprecation (life-deprecation?) aside, $90 strikes me as too much for a trim I don't really need and maybe some bangs. So, DIY. It worked out OK the last time, and is Francophilic-beauty-blogger-approved, so why not?

But I had to decide what I was going for. Would it be:

-Charlotte Gainsbourg? Pros: her schnozziness and my own are more alike than not. Wispy bangs are less of a risk. Cons: if she got Gainsbourg's nose, she got Birkin's hair, and I'm not sure mine's WASPy enough for "wispy."

-Alix, aka The Cherry Blossom Girl? Pros: I know that hair texture personally, 'cause it's mine as well. Cons: those are some thick bangs.

-Rooney Mara's partially-grown-out Dragon-ness? Pros: perfection, not to mention a good photograph to use as a guide for how to part before cutting. Useful to see the look on near-black hair and near-white skin. Cons: possibly more useful as a makeup guide. Gorgeous lipstick, and an inspiration to figure out what to do with that Sephora-brand "smokey eye" kit - that is, to figure out how to put on eye shadow - if there ever was one.

I do not include other possible sources of inspiration along the lines of Natalie Portman or Olivia Wilde, because, as lovely as the above-examples are, there's a level of shall we say looks-capital that so transcends that one can never tell if it's the hairstyle that one is aspiring to or the rest.

The result is some combination of the above-mentioned examples. It will, I realize having slept on it, require styling. But the same is true for any salon-acquired version. Between this and the DIY pains-au-chocolat, I think I've figured out life in the woods after all.

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Off-topic, but perhaps not worthy of a whole post of its own: Dan, Dan, Dan, you missed the boat with this letter. You got distracted by mentions of trans identity and polyamory, as if these were relevant to the situation at hand (as if a man is somehow less dumped when the dumper's biological sex and gender identity don't match up?) when a statement like "'I can't prioritize one person above anybody else'" is about as clear as, and only slightly less clichéd than, "It's not you, it's me." It's a variant of "I'm not ready for a relationship." The letter-writer seems hurt, but also seems to get what happened. Savage, meanwhile, will have us know that it is indeed theoretically possible to be this variety of polyamorous. Forest, Dan! Trees!