the pen is as mighty as the hairstick, and other random thoughts

[truepenny]

So yesterday I left the house with two hairsticks holding up my hair. Due to the exigencies of the season, which require the wearing of hats, by the time I got to where I was going and went to put my hair up again, I had only one hairstick in my coat pocket. (The story ends happily: the second hairstick was later found safely in the car.) A frantic search through my purse revealed one (1) small barrette, which was really more of a cruel joke than any gesture towards helpfulness. But I also found a ballpoint pen, and a little experimentation revealed that, while a pen is not as suited to the task as a hairstick, it can in a pinch substitute for one.

This is important because I have discovered that my most stringent requirement for my hair is that it (a.) stay where it's put and (b.) stay out of my face. And, given the qualities of my hair (it is very thick, very fine, and has a marked predisposition to curl), this means it needs either to be hedgehog short (and I have to go get it cut every three weeks) or it needs to be long enough to put up in a fashion that will not give me tension headaches from scraping my hair back. All other alternatives merely serve to drive me batfuck.

Hairsticks--once I mastered the secrets of hairstick fu--are the grooviest things since the invention of the lava lamp. And ballpoint pens get points for the assist.

---

So as I was getting to where I was going yesterday, stumping along in long undeerwear, socks, jeans, t-shirt, flannel shirt, down vest, parka, scarf, hat, gloves, and boots, lugging a purse the size and disposition of a recalcitrant small dog, I had a random thought that suddenly made complete sense of the emotional benefits of patriarchy to the patriarch. Not only can you tell people what to do, and they do it with no backtalk, but you don't have to tell them why you want it done. And I don't mean you don't have to give logical reasons, although you don't; you don't even have to say, Do this because it is important to me. You don't have to give anything of yourself away. You are allowed to be ineffable and capricious; you neither have to regard yourself, nor be regarded by others, as a human being who cares about things. Because, as we all know, caring isn't cool. If you admit you care about something, other people can laugh at you for it. How much simpler and more pleasant to be an autocrat.

---

And now for something completely different: airborne cats.

(link courtesy of heres_luck)

Comments

[libskrat]

How did you go about learning hairstick-fu?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I bought a pair and experimented with them until I figured out what putting them in correctly felt like.

I still can't EXPLAIN it, but I know it when I feel it.

[fancythat2.livejournal.com]

Hmm...we have similar hair. You left out the slithery slippery escape artist hair element.

Pencils and chopsticks work really well as emergency hair stick replacements. Pencils are the best.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I hate writing with pencils, so I tend not to carry them around. And don't think I wasn't kicking myself for that yesterday.

[fancythat2.livejournal.com]

It's one of the few good uses for pencils. :-)

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I am a fan of pencils, too.

Can we be patriarchs? I'm tired of justifying my existence.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes, please. I'd promise to be benevolent.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Illya, Emma, and I love your icon very much.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I have *never* managed to get hairstick fu. The vendors can put it up so that it stays up, but then I get home and it all slips down again.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Hairsticks are easier to manage (at least for me) if you get the ones shaped like big forks, with two or three prongs. One of those is enough to keep the hair up firmly.

What I get tired of is having to explain every time I get it cut that I reallyreally need to be able to pull it back (for rowing) so that it will all stay in a ponytail, and thus short wisps or layers are verboten, unless they're too short to get in my eyes.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Sounds like we have the same kind of hair. Many years ago a friend lent me a book that claimed to help you with all kinds of hair. When it came to "thick, fine, wavy/curly" hair it said "this kind of hair is the most difficult to manage". And stopped.

Most people assume my long hair is difficult to manage. Nope. I wash it once a week and then leave it. I don't even own a hair brush. In contrast the bob? Now that was a high maintenance cut.

I'm in love with those four to five inch crocodile clips that are now so fashionable. They are the first hair clips I've had that *work* (everything else falls out or snaps).

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

I have that same kind of hair. When it was super long I could only stand the hairsticks that look like giant wavy open bobbypins. about as long as a finger and the 2 prongs are wavy-bumpy (but not clawed.) They don't fall out like hairsticks do! Their only problem is that they break if they're plastic, which they mostly are. Cheesy beauty supply/tchotchke stores in malls have them - like "Claire's"...