When attending a ten-year reunion for the completion of school, I ran into a girl I had shared a desk with at the age of 15. She was (and still is) a humourous gal. Razor sharp wit, edgy sarcasm, repartee that had our poor teachers of the time running to and from the classroom like headless chooks.
She’s not in the group of friends that I still meet with regularly, but I enjoyed her company very much as a school girl.
Circa 1984: She grabbed her drink from the bar at the reunion, turned and we spotted each other across a noisy, estrogen-ravaged room. She came up smiling, bestowed a kiss on both cheeks and said she was so pleased to see me after so much time.
‘Thank God, Rosie,’ she said. ’I am SO relieved that you finally discovered hair product as an older person. I thought you were gonna be destined to live a life of boof forever.’
(For overseas friends, boof has a very simple meaning in Australia. Please ignore the Urban Dictionary’s cruder references. Here, it is used simply to describe unmanageable bouncy, frizzy hair. On head.)
At that school reunion, I was 27, well over the self-esteem issues of my teenage years and lucky enough to have fabulous family and friends in my life. All of a sudden, my whole world tilted on its side and I was haring it back to the fuzz-ball days of 1980-84.
I was back to the boofhead.
A bit of background. My hair was wavy and thick until I hit puberty. At this stage, it seemed that all coiffure around my body of bud turned curly, crispy and crinkly. I was a veritable omelette of frizz.
Bleh. I’d turned into a sheep overnight. I bleated and fleeced about my hair to mum, claiming the unfairness of life with curls and how the frizzolas were getting me down. I was called ‘Jex Head’ (jex is a form of steel wool) ‘Steelo’ (same thing) ‘Curly tops’ (I had shirley temple nightmares) and even fuzzy felt.
I can laugh about it now, but at the time I (fuzzy) felt as though my hair might as well be a toilet brush! It wasn’t very dunny. Sorry, no more toilet humour in loo of the real story here.
As a result of this hideous hair time, I think I built up a bit of self-deprecating humour — but the topic of ‘humour as a coping mechanism’ is best left for another, more profound time. I have bigger fuzz to fry tonight. I have larger curl to consider!
For the first time since 1985, I am without a hair product to crunch my curl!
In a world of volcanic eruption from Mt dkjfadlsjfalj, cancelled flights into Heathrow, political and religious crises of one type or other, and horrible news stories everywhere, the fact I am sans hair product is SO trivial, I feel quite ashamed for blogging ’bout it. HOWEVER, consider that comment from the girl at the school reunion. Think about a supportive sister suggesting to me ‘thank goodness that product has gone! Crunchy curls are soooooo 1988!’ Ponder the fact that I sit, typing, with the softest curl I have owned since I was a boofy, frizzy, furry teenager at school, and realize I am stranded!
I’m like a character in Lost, but instead of being on an island without food or a transponder or amenities, I am adrift on a life raft without a paddle to dip into a sea of fixing gel. If I lean over the side of the raft, my soft, woofy hair is likely to get snapped at by sea urchins who want it to make it into a shagpile kelp fixture for their anemone.
There is one benefit. When I run my hand through my hair, it doesn’t get caught in a nest of sticky stuff and have to be wrenched free to be released. Instead, it foofs through the silk of scruff, whipping each and every curl into a wisp of boofmania.
Perhaps it’s time to embrace the new softness of hair as a change in season? Maybe it’s time to remember the 16 or 17-year old girl who discovered hair product, and spent some time in the late 80s and 90s having a ‘do’ that people commented on (during the days when it was grooooovy to have large, eclipse-of-the-sun-and-Pluto hair)?
There’s a season for everything. Even hair that works very hard to disprove Newton’s laws of gravity.
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6 Responses to Hair Brained
ZOMG, you mean the storks of Salamanca will be without a landing site this season?! o.O
j/k ffs *g*
Good for you, bb! Hope to see the new ‘do on the back cover of Novella #2 now
I have been practising photo hair for a few days now, hon. The great news is that the camera doesn’t show fuzz, so there will be plenty of pics of the new ‘stork do’ soon.
Oh. I loved the storks in Salamanca!
*sharp intake of breath* -- no hair product???? I feel your pain. I have a tale of woe also -- the stockist of my favourite hair controlling concoction IS NO LONGER STOCKING IT. I’m in pain, and feeling rather stressed about the imminent return to fuzz-dom. Why do they do this???
ME too, Fiona! Imagine that. Why are we finding a problem at the same time. What are you going to try, I have to know. PS, your hair looked fabulous the other day, tho.
As coming from the Land of Boofdom myself, I found myself nodding whilst reading your recall of youth, circa 1988…. I too, was a young lass, alone in the wilderness that is the awkwardness of young/puberty and with hair akimbo and nary a product in sight…. Luckily the perm was in fashion and whilst my contemporaries were spending (or rather their mothers) money on getting perms, I at least saved on that rather smelly and hair destroying trend. After many products, cuts, swearing, thrown hair brushes and hairdressers I only today looked in the mirrored elevator at work and sighed at the sight of a the unruly mess circling my face and once again longed for straight locks…. my sister got them. Why not me?? My daughters have my curls. I feel them yelling at me already in 2019 cursing me for their inherited boof, as I did my mother. Sorry Rosie, I ramble, tis a subject close to my heart….
You may ramble all you want here, Kate. Hope all is well with you, my dearie, and that your hair is okay at the moment! A couple of us are having probs with the product availability.
Your kids might embrace the curls, lady. Here’s hoping.
God, yes, the perm. Noice tight curls, Kimmie
take care, Kate and thanks for visiting.
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